Skip to main content

confessions of a slacker mom–episode 2

ugh. this morning was significantly less great than friday.

layla was up in plenty of time today. slept in her clothes again, so at least that was done. after a little bit of groggy couch-sitting time, she told me she was hungry. I said to do her other chores and then she could have breakfast. she had a fit.

then I caught her in the kitchen rearranging her chore cards and I had to inform her that she was not allowed to do that. I put them in the order I want her to do them in and she needed to leave them alone. she had a fit.

she then sat on the couch and got out her leapster, which she proceeded to play. I started second-guessing myself and decided I needed to get bossy and MAKE her get ready.

I took her leapster and told her to get moving on her chores. she had a fit and cried and told me she wished there was no such thing as chores and said that all of her chores, except eating breakfast, were too hard. (you know, highly technical and complicated tasks like brushing her teeth, making her bed, and

I said, ‘oh well’ and continued helping micah get ready.

she sat on the couch until I told her to get her shoes on because it was time to leave for the bus.

she put her shoes and coat on and we walked out the door.

she trudged the whole way to the bus stop, but we made it on time. she did give me an extra long hug before she got on, but was smiling as she waved as the bus was pulling away.

so…

I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing here. it’s not the fact that she’s going to school w/ her hair a mess and no breakfast that I’m questioning. it’s the fact that I’m ‘letting’ her get away with not doing her chores. I’m allowing her to sit on the couch or do whatever she darn well pleases in the mornings. sure, she’s not earning the perks that go along with completing chores, and she’s going to school hungry… but I don’t know if that’s really going to motivate her, or if it’s just giving her what she wants, which is to not have to take responsibility for the things she’s supposed to take responsibility for. she has other opportunities to complete different chores in the afternoon and evening, and she’s not exactly a big eater, so food has never been a big motivator for her…

should I continue with this? or should I get mean and ‘make’ her do it, regardless of the unpleasantness that will inevitably accompany it?

maybe I need to step it up and make the consequence for not doing anything in the morning steeper…

Comments

  1. Angie H-PApril 25, 2011 at 8:21 PM

    I'd love to hear how you resolve this issue of getting your kids to be motivated to do their chores without being reminded. Right now I'm letting lily decide when she does the homework she gets on Monday that's due the following monday, and so far she's chosen to do it on Sunday afternoon, which is not what I wanted. But I don't want to nag all the time either. So I'm all ears to any suggestions anyone gives on this.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

all comments are moderated. unkind comments will be deleted.

you may like...

Road Trip Day 6

Yesterday was our last full day in Milwaukee. Shane arrived in the morning, but promptly went to bed and slept most of the day, since he had caught a flight at midnight to get out here. Matt took the kids fishing for a little while in the afternoon. Layla caught 1, Lauren caught 1, and Micah caught 4. They also did a little canoeing. Then there was some swimming, where Lauren, Madeline, Micah, and Layla were all trying to flip Dave out of his donut floatie. It took them like 20 minutes and was pretty funny to watch. Also, his toenails were stupid-long and some kids got mauled. Later Melissa, Doug, and Josh came over. We played corn hole, basketball, badminton, and an epically terrible game of kickball at the park. Until Josh kicked the ball over the fence and lost it. Good times. We brought Matt some Woodinville Whiskey from home. And then we impressed everybody with our $2 Harbor Freight tennis racket bug zapper. And Simon decided that Shane was a good enough human. License plate stat...
Post a Comment
read more »

Road Trip Day 8

We've been a full week on the road now. 2 more to go. We started our Sunday in church at St. Paul's, where Dave worked (and the reason we ever lived here in the first place) from 2004-2006. Then it was lunch at Hill's, a bit more driving around, and discussions of various places (the fairgrounds, the bridge that got blown up, etc.). Then we went to visit Fred and Brenda, and wound up riding around on 4 wheelers all afternoon. Then, back to Danny's for steak dinner - so yummy! And then over to the Lange's for some puppy time! And we finished off with soft serve in a baseball helmet at Frosty Boy. It was a great day. So awesome to see so many friends and visit important places. License plate and state stats are the same as yesterday.
Post a Comment
read more »

week 46 in pictures

sunday: when dave went in to wake up layla, this is how he found her. face, essentially, smooshed between the bunk bed rail and the mattress, and the covers pulled up over her head. monday: roscoe, chilling on the pooh couch. dakota figured out how to get it to open up to make a nice little doggy bed. roscoe just took advantage when it was vacated. tuesday: my 2 pages of allergy test results . the red ones have to go! wednesday: micah fell asleep during quiet time, snuggling a domino. he had been pretending it was a phone or a video game and insisted on taking it in with him for quiet time. thursday: the missing lug nut . friday: crazy busy day. kids had half days at school because of conferences. I has my workout in the morning, then came home and tidied up because tina was coming over at 11:30 to cut my hair, shane’s hair, and my mom’s hair. I even went to the bus stop w/ part of my hair clipped up because she wasn’t done drying it! then I had to run off to do back-to-back ...
Post a Comment
read more »

how to cook a turkey–by layla, age 6

“you get the turkey from the wild, where the wild turkeys are. you catch it with a net. to prepare it, you cut off the legs and the bones, and the beak and the eyes, too. you can stuff it with stuffing that is made of chicken. then, you put it in a big pan and stick it in the oven. you cook it at 4 to 5 degrees for 11 minutes. then you serve it by taking it out of the oven, cutting it up a little, and putting some spices on it. then you put it on plates and people can dish up all the other food, too.”
Post a Comment
read more »

Road Trip Day 11

Happy 13th birthday, Layla! We woke up to another hot day, after a hot night. We left our trailer at the campground and headed into town to visit the Louisville Slugger museum. We were all pretty excited about this. That's Micah at the bottom of the bat. It's gigantic!Inside, we the guided tour and saw them making all the bats and learned all about that process. You're not allowed to take pictures in that part, but there's plenty else to do outside of that part, and we took pictures of all that. I got my picture with Ken Griffey, Jr. (sort of), Micah practiced his pitching, and we all got to hold the actual bats of current or former major leaguers. I went for Edgar Martinez's bat, Shane did Ken Griffey, Jr's, Dave and Micah both held Willie McCovey's, and Layla went for Evan Longoria's.Our official report on this one: Do it. Totally worth it. We then went back to camp, ate some lunch, shut down the trailer, and hooked up to head to our next destination,...
Post a Comment
read more »