Skip to main content

confessions of a slacker mom… episode 1

so… you may have gathered that things aren’t going so great around here. my little rant yesterday elicited a LOT of advice. mostly good advice that I probably needed to hear.

and so I have channeled my inner nazi-mom, and laid down the law on my flighty, flakey, head-in-the-clouds, getting-quite-defiant middle child.

the problem:

mornings, bedtimes, and general routine is tough for her.

the solution:

last night, layla fiddled around a dinner time. she refused to drink her milk ( a BIG issue with her), and so she was excused from the table to go get ready for bed. this basically ends the night for her, and eliminates her right to complete any of her evening chores and thus earn a ticket (tickets are earned by completing all of a set of chores – morning, afternoon, or evening). tickets are good for stuff like tv shows, computer games, video games, going to a friend’s house, etc. I told her to chose the clothes she was going to wear to school the next day and put those on. the rest of us finished dinner and cleaned it up. then I went to check on layla, who was wandering aimlessly around her bedroom, humming, still in her clothes (this is a good 15 minutes later). I proceeded to remove her clothes, and put the other clothes that she had chosen ON her. she was not thrilled. I informed her that by not doing as she was told to do, she had lost her bedtime stuff (story, snuggling, tucking in), and sent her to the bathroom to brush her teeth and go potty. she was VERY upset and insisted that she would NOT go to sleep because of it. but she got in bed, I told her goodnight, and left. she did, contrary to her prediction, go to sleep.

this morning, she woke up on her own around 7:15. we have to leave for the bus at 8:25, so if she hadn’t been up already, I would have woke her at 7:25. after a few groggy minutes, she decided she needed to go to the bathroom, and when she came out, she said she wanted breakfast. I informed her that breakfast had been moved to when she was done with everything else she needs to do before school, except brush her teeth. layla’s morning chores are not outrageous. she needs to get dressed (which was fortunately already done), feed the dog, make her bed, have her hair done, eat, and brush her teeth. SHE WAS FURIOUS! she stomped off to her room and insisted she wasn’t going to do it. I went about my business of getting micah ready. when I was in their room getting him dressed, she revealed herself in the closet. I informed her that we would be leaving for the bus at 8:25 whether she was ready or not. she gave no indication of even hearing me, and I went about my business of helping micah make his bed and brush his teeth. when his morning chores were completed, I gave him his ticket and told him he could play. layla came out of her room and sat down at her desk and grabbed a marker (something she knows she’s not supposed to do in the morning). she looked at me and I looked back. she told me she wanted to make a big heart on a piece of paper. I informed her that it was 7:55 and we were leaving for the bus in half an hour. she verbally agonized for the next 5 minutes over whether or not she should make the heart, which she eventually did, and I ignored her. I sent a preemptive email to her teacher, explaining that it was likely that layla would be arriving at school for a few days, looking disheveled and without breakfast. I explained why (her teacher knows ALL about layla’s tendencies in this department), and begged her not to call CPS on me. I then went and did some other things I needed to do, while layla cut hearts out of paper. at 8:15, I fed the dog. at 8:20, I announced that it was time to put shoes on and get ready to leave. layla said she was hungry. I told her that eating breakfast would solve that problem and it was too bad she chose not to do it. I helped micah with his shoes and coat, she put hers on and grabbed her backpack. we walked out the door at exactly 8:25, with no tears, no yelling, no breakfast, and bed head. we made it to the bus in plenty of time, and layla was happy as a clam.

SO… was this a success? I have no idea.

tomorrow morning there is t-ball. we forgot her practice on monday night and she was VERY upset. I’m hoping that getting to the game will be motivation enough for her to get it in gear tomorrow morning. we’ll see.

as far as next week goes, I guess I’ll continue with this pattern. it is my hope that being hungry and not earning her tickets will motivate her to actually DO what she needs to do without me prodding her constantly.

I suppose we’ll have to wait and see.

Comments

  1. Count the victories-no tears, no yelling! Hopefully the grumbling tummy will motivate her to eat breakfast tomorrow, but all in all it sounds like a Rachel-1, Layla-0 :) Good luck! (again, this is christie!) You'll get a great routine going just to have it broken while you're in Florida! :)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

all comments are moderated. unkind comments will be deleted.

you may like...

fillet of sole

so i sat micah at the table today to eat his lunch.  he had a plate of food, a fork to eat it with, he was buckled into his seat, and had shoes on his feet.  i left the room and came back to find him out of his chair, done with his food, and this scene:    want a closer look?  i know you do…     yes, that’s a fork IN the shoe.           have i mentioned he’s a total houdini?  the straps are still buckled and it’s impossible to get them tight enough to keep him in.  but i’m loving that he left a shoe behind.  it’s so cinderella. i’m kind of thinking at this point that i should maybe look inside the shoe, just to be sure he didn’t stash any of his lunch in there. i’ve said it before, i never claimed to have normal kids. at least he ate…

for my not-so-american friends

i didn't have an actual roll w/ the green plaid on it, but i found a refill and an empty roll in my junk drawer (yeah, i know, that should tell me something).  but even the empty one says 'scotch' on it.  there you go!  SCOTCH TAPE!

does home ec even exist anymore?

my last post got me thinking about how i somehow missed 'learning' all of those things which are essential in running a successful home. i'm wondering who dropped the ball on this (because, i can't possibly take responsibility for my own shortcomings here). i guess traditionally, one learns these things from their parents. i suppose i did learn a lot of my domestic skills at home. for example, the husband is supposed to eat the leftovers in the fridge. when making a bed, the 'top' of the top sheet goes down so that when you fold the edge over the blanket, the 'top' side is then up. why this matters when you are just going to cover the whole thing with a pillow and comforter is totally beyond me. but that's how you do it. so yes, my mother taught me how to iron, do laundry, clean a toilet, etc. my dad taught me how to plant a garden, mow a lawn, appreciate baseball, etc. and then there's home ec. do people still take home ec? i took it

i’m sure i will offend all sorts people with this…

… but i just don’t get why the entire world is so torn up about the death of michael jackson. yes, he had an insanely successful career as a singer/entertainer/pop star. yes, he took a lot of that to a whole new level. yes, i remember thriller and doing the moonwalk. yes, i remember wanting one of those red leather jackets, and one of those sparkly white gloves. however… i’m also wondering why everyone else is seeming to forget how he bleached his skin (and then had a big hit stating that it doesn’t matter if you’re black or white… always wondered about that one), underwent so much plastic surgery that he barely looked human anymore, made crotch-grabbing an acceptable dance move, hung his kid over a balcony, showed up for court in his pajamas, and, oh yeah, was accused of child molestation HOW MANY TIMES??? this was a VERY disturbed man. i have never understood why being a celebrity excuses people from upholding the same morals and standards that we expect of normal people. i w

blessed with good oral health!

well, i made it another 6 months with no cavities! i had a dentist appointment today. my second in six months, but prior to that, i don’t think i’d been in 4+ years. oops. i was much less nervous for this appointment than i was for the last one. last time i figured my luck had run out and because i’d been bad about seeing the dentist, this time i’d really ‘pay’ for it. but no. other than a little excessive scraping of tartar (4 years’ worth), everything was fine. around the time i turned 20, i pretty much assumed, every time i went to the dentist, that this was finally my time for a cavity. i mean, how long really, can one person go without ANY cavities? well, now i’m kind of over that and figure that maybe my teeth are just impenetrable or something. at any rate, every time the dentist comes in at the end of my cleaning, pokes around for a minute and tells me my teeth look great, i breathe a sigh of relief and feel tremendous gratitude for my good teeth. the no cavities thing is only