Chores and Children (Originally posted April 23, 2007)

TRANSFERRED FROM LIVEJOURNAL It took all my strength and will power to drag my you-know-what out of bed this morning. I stayed up entirely too late last night watching a Hallmark movie on CBS that was based on a true story. It was sad, poignant and heartwarming all at the same time which, of course, left me in a puddle of tears. Then, because I was too worked up to rest, I washed dishes and advanced the laundry (laundry is still not done, and I forgot to start the dishwasher!!!) and didn’t get into bed until about 12:30 AM. At 2:30, Little Bit decided she was hungry again...and so back to my bed she came and I went cautiously to sleep until my alarm went off at 5:30. The next month will be really busy for us. On May 11th Hubby has another deposition for the new trial regarding the car accident back in June of ’02, on May 12th we’ve got our neighbor’s 25th wedding anniversary to go to, on May 13th we’re having Little Bit baptized, the new trial is on May 21st & 22nd, and then it looks like we’ll be moving at the end of May or beginning of June. Plus, I’m supposed to have stuff ready for a yard sale on May 5th with our neighbors! Life is a never ending thing, isn’t it? (Kind of like my laundry pile...) Kiddo has been extremely difficult lately. I realize everything he’s doing (or not doing) is totally normal for his age – and especially after just having been bumped out of the “only child” category – but sometimes I’d like to strangle him. If I were an abusive parent, he’d be hurtin’ right about now. You tell (ask, order, request...whatever) him to do something (or not to do something) and he stares blankly at you as if he A) didn’t hear a word you’ve just said; B) didn’t comprehend what you’ve just said; or C) is blatantly ignoring what you’ve just said. It’s infuriating! He’s also started to cry, at the drop of a hat, and for no apparent reason. You’ll notice him standing still in the middle of the room, with his head hung low, just silently crying! It’s a little disturbing and quite heartbreaking. You ask him what the matter is and he simply replies, “Sob...! I don’t know!” and usually includes huge, crocodile-sized tears streaming down his cheeks. These episodes usually require several minutes of trying to determine what is wrong, many kisses, hugs and reassurances, and usually end with him saying something like, “I’m OK now, Mom!” (BTW, him calling me Mom is almost as bad as me calling him Char...it just sounds wrong! I miss him calling me Mommy.) Potty training has taken a huge leap backward and it is so frustrating! He’s three now, and he can’t advance to the next class at Church until he’s potty trained. All his friends his age have advanced, and he’s still in the nursery. Granted, the age range for the nursery is 1-3 years, but still...I’m sure he wonders why his friends aren’t in the same class with him any more. We’ve started implementing a star reward system. We’ve come up with ten simple, Kiddo-sized chores:

Feed the dog

Pick up your toys

Help with the laundry or dishes

Dry diaper all day

Dry diaper all night

Poop on the potty

Tinkle on the potty

Eat all your meals

Take a bath or shower

Brush teeth AM & PM

Please notice that four of those chores have to do with potty training. Helping with the laundry or dishes simply means that he puts his clothes in the laundry basket or his sippy-cup in the sink. Feeding the dog consists of opening the dog food container and putting two scoops of dry dog food in her bowl, then telling Hubby that “Lala” needs fresh water. He also gets to give “Lala” a cookie. The rest is pretty self-explanatory. Anyway – if he does a chore listed on the board, he gets a star. If he doesn’t do a chore that’s listed on the board, he doesn’t get a star. Simple as that. If he gets 50 or more stars a week, he gets $1.00. There’s the potential for 70 stars per week and if he gets all the stars, he gets $2.00. He really likes seeing one of us draw that star on his board and if he’s being particularly difficult, he loses a star. I’m hoping that it becomes an incentive for him to do these chores automatically after he’s had some more time to get used to the system. Bedtimes are difficult. He’s not sleeping through the night right now and has a tendency to get up, walk silently into our room, and just stand by the bed and wait for one of us to wake up and notice that he’s there. It almost seems sneaky, but I know it’s not. He just wants one of us to spend some time with him. That being said, I realize that all of these difficulties stem from his needing as much attention as he can get. Little Bit really does take up a lot of our time right now because of how helpless she is. Kiddo understands – as well as can be expected for a 3-year old – that she cannot do things like he can, but he still really wants us all to himself. He hasn’t yet asked for us to send the baby back, but I fear that day is coming. Right now he has satisfied himself with simply asking us to put the baby down. Well...I guess now that I’ve written a novel – again – I should post this and get on with my day. I’m resolving, right here and now, to do one move-related chore per day so that we’re prepared for our move. We'll see how that goes - I'll keep you posted! Hope everyone is doing well! TTFN JMS