Changes

I think I am always changing up how I run things around here, and I am up to it again. I have just felt like an out of control hurricane with trying to juggle working and keep up with everything else. It is getting better now that we have had some time to readjust things. One thing I am trying right now is a "Earn it Back Basket". There are days when I hear myself say "Pick up your shoes" way too many times. I have been doing some reading on parenting and the Love and Logic Parenting way talks about how us constantly reminding them is teaching them to forget because they aren't learning to think for themselves. I have definitely raised forgetters. So instead of the constant reminding there are consequences. There are some things I will ask 1 time and if they don't do it in a timely manner then it goes in the basket. Some things don't get asked like pick up your shoes, or backpacks or homework. So to earn it back they have to do a job. Not a tough job, something like clean the glass door, empty dishwasher, wash the fingerprints off a door, straighten a shelf of the pantry. Savanna was so funny when we were having our "Family Meeting". Her words were "This is stupid and I am not participating." I just laughed and commented with then I guess you will choose to do a lot of jobs for your things. It has actually been amazing. Even Aleena gets it. She will be using something and say to me, "Mom, don't take that I am still using it." Savanna had to earn her skirt back to wear to church, Hallie's back pack was in there before school, Jase has had shoes in there a few times. But it seems to helping. I am doing less yelling, and they are starting to think for themselves.
The other thing we have started is some allowance. I know this can be quite a controversial subject, but I am liking what we have come up with. When creating this plan, part of me felt like helping around the house should be something we just do, we are a family, we help each other out. But part of me wants them to earn allowance to understand the concept of working for what we get, and I definitely like the idea of educating the kids on money since it wasn't something we talked about as we grew up. So here is what we have come up with. They can earn .50 a day, except on Sunday. They are responsible of their bedroom. If they choose to not clean it that day, then they do not earn their .50. They have until 4pm. There are no reminders and no arguments. It is simply their choice. At the end of the week I pay them their money. Aleena only gets .25. Some days there will be laundry on their bed to put away or fold if I didn't get time. I will remind them one time of that so they can kind of plan ahead. It has really been working. What I am really loving about it is when the kids ask for something, I say "That would be a great thing to save your money for." They do have other jobs that I will ask them to do, but those are just helping out jobs. They can do up to 2 extra credit jobs a week for extra money. But those are big jobs and require some effort like cleaning and vacuuming the car. They have to come to me for those and ask me and take it upon themselves to earn the extra money. No body has wanted to work that hard yet=).

Jase the Jack o lantern

Jase has lost a couple teeth in the past few weeks. He is starting to look like a Jack o lantern. It was soo funny: He had a tooth fall out and had put it in a cup of water so the tooth fairy could come and he could see what color she was. He left the cup in the kitchen and Daddy was doing dishes and didn't realize there was a tooth in it and he dumped it down the sink. The next tooth fell out and he had his tooth sitting in a cup in the kitchen and yes, Savanna dumped it out doing dishes. This last tooth was having a hard time coming out and so Daddy and Jase were in our bathroom and Brad had tied some floss around it. Brad did the "Let me look" trick and pulled and it went flying into the bathtub. It was real close to going down the drain again. His teeth have a tendency to like the drains=). Here is our cute little Jase the Jack o lantern.