My baby is going to school

We've been trying to be a little more creative in our parenting with Tori as she's journeying into a new phase of her life. She's about to start Kindergarten here in a week and a half and I'm just amazed at how ready she is, and how ready I'm not. I thought I'd include this picture of Tori's writing on a post it note for me after a long day of her bad choices and hard consequences. Talk about a little girl who is thinking a lot. The note says, "How can I help to be a better kid?" Can you believe that? Yesterday after I grounded her for throwing Daddy's shoe at our cat five times, she wrote in her journal, "I wish my Mom was a better Mom." Can you believe that? Initial thought was, "Well, that was rude." And then I realized, Wow, she is communicating really well, telling me how she feels. So we had the opportunity to talk about good parents and bad parents and how if I were a bad mom, I wouldn't do anything, and give her no consequences. I gave her the opportunity to choose between consequences, 1.) Get grounded for the "whole day" (about 6 hours in her room with books) or 2.) Give the cat away. Her response: "Can I come out for dinner?" Poor girl. Some might think it was a harsh punishment, but she had been warned before, and she knew better, and she did it with a horrible look on her face (I was spying on her, so I saw), and I was worried for the life of our cat! Anyway, so she is definitely growing up, I'm well pleased. My baby is growing up!

The Question Has Now Been Answered

I've learned after 7 years of marriage that if you let your husband know what you want but let them make the final choice, it goes much better than if you make the choice for them. He decided not to go... maybe it was the bribe I gave him, but he decided on his own not to go. We did go to Ruth's Chris Steakhouse and it was WONDERFUL, I enjoyed the company more than the food, but the food was excellent. We just had a blast hanging out and trying to come up with stories we haven't told each other yet after 7 years :) It was refreshing, and wonderful. Forget the reunion! We've got what we need all right here with eachother :)I thought this was a cute pic of Brad.

Abbie's Birthday

I haven't posted any pictures from Abbie's birthday. I've been so bad at blogging, I apologize. I'm working 6-8 hours each day at home so needless to say when I'm not working I prefer not to be on the computer. Anyway, so we had a great time for Abbie's birthday. She got some cute Snow White stuff from her Grandma and some really fun things from her Nona and Grandpa. I bought her some new gellies and a dress and Dora Sunglasses. I'm realizing quickly that now is the time to skimp on presents, these kids don't care what they get, I think for Christmas we're going with fruitsnacks wrapped up in boxes, they'll think its the greatest thing in the world. We're going to turn off the TV starting in November and only watch movies so the kids don't get brainwashed this year by all the ads for Christmas toys. Anyway, enjoy the pictures, she's been working on her sad/grumpy faces, I thought these would be great to blog :)

Half Success

Well, I would say I'm at 50% success. Not because she only goes 50% of the time in the toilet, but because she goes about 85% of the time in the toilet, 15% of the time on the girl's closet floor on their clothes (joyous, I know). But I'd say 50% of the time because she's still going in the dish with kitty litter. I got so frustrated at one point I tried to sell her. But did you know Craigslist here doesn't allow you to sell animals on it? So lame. Anyway, today is one of those days I wish I didn't have her, she peed on the girls clothes this morning because Abbie took the dish out of the toilet, so she had no where to go and she decided Abbie's jean skirt was a great alternative. You know it wouldn't be so bad if her pee didn't stink SO BAD and take 3 washes in the washer to get out. ANYWAY, some day she will go, I just decided to give her some time, and give myself some sanity. Hopefully we'll all make it out alive.

Brad's Reunion... To Go Or Not To Go... That is the Question

So Brad's 10 Year High School Reunion is at the end of this month and Brad and I are "discussing" what we should do about going...

So we're in TX and it costs $325 a ticket to go, we'd be there for two days total. Either just Brad can go or Brad and I and we pay for a babysitter for the weekend if we could possibly find one here, or we take the kids with us, resulting in four tickets.

What Would You Do?

Keep Moving Forward

So I was just introduced to an awesome new thing called "Love and Logic". It's a program for parenting. They have books and podcasts (my favorite) and audio books and things like that to you become a better parent. I'm the first to admit that I'm not the best parent in the world and I'm constantly trying to figure out what works best for my children, like piecing together a puzzle, and right when I think I get it figured out the puzzle changes and I have to figure it out again. Anyway, this Love and Logic totally works really well and is inline with how I want to be as a parent. So last night I had a chance to put it into action...

Tori wanted to play a new game on my iphone. Its one of those where there's a ball and you have to move the phone in different directions so the ball doesn't fall into the hole and get it to the end of the maze. Anyway, so she did really well on the first one after a few tries and was very excited, but as you win, it gets harder, and she got so mad! Granted it was her bedtime, so she was tired, but she was so mad that she couldn't win the game and kept failing. So I took it away and said, "Okay, its bedtime." It was obvious that she was tired. So then she freaked out of course and Brad said, "If that's how you're going to act, then we're going to take the game off the phone and you won't be able to play with it anymore." I mean, that's totally justifyable, right? If she's going to have a tantrum over not winning a game, we should take it away, right? Well... right after Brad said that I had the thought... try what you learned with Love and Logic... which was EMPATHY. And all the sudden my viewpoint changed. I needed to use this as a lesson opportunity for Tori. So I told Brad I was going to try something different (Tori in the background screaming "No NO NO NO I want it!"

So I sat her on my lap facing me and I said "Tori, I understand that you're frustrated and you're feeling sad because you couldn't win the game. And it was hard, and I know its not fun to fail. But we have to fail in order to succeed. And you have to keep trying. What did they say on Meet the Robinsons?"

Tori: "I don't know."

Me: "Keep Moving Forward. If you were going to give up on something just cause its hard, you wouldn't be able to ride a bike, or read a book, or do anything that you have to learn how to do. You've got to fail in order to succeed, that's how we learn and win! So I want you to keep trying and don't get frustrated at yourself, just keep moving forward."

Tori: "But I hate to lose. Its not fun to fail."

Me: "That is so true, its not fun, I understand that, Mommy and Daddy fail at a lot of things (this is where its good...) Mommy and Daddy didn't get pregnant right away, but we kept on trying!!! (Brad's laughing in the background) And if we had stopped trying, you wouldn't be here! And we're going to keep trying to have more kids until we die!!! Just because we didn't succeed the first time, doesn't mean we don't try again!

So Tori is smiling right now as she is beaming of confidence and encouragement. And I of course am smiling as I think about "trying for kids" for the rest of my life and she has no idea what we're talking about, but I thought it was a funny analogy.

Anyway, I can see how empathy is important and way more constructive than anger. She definitely learned her lesson, and... so did we.

Husband 1.0

Husband 1.0
I saw this on my sister's blog who received this funny email from her sister in law, Aimie. Thanks, Aim!



Dear Tech Support,

Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 and noticed a distinct slow down in overall system performance -- particularly in the flower and jewelry applications, which operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0.

In addition, Husband 1.0 uninstalled many other valuable programs, such as Romance 9.5 and Personal Attention 6.5 and then installed undesirable programs such as NFL 5.0, NBA 3.0, and Golf Clubs 4.1.

Conversation 8.0 no longer runs, and Housecleaning 2.6 simply crashes the system.
I've tried running Nagging 5.3 to fix these problems, but to no avail.

What can I do?
Signed, Desperate

-------------------------------------

Dear Desperate:

First keep in mind, Boyfriend 5.0 is an Entertainment Package, while Husband 1.0 is an Operating System. Please enter the command: 'I Thought You Loved Me.exe' and try to download Tears 6.2 and don't forget to install the Guilt 3.0 update. If that application works as designed, Husband 1.0 should then automatically run the applications Jewelry 2.0 and Flowers 3.5.

But remember, over use of the above application can cause Husband 1.0 to default to Grumpy Silence 2.5, Happy Hour 7.0 or Beer 6.1. Beer 6.1 is a very bad program th at will download the Snoring Loudly Beta.

Whatever you do, DO NOT install Mother-in-law 1.0 (it runs a virus in the background that will eventually seize control of all your system.

Also, do not attempt to reinstall the Boyfriend 5.0 program. These are unsupported applications and will crash Husband 1.0

In summary, Husband 1.0 is a great program, but it does have limited memory and cannot learn new applications quickly. You might consider buying additional software to improve memory and performance. We recommend Food 3.0 and Hot Lingerie 7.7.

Good Luck,

Tech Support


(I thought this song was really funny and applied pretty well to the post... but it does not in any way insinuate that Brad falls under this category, he's actually quite romantic and a wonderful husband.)