Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Quick Takes


1

Er, Tuesday. Moving right along...

2

Jesus was fully God and fully man, so obviously he had a fully-functioning digestive tract. Yep, guess where this is going...  Something tells me that Iain might be among the first to delve into this particular dimension of Christology, without a hint of disrespect. He just headed for the bathroom chanting, “we are going to the Potty of Christ.”

3

To cure the “I have nothing to wear” disease, I’m thinking of creating my own Look Book by taking pictures of each of my wearable outfits. I guess that reveals that I don’t have many outfits. I’m okay with that, especially since I’m in a balloon-up-’n-down family-growing season of life. But seriously, when I’m drawing a blank I could look through the pictures, pick something, throw it on and run out the door to whatever event I would’ve otherwise been 20 min late to. It would also enable my husband to give an opinion when I desperately plead “what should I wear?”

4

I love to sing. I was in choir from 5th-12th grade. I’m humble enough to know that I don’t have a stellar voice, and being twelve years out of practice has taken its toll. However, it wasn’t until Mark and I decided to do simple recordings of our favorite Advent songs that I fully realized that I have a vocal range of only about 8 notes, with an ideal range of maybe 4 notes. On top of that, my vocal control and ability to find and stay on pitch are all but gone. It was a depressing revelation, but it has also prompted me to sing more, hoping that I might retrain this warbley little voice of mine.

5

Iain loves being involved in the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd program at our parish. We were out of town for the orientation, so I’m pretty clueless about what goes on in the Atrium. I get little glimpses during the course of daily life: “Mom, that angel’s name is Gabriel!” or he’ll sing lines from a song he’s learned.  Today’s glimpse was prompted by the Christmas song “Mary, Did You Know” which I can almost guarantee they haven’t sung at Atrium. He stopped singing mid-verse to ask me, “What are the actions for this song?”
Glad to know that he’s internalized that every song has actions.

6

Speaking of “Mary Did You Know” here’s an awesome Star Wars spoof on it:



7


On a different note altogether, fellow parents, I have a question: What non-corporal forms of discipline do you find effective for getting-out-of-bed and don't-want-to-clean-up types of infractions when the "go to your room/time out" is not an option because a) they're supposed to be in their room or b) that would let them off the hook from cleaning up.

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4 comments:

Nancy said...

Loved reading your ramblings. My second child never responded to any negative consequence. It drove me crazy. I had to put a ton of energy into thinking of positive rewards to help mold him. It was exhausting. My other son was easily guided by negative consequences. Making them sit on the steps worked better than other spots in the house because they could still see what was going on. I would put favorite toys away on top of the refrigerator and I had one other trick but I'll have to tell you that one in person. Merry Christmas!

Anna Ray said...

Honestly for the staying in bed, when they are little I stayed with them until they fell asleep, & when bigger we do things like 1 get out of bed pass or if you stay in bed 10 minutes then mom will come cuddle for 10 minutes. Often they r asleep before I come back. For picking up I usually try to make sure they are not tired or just overwhelmed by the amount, but when they are just being lazy for little kids I say you can do it yourself or mom will help you do it & then take their hand in mine & with their hand pick up item after item with them. Usually desire for autonomy kicks in for the 2-3 year old & they do it themselves. For older kids the items are confiscated & they only earn them back by showing responsible cleaning for a set amount of time. This really keeps the amount if toys down & you discover which ones your kids actually care about. Hope that helps :)

Anna Ray said...

Oh & counting always seemed to help with clean up. If I said okay clean up before I get to 100 & counted out loud they would move & even now I frequently set timers for the big kids. Not sure why it works but for my kids it does :) Racing games help with laundry too. They race to see if they can put it away faster than I can fold it!

Hannah said...

Betsy, you really should keep writing often! It's nice to know what's going on with you and your family:) To answer your question, we would have a simple, consistent bedtime routine and then, well, we did promise a spanking if they got out of bed after that. But that was only at the very beginning of being transferred from the crib. After that, they were convinced that getting out was not an option, and they just never did. For cleaning up, we've tried lots of things over the years, and they still don't really want to do it! But, making it fun seems to work the best...we've counted to 100 as well (and now they really know their numbers), we've had each of them pick up a certain number of toys, we've put a bowl of candy on the table and said every time they pick up 10 things they can have piece, we've set a timer to see how many things they can pick up before it goes off, we've made a chart and every time they pick up a certain amount they can make a mark by their name...but have we punished if they haven't cleaned up? For awhile we had a bin that we tossed things in if they weren't picked up in a timely manner (they had to pay or do a good deed to get them out), we've had them pick up someone else's things as well as theirs if they were being slow or grumpy, we too have had them sit on the steps if they couldn't clean up happily. Well, that's alot...but we'd do each thing for a period of time, until it got old and uninspiring, and then we'd switch. And now, we rotate through a different one every day, it seems...:)