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...

christmas eve

christmas eve is probably my favorite church service of the year. our sanctuary is gorgeous with the trees and the poinsettias, with ALL 4 advent candles lit AND the christ candle in the middle… it probably helps that this is the church I grew up in and I remember waiting for all that stuff as the season progressed, and how exciting it always was when it FINALLY got there. And then there is the music. growing up as the kid of the organist, who did christmas eve “right”, I have high standards. we MUST start with “oh come, all ye faithful”, and we MUST end with “joy to the world”. the church is always packed, so the organ is played at full blast, with all the extra bells and whistles. it is unbelievably awesome. deanna, our new organist, does not disappoint. the music is always wonderful. near the end (right before ‘joy to the world’), we always turn the lights down and sing “silent night” by candlelight. I don’t know what it is, but I have NEVER made it through that without tearing up. ...
1 comment
read more »

Piano Concerto #2 In C Minor, Op. 18 - Adagio

I got tagged by Mary so here it is. Let's see what your music has to say about you... Here are the rules: 1. Put your iTunes on shuffle. 2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer 3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS 1) IF SOMEONE SAYS "IS THIS OKAY" YOU SAY? My Dreydel - Raffi 2) WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY? Slip Away - The Commitments 3) WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL? Sweet Talkin' Woman - Five Iron Frenzy 4) HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY? Nocturne #20 in C sharp minor - Chopin 5) WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE? Haru Ga Kita - Raffi 6) WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO? My Style - Black Eyed Peas 7) WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU? Swinging on a Star - Frank Sinatra 8) WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN? Undignified - David Crowder Band 9) WHAT IS 2+2? Shake My Sillies Out - Raffi 10) WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND? Five Little Pumpkins - Raffi 11) WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE P...
2 comments
read more »

random diaper musings

do you ever feel at odds with yourself? i constantly feel like i'm a big wad of contradictions. and being the living-in-my-head, overthinking type i can spend years, i mean hours pondering things. it can really get me down. example: diapers. one would think that this was a relatively easy thing to handle. i've got 3 kids. i'm pretty familiar with diapers. it seems so simple; your baby needs a change so you take the old diaper off and put a new one on. done. right? no. i have this constant dilemma going on. cloth or disposable. i have 25 perfectly good fitted cloth diapers that i paid a lot of money for when i decided a couple years ago that i was done filling up landfills. so micah wears them a good share of the time. but it bugs me that they're so bulky, especially with the covers on and clothes fit funny and that totally drives me nuts. so at home, he just wears the diaper w/ no cover and when we leave the house, i put a disposable on him. not usually...
6 comments
read more »

revisiting the 2010 bucket list

a month or so ago, i posted the beginnings of my ‘to-do’ list for 2010. i’m totally stealing this from kate and debbie, but it’s a good idea.  i had a good start of 6 items… but i know there’s way more i want to add to it. spin my own yarn spend more time in nature. read all of jane austen’s books. can my own veggies/fruits acquire a sewing machine re-learn to play the piano exercise regularly (more days of the week than not – really!) finish reading the entire bible make an effort to spend time individually with each of my children mellow out philosophically (if you don’t know what that means, just read a few of my posts and you’ll likely find some crazed post where i’m ranting about my strong disagreement about something generally accepted by the status quo) beat myself up less (again, just read a few posts) take better care of the dog. she’s 13 now and i need to make the most of the years i have left with her. (okay, this one i...
1 comment
read more »

how to make a bad situation worse:

around 7:30 on thursday evening, we had a situation like this: not a good scenario. about 2 hours later, we were in this situation: awesome, right? so how do we get from point A to point B? like this: see the awesome metal ‘edge of death’ on that bowl? yeah. that’s the weapon. in my effort to speedily get the bowl under layla’s face, I actually HIT her in the face with it, and the edge SLICED her upper lip open. yup. right open. it was NOT awesome. I freaked out, of course. she’s still in the middle of feeling terrible. dave was not home yet from a meeting. yeah. mom is majorly freaking out. fortunately, dave walked in the door just as I was sending the “GET HOME NOW!” text. it wasn’t really bleeding a ton, but it was obvious that this was not a band-aid situation. so I called my dad to come and stay with the boys while we took her in to the ER. it’s very nice to have an older kid, so we didn’t have to wait for him to get there before we could leave. but not knowing how long it...
1 comment
read more »