AP Moment of the day~ Get out, get out, GET OUT!!!!

Or, what to do when the weather finally gets above freezing! :D

It was above freezing, in fact it was in the 40's today, for the first time in a month I'm sure. We have been cooped up now for what feels like MONTHS and today was the first time we've been out in a while! It was like getting out of prison (I imagine!!! ... I don't have first hand experience of that!!) the sun was so bright! The air smelled so good!! The sky was so blue, the birds sang so sweetly!!! We spent the first few minutes blinking in the bright light and looking about us like transplanted Moles... hauled out of our dark and musty depths and thrust out into the open and the crisp, clean air!! We stared about us as we walked! We splashed in the puddles left by swiftly melting snow. We made up Haiku on the fly and I honestly FELT smarter as we strolled!!! We identified birds, we counted trees, wings on birds, legs on dogs, hands on sisters...! We read STOP signs and house numbers, we named colours .... in short we shook out the cobwebs of our minds and took one giant stride towards spring!! :D I LOVE Nebraska for it's spring~ in ~the~ middle~ of~ winter~ness!! You don't get that everywhere and it was JUST what we needed!! :D

Tomorrow's forecast..... SNOW!! :D ( not really! I have no idea what the forecast is! ;D )

Little kids say some funny things!

I LOVE the way Jack talks. Jessie used to say some cute things too. She would say "A way a guis a wah woos " for I want a drink of water!!! I don't think I'll ever forget that!

Jack says "Sassoo" for Lasso, he says "Nam~nam" for hammer and "Foo fipher" for screwdriver!! I LOVE it!!! I'm always telling him "Say Lasso!!! Say Hammer!! Say Screwdriver!!!" LOL!! He's so obliging!! He'll always say them for me!! And he giggles too.. he knows it sounds funny! But I don't correct him!!! I don't want him to say it "right" !! I want him to say it his way! I LOVE it!! :D

Other Jackisms as I think of them....

"Fee fee" TV
"Boonan" Brecon ( our dog!)
"Burbil" Gerbil!
"Wats" rats
"Schoop" soup
"Peee yo" pillow
"Gicky" sticky
"Heffy" heavy
"Big an stwoooong" Big and strong
" up an ears" up stairs
" down a nears" down stairs
"Wuh one" that one
"Up a down" upside down
"doin up" ( actually this sounds more like "door knob" ) means "Going up" or pick me up!
"Yey yeee" or these days "She' shee" Jessie


Also...!! "BOWN it!" for Found It!
"Gikken" for chicken
"mawl" for Small

I may add some more to this list... I hate that his speech is improving!!! It means I'm going to forget how he used to say things!!! It's sad when they grow up... exciting, but sad too.... "}

AP Moment of the day ~ Making chores FUN! :D

I'm an eeejit! ;D All these years I've been cleaning my floors the old fashioned way.... hands and knees, scrubbing away with my bottle of vinegar solution and paper towels... woe is me....!! ;D Actually the kitchen is about 2 foot square, so it's not all that much of a toughie, but still, the key part here is I have been doing it!!! Twerp! :D I finally let go and let the kids have a turn!!! I had them put on their swimsuits and socks, filled a tub with hot soapy water, gave them a couple of small towels and let them have at it!!!! Who knew cleaning the floor could be such a treat!!! They were giggling and laughing!! Sliding around the floor and swimming across it on their bellies..... Never again.. well... ok, not for some time will I clean the floor the old fashioned way again! ;D I imagine I might have a hard time getting them to do it this way when they are in their 20's, but hey, who knows!! ;D The floor looks sparkly clean, the kids got exercise, had fun, kept busy, worked as a team and giggled...!! Win Win Win! ;D

AP Moment of the day ~ Amazing...!

You may or may not have picked up the hint that I am quite keen on the latest book we are reading on our booklist, Parents Please Don't Sit On Your Kids, by Clare Cherry. I was reading more of it at the dinner table tonight ( a treat Jessie, Jack and I indulge in when Daddy isn't home for dinner! ) and came across an interesting little chapter. The author suggests using gerunds, which are nouns, created from verbs. These words always end in "ing" and are used as gentle reminders for children. !! I was intrigued and read on.... The words she uses are those such as "Waiting", "Not touching", "Walking" and so on. I really thought the woman was a kook. Jack was at the table and had basically given up on dinner. I looked at him and said "Jack, Eating!" ..... and wouldn't you know it, he picked up his fork and ate right away!! Hmmm... a fluke, thinks I, but I vowed to try again soon. Well, after dinner it was time to go up to bed. I needed Jack to help carry some things up the stairs but he had a whistle in his hand and refused to put it away until morning. I said "Jack, Putting away!" .. and he went and did it!!!!! Immediately!!!! I don't know what this magic is, but it WORKS!!! I said to him "Carrying!" and he picked the stuff off the stairs and hauled it up, no questions!!!! :D

Gerunds. Mother's little helpers!! ;D

AP Moment of the day~ Doing it their way! :D

I had a talk with hubby last night and it emerged that much of my stress is in my head alone. I always tend to get stressed by thinking hubby would be annoyed by the behaviour or actions of the children, so in order to prevent him being annoyed, I yell at the kids instead!! This yelling, it turns out, is more annoying to hubby than the behaviour of the children! AND he expects the children to be children, he is charmed by our daughters snarky attitude and wiseacre comments. He is amused by her free thinking~ness and also amused by Jack's "curiosity" and boy~ness!!! Hmmm. All this time I was running around like a headless chicken trying to stop them being themselves so that Daddy wouldn't be annoyed.... and a) that was more annoying and b) he wasn't bothered at all!! :D

SOOO today we tried things a bit differently! :D I tried to stay very laissez faire about everything. I told Jessie she didn't have to ask permission for so many things any more. She knows the way things are here and she knows the way I feel about things. She should feel free in her own house to get a drink, get snacks, leave the room (I'm kidding!) without asking permission. She asked if she could have some gum. I HATE gum. She knows this! :D We have some gum that is all natural and I don't mind that... it's supposed to be actually GOOD for her teeth and I was seen chewing some, so I knew she'd want some too.... OK, the new way...
"You don't have to ask me any more, Beans. If you want some, get some!!!"
She looks confused.
"If you want some gum, please just help yourself. Only ask me permission for things that are more serious...."

**blink blink**

" sooooo...... can I have TWO pieces!?!??!" she asks!!!!!!!!!!!! GAH!!! This is going to be harder than I thought, but for BOTH of us!! LOL!!

Later in the day I noticed Jack opening the cupboard under the sink and taking out the furniture spray polish. He was muttering to himself and I heard him say "Cweeeening"!!! Uh oh. This gets messy!!! I leaped up and asked him if he was going to help me clean!!! He proudly said YES!! so I offered him my feather duster!!! What kid could resist a feather duster!! ( Yes, it has purple feathers if you were wondering!!) so he happily dusted for some time... but the call of the spray polish proved to be too much, so I handed him the dust rag, showed him how to spray the can and took him to a VERY DIRTY wooden table!! 'D Have at it, kiddo!!! ;D Looks like I can go with Jack's flow pretty easily!! :D

At this point I do have to brag.

Ahem.

Today I had a migraine headache which was getting steadily worse and I was fresh out of Excedrin Migraine. ( the stuff rocks!! ) I held out as long as I could but even Jessie could see I was in a bad way. "You ought to go to bed" she offered!! Bless her!!

Jessie had spent the day studying China. She decided she wanted to be able to write Chinese, and so went off from there! : D She had chosen to have Sushi for dinner. I put the rice cooker on, laid out a packet of tuna and some Mache greens.....and I headed up to bed!!! Jessie and Jack made dinner themselves!!!! I came down as they were getting it ready and I offered to help but it was unnecessary! They had it covered! ;D Jack had a new "recipeeeeeeee" he wanted to try and so I put his stuff in bowls on the floor and let him have at it! He added salt, pepper and Dorothy Lynch dressing to his meal and apparently it was darn tasty!! They did such a great job today of letting me sleep and of taking care of things.... There was no yelling, everyone was well behaved and I made sure to talk to them kindly and respectfully rather than bossing them about like minions!! It worked well !!!

(This has mostly arisen from the latest chapter in "Parents Please Don't Sit On Your Kids" where the author points out that we speak terribly to children but we speak kindly to strangers!)

We'll see how tomorrow goes!! :D

AP Moment of the weekend!

Or rather, Jack is a nightmare in hotels...especially this one!! :D

We had a lovely and fun weekend with our friends despite the 10 hours of driving it involved! :D
We stayed ( in the -13 degree temps I might add) at a hotel with a pool, hot tub and sauna! It was raaahter chilly though and the windows got icy on the inside! The kids all thought it was a hoot to put their handprints in the ice... nuts!!

Anyway, I really had to put my parenting hat on a lot of the time this weekend. Jack is renowned for running off in this hotel. He can get out the room in a flash. Literally we were all standing in the room and he **POOF** was gone. He'd gone so fast that when we, seconds later, looked out of the door neither hubby or I could tell which way he had run to, so we both had to fly off in opposite directions and catch him. He laughs and giggles the whole time he is running.. he really enjoys the chase and having spent 5 hours sitting in the car and being a really good boy, I'm not surprised he needed to get his energy out a little. We let him run. We'd call him back and run away from him so he would chase US, then he'd turn and run away and we'd chase HIM... we all got lots of exercise!! :D

Another event occurred which tested my parenting skills and I came up with the goods!!! Jack was bound and determined to putz with the heater in the room. He wanted to mess with the controls and turn up and down the heat etc.... with it being as cold out as it was I wasn't going to allow ANY messing about with our one heat source!! Realising that to tell a child "Don't" do something is basically telling them "Think about nothing else until you can't help but do the thing you were just told to not do..." I instead told him... "TOUCH THE CHAIR!!" ....so there he sat!! Looking intently at the heater... and reaching out to touch the chair!!!! I was so proud!!! :D

Baby steps, people. Baby steps.!!!