Well, Mom skipped town this morning at 10:00 am. She’s off on her annual “Women’s Weekend” in Chicago so it’s Dad-and-the-kids for the duration. We really know how to throw curve ball after curve ball at this already chaotic week, don’t we? At least the painters finished up and we can now get back upstairs without risking paint devastation.
I have to say, there was no yelling or reminding today. At all. The morning went off smoothly, at least from my perspective. It was an easy day since the kids can buy hot pizza at school for lunch on Fridays – that means no lunches to pack. And they were all over it last night before going to bed, asking me if they could have their pizza money in advance so there was no chance in overlooking it in the morning. I think they figured it might be a little crazy with Mom packing for her trip and all. (Gotta love forward thinking kids!) So breakfast was good, snacks and pizza money made it into the lunch bags, and the kids were out of the house well before the bus arrived.
Unfortunately, the dirty dish train continues to grow on the counter next to the sink. But only two water glasses stayed on the table today, and one of the breakfast bowls actually made it all the way into the dish washer, so that is a little improvement over the first part of the week. But we are still batting well below 0.500 when it comes to the dishes. We should be running out of clean stuff tomorrow so it will be interesting to see what solution they come up with. My bet is they will push a chair over to the tall cupboards and start using the adult dishes (we keep the kids dishes in a low cupboard so they can reach them, ours in upper cupboards).
After school was easy today as well. I got out of work early to meet the kids off the bus. They were both excited to see me and had 100 things to tell me in 10 minutes. But they were actually quite good about taking turns talking so I didn’t have to remind them about that. They both remembered that we had a Halloween party to go to for dinner so they were both focused on getting into costumes and heading out. No prompting from me. There was no homework for either of them, so that made things easier. I was asked to help with multiple costume adjustments but both kids were very patient while I helped the other. I think I said, “I’ll help you with that as soon as I’m done with this,” twice. And I said, “Oh, I’m sure you can figure that out without my help,” once. Other than that I sat back and waited until they came to me.
Most surprisingly, when we got home from the party the kids only spent 10 minutes with their goody bags (mostly candy and a few plastic toss-away toys). Then they were upstairs and brushing their teeth. K actually made the first move toward going to bed and asked if M and I would join her. I thought the 5 courses of desert and 2 cups of super-sweet hot chocolate would have just about hit bottom at this point and be sending them both spinning for another hour. I was thinking that since the party did not end until 8 pm, I would be watching the kids slowly melt down around 10 pm. But they were in bed with the lights off by 9 pm. And I didn’t say a word. Go figure.
General Thoughts
The school papers are continuing to accumulate on the table just as fast as the dishes are piling up by the sink. And the papers are leaking over to just about any other flat surface that isn’t already brimming with dishes. I had to shove one pile into another tonight so I could sit down and type this blog entry. It sort of reminds me of being back in college with three messy roommates. At least the kids don’t have girlfriends over to leave their stuff out, too!
Perhaps it’s being male, perhaps it’s just my own individual insensitivity, but all the kid’s clutter doesn’t really get to me. This is a little strange because, left on my own, I am actually a pretty neat person, easily the least cluttered of the family. I have a few personal areas in the house that I keep neat, like my side of the sink in our master bathroom, and my clothes closet area. That is enough for me. The rest I can just push away from my space and coexist with peacefully. So maybe I am just not terribly sensitive. But with all that said, I think our kids are doing great with this whole do nothing, say nothing thing. The person I am really impressed with, though, is Mom – I know how much the mess gets to her and I know it is killing her not to remind/nag/direct.
Maybe it is because I expected that the kids would leave a trail of clutter behind them wherever they go. What kids don’t? I also expected that the daily routine would go smoothly – we have had a very stable morning and evening routine for a long time so I’m not surprised that it has continued on its own. For almost a year the kids have gotten themselves out of bed, brushed their teeth, picked out their own clothes and gotten dressed, gotten breakfast, and packed their own lunches. After school they do their homework before they play, they read out loud to us for 20+ minutes after dinner, and that leads right into the going to bed process. It is not always flawless, nothing with kids ever is, but it has been consistent. So, for me, it is not surprising that momentum alone is carrying them through the daily routine. (And I feel pretty good as a parent that this is the standard we have created.)
I have to say that I am a little surprised that they have not pushed the limits on bedtime. I guess their desire to have Harry Potter read to them is pretty strong. They know that if they don’t get their reading to us done first, and get into their pajamas and get teeth brushed, by 8:00 pm, there will be no Harry Potter. And once the Harry Potter reading is over it is a very natural transition to turn off the lights and go to sleep. And that is pretty much how it has gone. No complaints. The one night that they did not get ready for reading until 8:15 pm we simply said, “Oh, it’s too late tonight. We can try again tomorrow,” and turned out the lights. No resistance. Disappointment, but not resistance.
The only sign of rebellion has been that I have noticed the chit-chat has stretched out a bit this week after the lights go off. We usually give them 10-15 minutes or so to settle in before one of us goes upstairs to their bedroom and has the “If you can’t settle down you’re going to have to sleep in separate bedrooms,” talk. We don’t have to do this all the time, but we probably do it about once a week on average. This week, in the absence of warnings, they have gone as long as 90 minutes before drifting off. Tonight it was only about 20 minutes. Must have been tired.
The biggest thing I was not sure about going into this week was how the non-daily-routine things would go. Things like bathing, weekly chores (we call them “contributions” since we have been working with Vicki Hoefle), and getting ready to leave the house for miscellaneous trips (grocery store, swimming lessons, out to a movie, etc.). I have been happily surprised at how well the latter has gone. Generally speaking, to get moving out of the house this week we have made one announcement, something to the effect of, “We need to leave for the store in 5 minutes; grab whatever you want to take with you and meet me in the car.” At least from my perspective, that’s all it’s taken. I did get a question from K tonight as we left for the Halloween party – “Dad, can I wear my new tap shoes to the party? They go perfectly with my butterfly costume.” Now, personally, I have never seen a tap dancing butterfly, but that was not the point. I simply said, “No. Tap shoes are for dance class. We are not going to dance class. Pick something else.” K replied that the only other shoes she had were her “rainbow” shoes and they clashed with her costume. My response, “Oh, I thought they looked like flower petals that a butterfly could land on to get nectar.” That did the trick and K was in the car, shoes on, before I could find the keys (one of the paper piles had quietly crept over the top of them). So departures from home have been pretty smooth.
Bathing has not happened. Again, they are kids. I’m just happy they wash their hands after using the bathroom and wipe their mouths most nights after they brush their teeth. Not every night, but most. I don’t expect they will take the lead on baths. Well, maybe as soon as a green bean takes root behind one of their ears…
As for contributions (chores), most of them don’t have to be done until the weekend so it will be interesting to see what gets done tomorrow. My guess is, not much. But M surprised us earlier this week by doing the cat litter, garbage, and recycling without prompting. (Of course, he forgot to feed the cats, but 3 out of 4 isn’t bad!) So maybe there is hope for picking up toys, vacuuming, scrubbing toilets, and brushing cat hair off the furniture. But I’m not holding my breath. My plan is to get up and do my own contributions right away. I’m sure the kids will ask me to play with them and I will simply reply, “I’d love to, but I made a rule for myself to get my contributions done before I play. So I need to finish my contributions first.” My guess is this will be too subtle for 6 and 7 yr olds, so I doubt it will spur them into action. But when they ask me if they can have a play date in the afternoon I plan to say, “Sure, as soon as your contributions are done.” I’m prepared for tears.
Holding them to their contributions this weekend may go against the whole idea of do nothing, say nothing, but I am okay with that. They can choose to skip their play dates if they don’t want to do contributions. No skin off my nose. I discussed this with Mom and she has her reservations. But I figure the natural consequence of them being slobs all week is to learn the lesson that a stitch in time saves nine. I don’t know, maybe when the time comes I will think there is something more to learn by not enforcing the contributions than by enforcing them. So I may just let it go and fully embrace the chaos. Perhaps asking them the next day about how they felt about shirking their responsibility will be more enlightening than I think. We’ll have to see.
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