In a little over a week Mac and I will be starting out unofficial parenting boot camp. I often half joke that I do all of my parenting in the summer but that really is the way we do things. We put a band-aide on issues that come up during the school year but once summer hits band-aides come off and we perform surgeries on those problems.
This year on the parenting docket:
1. Convince A2 that picking her nose IS disgusting and get her to quit.
She is a tougher cookie to crack than A1 so this might be a battle. With A1 all we had to do was tell her that princesses don't pick their noses and she stopped. We tried that with A2 and she told us she wanted to be a different kind of princess that does. I am so glad we raised her to be an independent thinker...
2. Get rid of the bottle
A3 is almost 15 months old and is very dependent on the bottle. She refuses to drink milk out of a cup. She will happily drink juice out of a cup with a lid and drink water in a cup without a lid but she won't drink milk. She gags and throws a fit. It is ridiculous but we have put up with it because we haven't had the time to be consistent. That changes in a little over a week...
3. Fix bedtime
Bedtime is broken! This is the most dreaded time of day at our house. We are all tired and the girls won't give up. We have had some nights that the girls will be in bed for 3 hours before they fall asleep. We have yelling, screaming, tears, spanking, timeout, grounding, and threats. I have tried bribes and rewards and it won't stick. We need a better bed time routine. Every night starts out great; pajama's, brush teeth, potty, read, pray,
4. Losing Training Wheels
A1 is 7 and still has training wheels on her bike. We planned on teaching her to ride a bike last summer but with a newborn time just got away from us. We might be able to teach A2 this summer too. She is a little more adventurous and will probably see it as a way to top A1.
5. Pick up before bed
This one the entire family will be working on. I am just as guilty as the girls are about leaving stuff out and putting things off until the morning. Don't believe me? Have you seen our bedroom? Probably not because no one is allowed up there since it is a danger zone! On the scale of importance picking up the house ranks dead last. I would rather do almost anything else. I am going to work on changing that this summer and I am taking the girls with me... I hope we survive.
I realize that to an outsider I might sound like a horrible parent but I am just trying to survive. For the most part the girls are great...We just need the next few months to become better people. I am blessed to have a career that allows me to take time off in the summer to be with my family, mostly uninterrupted.
These are our 5 major projects for the summer. I know we will pick up a few minor parenting projects as we go but these will be corrected...
Something I learned with our kids and bicycles--teach them to ride the bike in the grass. They have to dig harder, work at balancing harder, and the falls are softer.
ReplyDeleteAlso, there's a Shel Silverstein poem about a razor-toothed snail in the nose that convinced my #2 to quit picking. If I remember, I'll look to see which one of his books it's in and get that to you.
ReplyDeleteI will have to try both of these, although I am guessing A2 will continue to pick her nose just to see if there really is a snail up there!
ReplyDelete