2. I jogged today, instead of doing my usual Insanity workout:
Anyways, after my jog, I was like, Dude, compared to Insanity, that was a cakewalk.
I NEVER thought I would refer to jogging as a cakewalk. Perspective.
Monday, July 23, 2012
Two Workout-Related Observations
2. I jogged today, instead of doing my usual Insanity workout:
Anyways, after my jog, I was like, Dude, compared to Insanity, that was a cakewalk.
I NEVER thought I would refer to jogging as a cakewalk. Perspective.
A Little Story Involving Poop and a Filing Cabinet
So my mom and dad take turns coming to my house every Sunday during sacrament meeting. My ward's church block starts at 1 and ends at 4, and by the time Primary is over for the kids, my youngest two have HAD it. There is no way they're going to sit through sacrament meeting. So one of my parents comes over. I have the two oldest find a spot in the chapel, I run the youngest two home (I literally live two houses away from the church building), and then I join the two oldest and actually get something out of sacrament meeting.
Yesterday was a little weird - Dylan is sick, so I couldn't take him. But I couldn't leave him here for two hours until my mom was able to come over. And I couldn't take the kids to church, but not be there in case there was an incident where they needed me. So we played hookey, all of us. And then I just went to sacrament meeting while my mom watched the kids for me. At least I got some kind of church in. And it was a great meeting. I needed it.
So this is what happened while I was at church, feeling the Spirit.
Gage pooped in his diaper. He removed his shorts, but his diaper remained. Apparently the diaper was loose, because one of the poop berries inside (his poop has been hard lately because he refuses to eat fruits or veggies) rolled out of his diaper onto the floor. Gage picked up the poop berry and put it into the top drawer of the filing cabinet, along with a flip flop and a sippy cup. (The bottom drawer of the cabinet is full of actual files. The top drawer functions as a catch-all for staplers, paper hole punchers, scotch tape, etc.)
For some reason, Micah decided to open the filing cabinet's top drawer and fish around in there. He found the poop berry. Luckily, he didn't put it in his mouth. Knowing him, it might have looked like an M&M and he might have eaten the dang thing. He realized (maybe he smelled it?) that it was poop and brought it to my mom.
My mom smelled it and yes, indeed, it was poop.
The end.
Saturday, July 21, 2012
The Temper Tantrum Series
Like the Rouen Cathedral Series by Monet. But with a toddler. He was mad at me because I wouldn't let him tip my glass of water over.
He wasn't mad because he wanted to drink out of my cup. I would have let him do that. And as you can see from his red mouth, he had just drunk a sippy cup full of red kool-aid. So, no, thirst was not his motivation for reaching for the glass of water. He just wanted to tip that flippin' thing over. And I wouldn't let him. And that made him maaaaaaaaaad.
He tried banging his head on the floor for emphasis, and then got even more mad.
He needed some loves at this point:
It's funny having a kid that throws a really demonstrative tantrum. Each of my toddlers has done different things - Dylan would scream and run to his room. Sadie would stomp her foot and fold her arms and stare at me witheringly. Micah does a whole lot of screaming and running frantically from room to room. This is my first kid who actually gets onto the ground and rolls and kicks and cries and hits the floor and, apparently, bangs his head on the floor. I actually get a kick out of it, like, Wait, this really happens? I've only seen this stuff on TV! I'm sure in awhile it will cease being amusing. But for now, I get a good belly laugh out of it.
Friday, July 20, 2012
Our Bedtime Charts - So Far, So Bad
Kay. So something I've learned with Dylan - and I don't know if it's every kid with ADHD that works this way or if it's just him - is that punishments don't motivate him as much as rewards do. So, for instance, if he's behaving badly in school, and I say, "You're grounded for a week," then it's a week of torture for both of us. He cries and whines and cajoles for THE ENTIRE WEEK. And the bad behavior at school doesn't stop.
What I learned way back in preschool was that something that works really well for him is rewards charts. He was really struggling with his behavior at that point, and I knew that he loved going to this Chuck E. Cheese-type place in town. So I made him a chart - it was a pizza with slices of pepperoni on it. I told him that, every day that I didn't hear bad things about how he was in class, we could color a slice of pepperoni. When all of the pepperoni slices got colored in, he got to go to Chuck E. Cheese's.
And that's what did it for him - he was great clear until he colored all of his slices, and then the behavior had become sort of a habit by then, so his good behavior continued beyond then. I didn't even have to make another pizza chart.
This school year, Dylan and his teacher really struggled with each other. Yes, he has ADHD, but I'm telling you, when he's on his pills, which is always during school hours, he is fabulous. Cooperative. Fun without hurting people or running into things. Kind. Talking at a normal speed. But I would get e-mails from her at least three times a week, asking if I had forgotten to give him his pills (I never had), telling me how hard he was being. It was reeeeally frustrating. I think she wanted him to be perfect. And I know she had, like, 9 other ADHD kids in that class with him. I'm sure she was tearing her hair out.
Things were really reaching a breaking point about one month before the end of school. So Ben and I came up with this chart for Dylan:
(I ran out of stickers and had to do boring old normal faces. And Dylan took over with the drawing of the faces, with my permission, of course.)
So what we did was this - if he was good for all 34 remaining days, he would get a nice Lego toy - valued at $50 or so - at the end of the school year. If I got an e-mail saying he was bad, he could still work toward getting a Lego toy, but its value lessened to $45. Second infraction - down to $35. Third infraction - down to $20. And fourth, no more toy. This way, he was still getting consequences if he was not behaving himself, but it wasn't like, first bad day, no toy at all. Then he would have nothing left to motivate him for the remaining days, if that makes sense.
It worked great. If you can see, he only had two bad days. He worked really hard to be good. And in the end, he got a pretty decent Lego toy still:
Oh jeez. That hair.... Don't worry - we cut off, like, four inches last month. It looks fifteen times better.
So one of our family's many issues right now is bedtime. Dylan really struggles to settle down at night - his pediatrician actually told us to get him some melatonin for bedtime, which helps, but he still struggles to wind down. I put them down at 9 p.m., and he's not usually asleep until 11.
The kid always decides right at 9 that he's totally hungry and needs a whole other meal. Or he needs to watch another episode of Phineas and Ferb. Or he needs to play on the Wii. Or he needs to play on the ipad. On and on and on. I don't let him do any of these things, but he continues to fight and beg and ask. One of his famous phrases during these nighttime struggles is, "Pleeeeease! I'll do anything!" He just kills me; I'm ready to strangle him every night.
Sadie will usually do the "I'm hungry now that it's bedtime" thing, and then about one hour after I put them all to bed, she'll come out and be like, "I'm scared. I'm so scared. Can I lie on the couch?" Which I don't get. Her room has a makeshift curtain (made from an old fleece blanket) covering her window. But our living room has all exposed windows. To me, that's way creepier. She started doing this right after Ben left for China. I'll be like, "No, you're okay; you're going to be fine; be brave..." But then, like at 3:30 in the morning, she'll come down to my room, crying, saying she had a nightmare, and can she sleep on the couch? And at 3:30 in the morning, I'm like, "Go for it, dude. Turn on the TV yourself."
But you know, it's getting old. These bedtime issues are just getting really, really old. I'd like to not get woken up every morning at 3:30. I'd like my children to go to bed at a decent hour and not have it be this huge fight every night. So I made them Bed Charts:
Micah, strangely, is really good about going to bed and staying there. Weird. It's the ONE thing - and I mean the ONE thing - that he doesn't fight me on. But I made him a chart because he said he wanted one.
So I have 30 days on there - I should have just had 30 blank boxes, because I don't necessarily need them to have 30 consecutive days of good bed behavior. I just want 30 good days. I made the charts in, like, five seconds. And it looks like I'm going to have to add boxes to it, because dude. They've maybe gotten half smiley faces and half frowney faces. This is proving a harder thing to kick than school behavior. Sadie's gotten a ton better about waking me in the middle of the night and wanting to sleep on the couch. That behavior has all but stopped, which is fantastic. But we're still dealing with the coming out 20 times to ask me questions or make excuses for why they can't stay in their beds.
But I haven't given up just yet. Like I said, Micah does great with bedtime. So he keeps getting smiley faces. When the other kids see him, after 30 smiley faces, bring home a toy, I think that will motivate them to want to do better so they can get their own toy. We'll see.
What I learned way back in preschool was that something that works really well for him is rewards charts. He was really struggling with his behavior at that point, and I knew that he loved going to this Chuck E. Cheese-type place in town. So I made him a chart - it was a pizza with slices of pepperoni on it. I told him that, every day that I didn't hear bad things about how he was in class, we could color a slice of pepperoni. When all of the pepperoni slices got colored in, he got to go to Chuck E. Cheese's.
And that's what did it for him - he was great clear until he colored all of his slices, and then the behavior had become sort of a habit by then, so his good behavior continued beyond then. I didn't even have to make another pizza chart.
This school year, Dylan and his teacher really struggled with each other. Yes, he has ADHD, but I'm telling you, when he's on his pills, which is always during school hours, he is fabulous. Cooperative. Fun without hurting people or running into things. Kind. Talking at a normal speed. But I would get e-mails from her at least three times a week, asking if I had forgotten to give him his pills (I never had), telling me how hard he was being. It was reeeeally frustrating. I think she wanted him to be perfect. And I know she had, like, 9 other ADHD kids in that class with him. I'm sure she was tearing her hair out.
Things were really reaching a breaking point about one month before the end of school. So Ben and I came up with this chart for Dylan:
So what we did was this - if he was good for all 34 remaining days, he would get a nice Lego toy - valued at $50 or so - at the end of the school year. If I got an e-mail saying he was bad, he could still work toward getting a Lego toy, but its value lessened to $45. Second infraction - down to $35. Third infraction - down to $20. And fourth, no more toy. This way, he was still getting consequences if he was not behaving himself, but it wasn't like, first bad day, no toy at all. Then he would have nothing left to motivate him for the remaining days, if that makes sense.
It worked great. If you can see, he only had two bad days. He worked really hard to be good. And in the end, he got a pretty decent Lego toy still:
So one of our family's many issues right now is bedtime. Dylan really struggles to settle down at night - his pediatrician actually told us to get him some melatonin for bedtime, which helps, but he still struggles to wind down. I put them down at 9 p.m., and he's not usually asleep until 11.
The kid always decides right at 9 that he's totally hungry and needs a whole other meal. Or he needs to watch another episode of Phineas and Ferb. Or he needs to play on the Wii. Or he needs to play on the ipad. On and on and on. I don't let him do any of these things, but he continues to fight and beg and ask. One of his famous phrases during these nighttime struggles is, "Pleeeeease! I'll do anything!" He just kills me; I'm ready to strangle him every night.
Sadie will usually do the "I'm hungry now that it's bedtime" thing, and then about one hour after I put them all to bed, she'll come out and be like, "I'm scared. I'm so scared. Can I lie on the couch?" Which I don't get. Her room has a makeshift curtain (made from an old fleece blanket) covering her window. But our living room has all exposed windows. To me, that's way creepier. She started doing this right after Ben left for China. I'll be like, "No, you're okay; you're going to be fine; be brave..." But then, like at 3:30 in the morning, she'll come down to my room, crying, saying she had a nightmare, and can she sleep on the couch? And at 3:30 in the morning, I'm like, "Go for it, dude. Turn on the TV yourself."
But you know, it's getting old. These bedtime issues are just getting really, really old. I'd like to not get woken up every morning at 3:30. I'd like my children to go to bed at a decent hour and not have it be this huge fight every night. So I made them Bed Charts:
So I have 30 days on there - I should have just had 30 blank boxes, because I don't necessarily need them to have 30 consecutive days of good bed behavior. I just want 30 good days. I made the charts in, like, five seconds. And it looks like I'm going to have to add boxes to it, because dude. They've maybe gotten half smiley faces and half frowney faces. This is proving a harder thing to kick than school behavior. Sadie's gotten a ton better about waking me in the middle of the night and wanting to sleep on the couch. That behavior has all but stopped, which is fantastic. But we're still dealing with the coming out 20 times to ask me questions or make excuses for why they can't stay in their beds.
But I haven't given up just yet. Like I said, Micah does great with bedtime. So he keeps getting smiley faces. When the other kids see him, after 30 smiley faces, bring home a toy, I think that will motivate them to want to do better so they can get their own toy. We'll see.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Swimming Lesson Report Cards
Well, swimming lessons are done for the summer. At least for us. One session for all three is nearly 100 bucks, so...I'm good until next year. :)
I saw Dylan really improve. He went from doggie paddling to doing the front crawl in the deep end. He still doesn't breathe right - he just kind of throws his head from side to side without immersing it. But he's getting there. After the first time they swam across the deep end, when I went to gather the kids up, Dylan clapped his hands together and rubbed them, saying, "Welp, that's it. I know how to swim. We won't have to do swimming lessons again!"
Sorry, bud. Now we have to work on perfecting it.
Dylie haaates bobbing:
I notice that he'll bob, come up, and pause and wipe his eyes. And then bob, come up, and pause and wipe his eyes. So funny. He says that, when he bobs, water gets up his nose. I don't know how he didn't get the memo about blowing out your nose when you're underwater. I taught him about that vital principle, and we practiced a few times in the car.
Micah also improved a lot. He went from screaming, crying, and trying to run away from the teacher to staring at me in terror during the whole class to going quietly and willingly with his teacher at the beginning of class. So that's good.
They'll play ring around the rosies, and when they're supposed to all fall down, they put their faces in the water and blow bubbles. He won't do that part. He just kind of blows on the surface of the water, like he's trying to cool a cup of hot chocolate.
He knew I was taking his picture - so funny:
This picture of Sadie is funny:
The one-eyed demon girl.
Sadie's doing great. They practice the front stroke a lot, using noodles that the teacher drags while walking backwards. They bob and practice kicking. She doesn't really have any fear of the water, which is fantastic.
So how did they do? Um..... None of them passed their level. Hahaha!
All three report cards said that the kids had to be more comfortable in the water. And that's alright. I had to keep reassuring Dylan that it's really okay if they didn't pass. They improved a ton and got used to the water a bit more. And that's what matters to me.
I saw Dylan really improve. He went from doggie paddling to doing the front crawl in the deep end. He still doesn't breathe right - he just kind of throws his head from side to side without immersing it. But he's getting there. After the first time they swam across the deep end, when I went to gather the kids up, Dylan clapped his hands together and rubbed them, saying, "Welp, that's it. I know how to swim. We won't have to do swimming lessons again!"
Sorry, bud. Now we have to work on perfecting it.
Dylie haaates bobbing:
Micah also improved a lot. He went from screaming, crying, and trying to run away from the teacher to staring at me in terror during the whole class to going quietly and willingly with his teacher at the beginning of class. So that's good.
They'll play ring around the rosies, and when they're supposed to all fall down, they put their faces in the water and blow bubbles. He won't do that part. He just kind of blows on the surface of the water, like he's trying to cool a cup of hot chocolate.
He knew I was taking his picture - so funny:
Sadie's doing great. They practice the front stroke a lot, using noodles that the teacher drags while walking backwards. They bob and practice kicking. She doesn't really have any fear of the water, which is fantastic.
So how did they do? Um..... None of them passed their level. Hahaha!
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
I'm gearing up...
...to make some more cards. I have some paper on hand that I'm dying to use. It will be perfect for what I want to make - Thinking of You-type cards. I've needed some of those in the past few months.
I was practically falling asleep while doing dishes late this afternoon, so I decided to get out my idea books and flip through them for inspiration/close my eyes and snooze off and on. The kids decided to help me:
Can I just stop here and point out how cute my kids' feet are?? You can see Gage's little pudgy feet, and then in the bottom pic, you can see Micah's cute little feet on the bottom right hand side of the picture. I'm obsessed with my kids' feet. I could squish them all day. I often ask Micah if I can have his toes for dessert. He always giggles and says yes. :)
After the boys lost interest in the idea books, Sadie took them to her bedroom. She's flipping through them right now. They really are fun to look at.
After I drank a Coke and sufficiently woke up, we took a trip to the craft store to buy a few supplies that I needed:
And then we headed over to Staples. I like using metal-rimmed tags on my cards sometimes, and the only place in town that has them is Staples, in their Martha Stewart Home Office section. I'm wanting to use square metal-rimmed tags for this project, but unfortunately, they only had round ones. I'm going to try to use these and see if I can get it to work out okay:
They're square-ish metallic stickers We'll see how it goes. I'm really excited - I loooove making cards. I'll show you the finished results when I get done with them.
My friend, Jason, is an actor living in Japan. He has this fan blog and he does giveaways on it every now and then. He wants to do a giveaway with some of my homemade cards, so these will be nice to add to the other types that I have on hand.
I was practically falling asleep while doing dishes late this afternoon, so I decided to get out my idea books and flip through them for inspiration/close my eyes and snooze off and on. The kids decided to help me:
After I drank a Coke and sufficiently woke up, we took a trip to the craft store to buy a few supplies that I needed:
My friend, Jason, is an actor living in Japan. He has this fan blog and he does giveaways on it every now and then. He wants to do a giveaway with some of my homemade cards, so these will be nice to add to the other types that I have on hand.
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Bloom where you're planted. And no matter how roughly you're planted.
Dude, I was in my yard for zillions of hours today. And you can tell that by looking at me (I still have grass particles stuck to my face) and by looking at my kitchen. It didn't get much attention today, unfortunately.
Kay. So I had these flowers called bachelor buttons in one of my front flower beds. I was initially tickled with them - they were sooo hardy. And they grew at an astronomical rate. And they looked cool and were a cool color when they bloomed. But then I got upset with them, because they grew too tall and covered everything behind them. And then they started to choke out all the other plants. They were driving me nuts.
So I took them out. I had plans to put them into the back flower bed. But then my elderly neighbor came and talked to me for like seventeen hours. And the plants lay there on their sides, totally wilting in the hot son.
To add to the indignity, I planted them in very inhospitable soil. Very clayish and hard. Nothing much is able to grow back there. I should have mixed some potting soil in with the clay. I should have given them a little haircut, too. But I was out of potting soil, and by the time my neighbor stopped talking to me, sunlight was fading fast and I had to just hurry and dig holes, stick them in, fill in the holes, and get my butt inside. I also should have immediately watered them, but I didn't. Too late. Too busy.
"If they die, oh well," I thought. And they look HORRIBLE. I still need to trim them down quite a bit. They have wilted and died. They have, as my dandelion weed killer bottle says, "experienced plant death." And I was okay with it. I don't like plants that behave like weeds. It makes me mad.
So today, as I was mowing, spreading lawn food, watering my back plants, and then throwing away the little plastic pots from some callies I just planted out front (I'll take some pics of them tomorrow. GOR-geous!!!), I saw one of my little bachelor buttons. One that I supposed had experienced plant death.
And the dang thing hasn't died. Well, most of it has died. But it has a little bit of new growth and even a bloom:
Sorry; it's hard to see the plant with all the stupid ivy and weeds crawling all around back there. But the point is, this plant has risen from the ashes. When I thought it was done for.
When I saw this plant, I got all Glen Rawson-ey. For those of you who don't know, there's this dude named Glen Rawson. He is kind of a modern parable-writer, really. He sees these situations in his life, and he goes, "This compares to the gospel..." and then explains the correlation. And, um....well, I'm not a big fan of him. Which is really bad of me. I mean, here he is, talking about the gospel, which, obviously, I LOVE. And making really great comparisons. I guess it's his delivery that kind of gets to me. It strikes me as being really cheesy. I have a very, very low tolerance to cheesiness. So it's hard for me to listen when his stuff comes on the local radio station's Sounds of Sunday program. It's actually just hard for me to listen to Sounds of Sunday, period. Because a lot of songs on there can be cheesy, too. Just give me hymns, and I'm good.
Sorry; I'm irreverent. It's an issue. I'm working on it.
So back to my story. I waxed Glen Rawson-ey for a moment. And I thought about my situation. I've had a helluva hard week. One of those I-want-to-wilt-and-turn-grey-and-lie-down-and-experience-plant-death weeks. But if this little guy can withstand all that I've put him through and still bloom, I can go through the things I'm going through and still bloom. I can thrust my roots into this nasty clayish soil I'm in right now and just hang on and push through and emerge more spiritually beautiful.
I know, cheesy right? I'd make Glen proud. And Nicholas Sparks. He's cheesy, too. I'm just sayin'.
Kay. So I had these flowers called bachelor buttons in one of my front flower beds. I was initially tickled with them - they were sooo hardy. And they grew at an astronomical rate. And they looked cool and were a cool color when they bloomed. But then I got upset with them, because they grew too tall and covered everything behind them. And then they started to choke out all the other plants. They were driving me nuts.
So I took them out. I had plans to put them into the back flower bed. But then my elderly neighbor came and talked to me for like seventeen hours. And the plants lay there on their sides, totally wilting in the hot son.
To add to the indignity, I planted them in very inhospitable soil. Very clayish and hard. Nothing much is able to grow back there. I should have mixed some potting soil in with the clay. I should have given them a little haircut, too. But I was out of potting soil, and by the time my neighbor stopped talking to me, sunlight was fading fast and I had to just hurry and dig holes, stick them in, fill in the holes, and get my butt inside. I also should have immediately watered them, but I didn't. Too late. Too busy.
"If they die, oh well," I thought. And they look HORRIBLE. I still need to trim them down quite a bit. They have wilted and died. They have, as my dandelion weed killer bottle says, "experienced plant death." And I was okay with it. I don't like plants that behave like weeds. It makes me mad.
So today, as I was mowing, spreading lawn food, watering my back plants, and then throwing away the little plastic pots from some callies I just planted out front (I'll take some pics of them tomorrow. GOR-geous!!!), I saw one of my little bachelor buttons. One that I supposed had experienced plant death.
And the dang thing hasn't died. Well, most of it has died. But it has a little bit of new growth and even a bloom:
When I saw this plant, I got all Glen Rawson-ey. For those of you who don't know, there's this dude named Glen Rawson. He is kind of a modern parable-writer, really. He sees these situations in his life, and he goes, "This compares to the gospel..." and then explains the correlation. And, um....well, I'm not a big fan of him. Which is really bad of me. I mean, here he is, talking about the gospel, which, obviously, I LOVE. And making really great comparisons. I guess it's his delivery that kind of gets to me. It strikes me as being really cheesy. I have a very, very low tolerance to cheesiness. So it's hard for me to listen when his stuff comes on the local radio station's Sounds of Sunday program. It's actually just hard for me to listen to Sounds of Sunday, period. Because a lot of songs on there can be cheesy, too. Just give me hymns, and I'm good.
Sorry; I'm irreverent. It's an issue. I'm working on it.
So back to my story. I waxed Glen Rawson-ey for a moment. And I thought about my situation. I've had a helluva hard week. One of those I-want-to-wilt-and-turn-grey-and-lie-down-and-experience-plant-death weeks. But if this little guy can withstand all that I've put him through and still bloom, I can go through the things I'm going through and still bloom. I can thrust my roots into this nasty clayish soil I'm in right now and just hang on and push through and emerge more spiritually beautiful.
I know, cheesy right? I'd make Glen proud. And Nicholas Sparks. He's cheesy, too. I'm just sayin'.
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