straight to bed!

Well, for a few years now I have been acutely aware that my "task-oriented" tendencies need to be tempered for me to become a better mom. And I have been trying my very best to be more "relationship-oriented." I realized today I still have a long way to go! Every monday I try to clean the house - I find if I can get it all done then the rest of the week I can relax and focus more on building relationships rather than all of the little tasks that pile up that I have such a hard time NOT doing. So I bribed Libby today - I told her I would do her chores for her if she took care of David and Cadie for me so I could go into work mode and just get stuff done. She happily accepted. (she loves being the boss of cadie and david) So shortly after lunch I sent them upstairs to play while I mopped and vacuumed. I was pleasantly surprised at the occasional happy sound from the kids playing so well together upstairs when I went to clean my bathroom. Libby had stripped Cadie and David, bathed them (including shampooing their hair - there were remnants in Cadie's) gotten clean PJ's and books out for them, and was telling them she would read TWO bedtime stories to them for having such good behaviour. Haha, it's always a struggle for me to get them to bed but my five year old managed to do a great job of it - at one o'clock in the afternoon none-the-less! I went with it and let them stay in their PJ's for the rest of the day - despite strange looks from my piano students. We even had breakfast food for dinner!

Honest Cadie

We had a great time in Lethbridge this weekend - even though this is what I woke up to:

As Cadie was crawling into bed with us she shoved me aside and casually mentioned that she likes Daddy better than me. I gave her my saddest look and she conceded: "Oh don't worry Mommy, I'm sure Libby will like you."

broken or destroyed

So I want to make a list of everything Liberty has broken in the last month or so:

3 bottles of shampoo (on David's head or down the drain)

the curtain rod (playing superman)

her new school shoes (crayons)

laptop keys (?)

ipod dock ( extremely energetic freeze dance)

2 separate dents in new floor (both times bringing in large rocks from outside)

and the list goes on (selective memory loss) but her lack of remorse is very concerning. I talked with Corey about ways to get her to understand what she is doing as new things are destroyed daily around here. I like to use behaviour related consequences as time outs don't

usually work with her. I thought and thought and finally came up with a plan: I would give David and Cadie some money to buy a toy at the dollar store right

in front of her and tell them they earned this privilege for having good behaviour and taking good care of their things. She of course wouldn't get a new toy. And would have to watch them get one. Corey thought this was cruel and his exact words were: "she's going to resent you for the rest of your life." Nevertheless, I pushed forward with my plan, hoping to get through to her. Here's what happened: I gave the other two their loonies and talked to her in the dollar store, fully anticipating tears and a tantrum. Instead, she got a surprised look on her face and exclaimed: "Oh! I can't wait to see what David and Cadie buy! This is so exciting!" And you'd think by now I'd know not to leave her alone like ever, but I was actually so surprised to come downstairs after a diaper change to find this:

(what else are blue markers for anyway?)

So I decided to forgo all plans of housework I had for the rest of the day and we just played. And it was sooo wonderful. We turned a duvet cover into a dinosaur cave - all of us crawled in through the zipper and realized it was the perfect place to eat and

sleep and hide from the bigger dinosaurs. That somehow morphed into "beauty parlour" and I almost walked out the door for the evening session of stake conference looking like this!

And my bathroom that was going to get cleaned today ended up looking like this:

But my wise mother in law once told me that when she looks back, she wished she had spent less time cleaning and more time enjoying her kids when they were little, so I'm trying my best to learn from her wisdom!

Vehicles

So we need to teach our children about vehicles. Apparently they are pretty clueless. There was a Lambourgini (which I don't even know how to spell) parked in our church parking lot. It stood out. Corey made a few comments about the nice Lambourgini. On our way back to our van after church Libby realized the fancy car was missing and thus commented: "Oh, the Zucchini's gone..." A few minutes later Cadie and I were heading to a baby blessing and she saw a motorbike. She commented from the back seat that it was an old lady driving the motorbike. (didn't look like it to me but oh well) she continues to elaborate on the fact that this poor old lady was by herself - where was her family? She must be so lonely, etc. A few minutes later on a different road we pass by another motorcycle - this one had 2 riders on it. She heaves a huge sigh of relief - "Oh there's the rest of her family" (obviously) "BUT THEY"RE GOING THE WRONG WAY!!! Turn around Mommy, we have to help her!"