They said what about me

Now I know that most of the time if you see me in public with my kids, especially all of them, it looks like I don't have it together, and I probably don't, but on the day I do have it together and I hear that it looks like I don't, well I have some choice words for you. PS. they aren't nice words.

I guess I factor in the fact that my kids are in fact kids. They are not Victorian Era kids and they are not children growing up in a Communist country, they are good old Midwestern kids. They will not always be quiet, ok my kids will never be quiet, and they will not always stand still or know the exact right thing to say to adults, but so what really? I am the first one to laugh at my ineptitude but when I wasn't expecting it, when I thought the kids did really well, when someone says it seems like I can only handle one of them at a time and I still can't figure out what would cause them to make that comment. There are moments, experiences, and times when it feels like I can only handle one at a time, there are stories that have filled up this blog that show you that I get that, but they were really good and they listened to me and they talked to a stranger, well Jack did, and then they spoke to an adult they hadn't seen in about a year and the whole time were very good. People who have forgotten that kids are not tiny adults make me quiet frustrated. Yes, sometimes I wish my kids were tiny adults but then again no not really. We'd miss out on so much if they were.

So for people interested in what my crazy kids have been up to here you go:

Luke has worn this costume every day for about month. He has started wearing it to bed too.

no fear- he is the first one who has tried to slide off the side of the playground structure.

Uncle D came to town

woke up to find Jack teaching Luke how to play yahtzee.

the toy asked for a hug so Thomas obliged him

I ignored this poor child while I exercised so he showed me

Jack likes to sneak my camera and take about 20 pictures of himself

Charts and Rewards

Our refrigerator is covered in charts. Our counter has an envelope for chores and rewards. When did my life become governed by points, stickers, and x's? Jack's behavior at school hit a low point a couple weeks ago so I talked to his teacher about sending home daily, or as often as she could, notes about his behavior. These notes would translate to points on his chart. X's for red ticket, 25 pts for yellow ticket, and 50 pts for green. If he gets 4 X's before the school's movie night, they have movie night every other month, then he can't go. When he makes it to 500 points he gets $5.00. His behavior is doing better-not sure if it is related to the chart but as he has only gotten one red ticket since starting it I am not willing to take it down.

About a week after starting this chart I was realizing that all of the cleaning up in the house was being done by me. So basically I would straighten up all day and then at night the kids would have one more burst of playing energy, dump all the toys out, and then go to bed, leaving me to clean it all up on my own. I was not pleased. So I decided to try something out on Jack and if it worked on him modify it for Luke too. Since I didn't want another chart I just took an envelope cut it in half and wrote Jack's chores on one half and Jack's rewards on the other. Then I got construction paper folded it into eights and cut. On each piece I wrote a chore for Jack to complete during the week. They are things like: clear table and scrape off plates, make sure living room floor is clean before bed, and wipe off and clean up toothpaste from your bathroom sink. I didn't really want to pay him for doing basic chores and since his discipline chart has a financial component to it I came up with other ideas for his rewards. These are things like: you pick family movie night with no one (parents) using other electronic devices. *He also gets to pick the snack, go to Toys R Us and make Christmas list, go out with one parent to get ice cream, one hour playing with toys and you don't have to share or let your brothers anywhere near you, and going to the park or playground of your choice with parent of your choice. So he just reaches into the chores half and draws a chore. He if completes without whining or throwing a fit then on Sunday he gets to draw from the reward envelope. Repeat. So far it worked pretty well, the only thing was me carving out the time for his chore. Sometimes our nights are super rushed and so it is easier for me to do it, but that doesn't teach him responsibility and I may not mind one or two nights but long term I sure do. I think next week I will make Luke an envelope too.

Seeing that Jack had a chart and a chores system Luke wanted a chart. He also wanted to start wearing underwear so we made Luke a potty chart. Now we are just sort of going with whatever Luke wants. I think in the last 8 months Luke has decided he wants to use the potty every 2 months, and for about 2 weeks he is very serious about it then decides to go back to diapers. So even though this time there is a chart we aren't dead set on potty training him. We ask him every morning if today is a diaper day or an underwear day and he gets to pick. Still our chart allows 1 sticker for pee success, 2 stickers for poop success, and 3 stickers for no accidents. X is for the days he decides to just be a diaper boy. He likes picking out the stickers and putting them on the chart and in the last 8 days he has done about half diaper days and half underwear days. The days he picks underwear he is serious and goes to the bathroom no problems. He gets a sucker after every successful trip to the potty-- we define successful as nothing came out before he made it to the potty. He has a short term goal of 20 stickers in 11 days for a small prize and then the long term goal is 11 consecutive days of no accidents and a trip to Chuck E Cheese. We will see. I think he just wanted a chart.

On a side note-- Luke has worn his Incredible Hulk Costume everyday for the last week or two. He wears it to the playground, grocery store, pick up Jack from school, while watching tv, while running around the house, and to get frozen yogurt. He truly is Incredible Hulk and you better not tell him anything different.

Jumping from Election Day to Christmas

We bought a Roku box, which I now think is the coolest thing since I can do multiple things at once on my tv and computer. I hate rainy days and cold days so November isn't my month. I am tired and blah but trying to revive my spirits with coffee and pandora, though unfortunately for me, the songs right now are kinda sad so that isn't really helping. My kids are asleep so that is helping because tired and chasing after kids just results in endless chaos on both sides. I went to bed at 9:30pm the past two nights so I should be well rested, but having young children means that once everyone is asleep doesn't mean everyone is asleep for the whole night. Thomas is still attached to my hip and if I move one inch out of his eyesight he just breaks down, apparently this means at night too. Luke is always impossible to get to sleep at night because he wants you to sit in there with him until he is asleep, that can take anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour. Some nights we indulge and some we don't, many of the nights we don't result in yelling and screaming from both ends. Pete says that when the two most stubborn people in our family decide to have a standoff the results will never be good. Luckily, we can rely on Jack to just go to bed. Now the getting him dressed in the morning is another story, but at night he will even put himself to bed if he is tired and we aren't able to get around to him fast enough. Election night my darling husband worked his study schedule so that he could be home to watch the results, I was pumped because this would be like a date night for us-wine, the kids in bed, and just chilling in front of the tv--ok maybe date isn't the right word. Politics are very important to my husband so I knew I needed and wanted to be there to hear him talk, rant, get excited, predict, and etc. the whole night, but I couldn't do it, not because I didn't care, I just couldn't keep my eyes open. After he noticed my eyes closed and my responses just being, mmm, yeah, uh-huh, he told me I should just go to bed but come 2016 he needed to see much more enthusiasm out of me. I told him I'd get a shirt to support our candidate, he said maybe in my case I should get pjs instead. True.

Now that Halloween and Election Day, which are both like major holidays in our house, are over it is time to focus on..........Christmas? The kids are super busy making Christmas lists. Last year this wasn't a big deal to anyone really, but now that Jack is older he is setting the example by looking through catalogs, going online, and taking our strolls through the Wal-Mart toy aisle very seriously. It has taken Luke a few days to catch on but this morning he asked to look at toys online. So what happened to Thanksgiving? Well, I am not real sure. It isn't even entering into Jack's head at all. This morning he kept drilling me with questions like: Is Cassie going to be there because if she is I have to sleep in the office at Granny's and sometimes it scares me, so where will I sleep? ( by the way he never sleeps in Cassie's room) Who else will be there at Christmas? Even Sean? Will all the uncles be there? How many things do I have on my list now? Can I add more? I just had to tell him I wasn't even thinking about that stuff yet because it was so far away. Poor Thanksgiving. There isn't much draw there. No candy, no dressing up, no ghosts, zombies, monsters, no toys, no team blue or team red, just a large meal and for a kid who doesn't really like large meals--that isn't very appealing. The greeting card companies and the massive chain stores really need to work on making Thanksgiving super awesome because right now my kids aren't buying it.