2008 January | Mommy Points

January 12, 2008

Yes, It’s Over

Filed under: Keeping It Real — Chris @ 11:52 pm

My Christmas tree has been mocking me from the corner.

We gave up watering it on about December 26th this year. But still, it stood there all decorated in the corner. Slowly over the past week I have taken the decorations down from the rest of the house and dragged them into the foyer near the stairs. Along with a pile of wreaths, garland, and serving platters all waiting to be packed back up and carried to their home in the attic.

It was a pretty sad sight.

We had an un-decorating party this year. Which was fun. For a little while. Until I came to the realization that little kids are not good at repacking fragile things. And older kids like to complain about the tree poking them. Ah yes, that is what happens when you don’t water it! It probably could have been a teachable moment except that I was tired of being poked by the needles too. And being nice would have interfered with my martyr like demeanor that I was intent on keeping.

Once the cookies and eggnog ran out, I was pretty much on my own as they all slowly drifted out of the room never to be heard from again.

It didn’t take long before I drifted out of the room also.
This morning when I walked downstairs in the morning I decided that it was time. I packed up the rest of the decorations myself. Scoured the tree for hiding ornaments. Wrapped the fragile things securely in bubble wrap and old wrapping paper.

Then I discovered what part kids are really at… carrying it all up to the attic.

Granted, I did not go up to see where exactly in the attic they put the stuff. And chances are very good that they left it all right at the top of the attic stairs for me to trip and fall over in the dark when I least expect it. But at least I didn’t have to walk up and down two flights of stairs fifty million times. As much as my backside probably could have used the walking, ahem.

Tomorrow we will drag the naked the tree outside and I will begin vacuuming up the dead pine needles, a process that will last until next December.

Comments (0)

January 9, 2008

Learning Through Mindless Television

Filed under: Ages 10-12 years, Children, Chores, Humor Keeps Me Sane — Chris @ 11:07 pm

I am almost embarrassed to admit this, but tonight I was watching the show Wife Swap with my older children. The premise of the show, for those of you who haven’t seen or heard about it, is that they take two wives/mothers and have them swap families for 2 weeks. Of course because it is television they take volatile people who are complete polar opposites and put them together.

Tonight’s show featured a really strict, chore loving family and a messy, dirty family wherein no one did any housekeeping.

My children were fascinated by the show.

(They were also fascinated at how rude and what poor language the people hurled at each other. Egads, it was bad. I’ll admit here and now that I find the occasional use of a good swear word to be called for, but never, ever directed at someone personally. And certainly not a whole string of them in front of my children while being filmed for national television! But I digress.)

When the show first started I had asked them which family they thought we were more like. My older two children immediately said “The chore family! We have to do chores!” But as we watched the show they slowly changed their minds. They decided that we were a combination of both families. We did chores, but still had fun.

When the new wife at the clean family decided that there would be no more cleaning, my kids were incredulous. “But why not just clean up after yourself? It doesn’t take that long!”

When the new wife encouraged them to just leave their messes laying around and not clean up their dishes after eating, again my kids said, “But why? That is just gross!”

I was incredulous, who were these kids and where were my children?

But the funniest part happened at the very end. The messy father asked the clean father if he felt bad making his kids scrub sinks. My kids were laughing. And my oldest son said, “Gee, he is making it seem like cleaning the bathroom is child abuse!”

I laughed with them. I guess being “forced” to do chores hasn’t scarred them in any way. Or at least not in any negative way.

Comments (12)

Winter Reprieve

Filed under: Keeping It Real, parenting — Chris @ 10:14 am

The past couple of days the weather where I live has been unseasonably warm. Or maybe, as some have suggested, it is a seasonal break in weather that occurs every year and I just don’t remember. Whatever the case, going outside and feeling the sun warm on your face and arms is fabulous. Bare arms! In January!

At this time of year I often think of people from generations long ago, before the modern conveniences of centralized heating, or even back before there were telephones and automobiles. I look out onto the frozen landscape and wonder, really wonder, how they survived. I know I fall on the wimpy end of the spectrum. I don’t deny that. But still, it must have been so tough.

I think about how they must have cherished these warms days and how it must have given them hope that spring would eventually come. I would think that after living with day after day of winter you would probably begin to wonder. Heck, I wonder sometimes and I have the benefit of weather forecasting, vacations to warm locations and let’s not forget heat that keeps me plenty warm and toasty inside my house.

So the past two days I spent a great deal of time outside with my kids. We didn’t do much but let the sun wash over us. We walked through the still deep, but melting snow. We made big icy snow balls. We poked at the rivers of melting water with sticks. We spent time with no agenda. It was great.

This morning we woke up and the weather has turned. The sky is cloudy and it threatens to rain.

I am just happy we put our obligations aside, went and enjoyed the weather while we had the chance.

Comments (1)

January 6, 2008

A Little Brag

Filed under: Children, Chores — Chris @ 9:28 am

Well, after the last post I feel like I have to give props here to my oldest son. My husband and I let him babysit a couple of his younger siblings while we ran a few errands this past weekend. The errands ended up taking longer than we anticipated, running over into the dinner hour.

My husband and I had debated cutting our running around short and heading home. I called home and my son assured us that everything was fine. He could make something for dinner. He has cooked dinner before, but never entirely alone for the whole cooking, serving, cleaning up process. So I was slightly nervous that it might be too much for him. But he insisted.

We arrived home about an hour later to find him standing at the sink washing the pots and pans. He had made pasta and heated up a jar of pasta sauce. Then he had put it all nicely into a large serving bowl and even sliced up some bread to go along with it. I was thoroughly impressed.

The little charges he had been left babysitting went on and on about how delicious his dinner was. He was beaming.

I told him that I would finish cleaning up the kitchen since he had done all of the cooking and had been such a great babysitter. And you know what he said?

“Nah, I’ll finish it. That’s okay.”

I was tempted to make a funny remark like, “Who is this boy? And when is my real son coming back?” But I didn’t. Instead I just thanked him for a job well done.

So for all of you out there who are still working at getting your children to do chores and wondering if it is ever going to pay off, I am here to tell you that it will. All those times when you wonder if you should just let the sloppily done chore slide because you don’t feel like having the argument, or if you should just give up on the chores all together because you don’t feel like having to be the bad guy, don’t give up. I am telling you that one day you will be thankful for the hard work that you put in. The times you made them re-clean their bathroom, rather than let it slide because it would be easier for you. (you of course meaning, me)

The bigger goal is raising responsible, capable young adults. And now that I have one, I can tell you that it is worth it.

Comments (6)

January 4, 2008

Again I Need To Learn

Filed under: Ages 7 -9 years, Children, Chores, Discipline, Keeping It Real, Making It Work, Work Ethic — Chris @ 5:49 pm

I often ask my children why they are hell bent on learning the same lesson over and over again. You know, why can’t they just learn their lesson the first time and move on with their life?

Today I realized that perhaps I need to heed the same advice.

My 7 and 8 yr old sons share a bedroom and they have their own attached bathroom. They are responsible for keeping both clean and tidy. I wash the floors and scrub out the tub, but I think that they are perfectly capable of wiping down the sink and toilet with cleaning wipes, rinsing their toothpaste out of the sink, making their beds, etc. I assure you that they are not toiling in the Gulag.

And I do remind them, almost daily to do it. And always I am met with assurances that it has been done.

I rarely have a need to go into their bathroom. And even less of a reason to closely examine it. This afternoon I was in there gathering towels and bath rugs, doing the hard cleaning like washing toothpaste off the walls. Why, in the name of all that is good and noble in this world, why do they get toothpaste on the walls? And I noticed a smell in the room. A yucky, dirty, am I in a public restroom sort of smell.

I looked over at the toilet and at first glance it looked clean. Then I lifted the lid. Oh Lord have mercy, I have never ever seen anything like that in my life. IN MY LIFE.

I ~~screamed my head off~~ called for my boys and pointed to the toilet, because I seriously had no words. Not a one.

They looked at the toilet, looked at me, looked at each other and offered up no explanation.

“Whaaa-aaaaat happened?” I finally managed to get out.

Still they looked confused.

“Have you been cleaning the toilet and around the toilet like you are supposed to?”

“We thought we just had to clean the lid.”

At this point my head may have exploded off of my shoulders and rolled right out of the room. So we had another lesson on how to properly clean, along with the helpful suggestion that if they worked on their aim perhaps they wouldn’t need to clean so much.

This experience was as much a lesson for me. I need to hold them accountable more often. To not feel bad about checking up on them every day and examining their chores carefully to make sure that they are done the way that they are supposed to be done. To make sure that I take the time to check so that nothing gets that out of control again.

And now I must go scrub my eyes with some bleach.

Comments (13)

January 2, 2008

Teach Your Children (to Lie) Well

Filed under: Instilling Values, On The Web, parenting — Chris @ 12:36 pm

Did you all read this story?

Hardly anything shocks me anymore. I realize that there are people who lie, cheat, scam other people. But this did shock me.

Maybe because it is the mother who helped orchestrate the lie so that her daughter could get free Hannah Montana tickets. She had her six year old daughter write an essay for a contest saying that her father was killed in Iraq.

It angered me on so many levels. First because what about all the children who really have lost their fathers in Iraq or elsewhere.

But also what is this mother teaching her daughter? Why would she want to instill this sort of entitlement in her child? That if you want something it is okay to cheat and lie in order to get it. It is in such sharp contrast to everything that I teach my children.

I also have to wonder how the child felt about being forced to lie. It must have made her feel uncomfortable also. I can remember as a child when my mother would ask me to lie, something I would NEVER, EVER ask my children to do, that I hated every minute of it.

And I just read in another follow-up story that the mother claims she did not know that the essay had to be true. I am not sure how you can try to justify that when the question was “Why do you deserve Hannah Montana tickets?”
Not only is the mother going on television acting shocked that her daughter’s prize has been taken away. She is threatening to take legal action against the sponsors of the contest. Even though she willingly tried to defraud the contest sponsors and provided bogus information about the child’s father. Mostly i feel sad for the littlegirl who has been caught in the middle and has a mother with seemingly no moral compass.

Some days I wonder where this world is going. Seems like we are halfway into that handbasket.

Comments (7)

Happy New Year!

Filed under: Ideas — Chris @ 11:49 am

So how were your holidays?

Our two weeks, of what feels like non-stop partying and eating junk food, was fabulous. I think it was quite possibly the best holiday season in recent years. I love the beginning of the year. The hanging up of a brand new calendar. The clean slate of new beginnings. Even if it is only symbolic.

I am always impressed by people who make resolutions and stick to them. I know a hand full of people who have resolved to do things like run marathons, lose weight, or make major life changes and stuck with them. I have always been impressed. I generally lack the attention span.

When I was in fourth grade, I remember our teacher made us draw a picture of what our resolutions were for the next year. At 9 years old I already felt like I was pretty free of bad habits that needed to be broken. I didn’t pick up that pack a day habit until much later in life. (I kid.) I drew a picture of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich wrote that my resolution was to eat the entire lunch my mother packed every day. I failed miserably at it. Ever eat a whole grain pb&j that has absorbed all the jelly into the bread and has been sitting wrapped inside wax paper for 6 hours?

This year I am jumping back on the resolution bandwagon with both feet.

Our entire family has made a resolution to take a year off from spending money mindlessly. And yes, I am going to be blogging about. What else do writers do? I need someone to feel my pain as I pass by that adorable pair of shoes. Commiserating will take the sting away.

Has anyone else made any resolutions that they would like to share?

Comments (1)

« Newer Posts