Philippians 2:14

"Do Everything without complaining or arguing!"

 What a world it would be, eh? 

(and yes, I know.. there is more to the verse.. but when you're dealing with 3 &4 year olds, there is no reason to complicate things!)

So, we've been dealing with a bit of extra attitude in our house lately. Well, maybe if I'm honest, its been going on for a while, but now there's two of them and one fairly impatient (very pregnant) momma - so change was necessary!!

Lately, its seems that every time I ask (tell) one of the girls to do something (at least anything that goes against their precious desires), I'm met with a sour face, defiant NO, storming off, completely ignoring me, or even a full out tantrum.

So, a few days ago, Marco and I were talking about how to deal with it. I simply don't have the physical strength or the energy to discipline physically at all. And since our lovely 4 year olds latest tactic was dropping to the ground like a 1 year old, well.. we had to put our thinking caps on, get on the same page, and come up with a BRILLIANT plan!!

I think we've done it!

At the moment, I'm bombarded constantly with requests to play games on my "phone" (my iTouch), so I realized that we should be able to make this whole compliance/obedience issue a positive, rather than the usual negative. Somehow, they had to be able to earn game time. And somehow, I needed to be able to take it away too!! Well, as soon as I said that, Marco said.. "what about a clock?" well.. duh.. of course!
So, a few hours later, out of the deep dark abyss called his garage, came this:


So, now at the start of every day both hands (one for Kelsey, and one for Morgan) start at 0. When they are asked to do anything, they are expected to reply (immediately) with "yes mom", or "OK mom" (or Dad). When they do, their hand gets moved ahead by a minute. If they don't, or if they complain or argue, the hand is moved back a minute! Then between suppertime & bedtime, they are allowed that many minutes of game time on my "phone". And, since i don't really like them to have that much time, we only made the clock go up to 15 minutes! :)

There are, however, a few glitches which we're still working through! For example, at the moment my lovely bossy eldest child, thinks its a competition between her and Morgan. Not the intention. So, we're talking through that one. She also likes to tell me (constantly) that I should move it ahead. "I did it straight away mommy, you have to move my hand ahead!" - Ugh. There is also the problem with what happens after they've had their daily game time and they're getting ready for bed. Do I move the hand ahead or don't I? I choose not to, much to the dismay of my eldest rule follower! So, we had a quick chit chat about how we need to be obeying with a happy heart even without the clock. I mean, the whole point of the clock is to just create new habits, but how to explain that to a legalistic little girl??!!

Anyway, I'm quite excited about our new little clock! I'm excited to see the attitude changes in my little girls, and I'm hopeful that it'll result in long-term changes too!

oh, by the way, the clock is just a cut out piece of MDF, spray painted red. The hands are cut out of ice cream lids. I'm pretty sure a marker was used for the numbers and the letters. And a screw was placed in the middle to allow the hands to easily move. And, since we have plans to rip down the wall that we attached it to, Marco just screwed it onto the wall. :)

Kelsey's First Day of Preschool!

So, today was Kelsey's FIRST day at Preschool.
I was SO excited!! Oh.. she was excited too.
Last week we dropped by the preschool to check it out. Its a preschool that I started looking into about 1/2 a year ago and was hugely disappointed to find that they only take kids once they're 2 1/2. They claim that, in general, they're not ready for the structure before then. In the case of Kelsey, I think she would've been more ready for the structure half a year ago, and is more likely to rebel and throw tanty's about structure now.. but they're the professionals.
Anyway, a friedn of mine sends her 2 girls there as well, so I asked her a lot of questions  and liked what I heard. Its a Christian preschool. And its fairly structured. 2 HUGE pluses in my eyes. So, last week I brought Kelsey for a look see and to see if they ahd any spots available. They had 1 spot available - a Friday morning. That worked out great since that's the day that my friend's kids go as well. So, for now she'll go one morning a week.
She has been talking about preschool ever since that visit. "Go to preschool today?" "Play with kids today?"
So, finally today dawned. It was the last thing she talked about before sleep last night and the first thing she talked about this morning. I don't know if I've ever seen her wolf down her breakfast so quickly. And it was the only mornings I didn't have to struggle to do her hair (ok.. it was a little lopsided, its hard, Alright?)
Marco happened to be home from work this morning, so off we went as an entire family for Kelsey's first morning of preschool.

As soon as she saw the building, she knew where she was.. off she marched from the car, confident as ever up to the preschool house with her backpack on her back. Inside, Marco met the main teacher - Mrs Maria. Mrs Maria showed Kelsey the "coat" room where Kelsey could hang her backpack. Then off to see the other kids. Kelsey's friends were already there and Hannah asked Kelsey if she'd like to go outside. So, off they went. I don't know if Kelsey even knew we were still there. After watching her play for about 5 minutes, Maroc and I decided to head off on a little date of our own (with Morgan, of course). So, a quick goodbye and all was fine. Mrs Maria took kelsey to see the swings to  make it a bit easier for us to get away but there it was. My firstborn is growing up and LOVING prechool.

I picked her up 3 hours later (it was the quietest morning - it was incredible!!) I'm a bit of a loser as I was so excited to pick her up that I forgot to even debrief with any of the teachers to see how she did. I tried to get some info out fo Kelsey - but it was hard to get anything useful out of her. I did learn that they played with water (mostly because her hair and clothes were sopping wet), she may have done some painting (there was paint on her shirt), she listened to a Bible story (I think Jesus was a baby), and the most important thing - she had fruit for snack!!
Iwas pretty embarrassed that I had forgotten to talk to the teachers, so I called them during lunch time (there's a lunch session and an afternoon session as well). Mrs Maria assured me that Kelsey did GREAT!  She says that Kelsey has huge self-confidence and the only problem was that she didn't want to stop playing when it was mat time - but she assured me that this is completely normal with the 'littlies' or newbies.
I'm so proud of my little/big girl and I'm SO happy that she can finally go to preschool. Now.. I wonder if we can manage a couple more mornings a week......