This and That: Fun and Follow Ups

First, fun! While at the Zoo this past Saturday, my brother, his girlfriend, Jeff and I managed to have quite a bit of silly fun. Enjoying the misters we found around the Zoo... Chillin' with the Father of the Year. We actually applauded for his award a few times.

Oh no! Ted's being attacked by a shark!

Oh no! I'm being attacked by a shark!!

Part of the receipt from breakfast... we all had a good laugh at the server's name... especially considering our server was an athletic looking high school girl!

Peek a boo! I see you!

My silly little Sassy... vying for attention.

And our Follow Up!

Last night, after eating dinner and enjoying an art show from Teagan, we sat down to have our Family Meeting.

We went over the rules. We talked about what Respect means. We talked about ways we show respect for ourselves and for other people and for our surroundings. Teagan had plenty of examples and ideas and instructed me to write down a few of them.

She was most excited by our chore charts. We have one for Daddy and Mommy.

And we have one for Teagan and Zach.

For our evening chores- dinner and cleanup- I got to check off handling dinner. I had dinner just about ready when Jeff got home with the kids. We had Trader Joe's panko crusted tilapia with whole grain rice and corn (I added some diced tomato and peppers from Red Gold). Then we agreed to set the kitchen timer for 10 minutes to achieve our cleaning up. In those 10 minutes, Teagan picked up toys in Zach's room and in her room and in the living room! I worked on my bedroom and Jeff worked on the basement. You can get a lot done in 10 minutes!

I knew we were doing great when Teagan came to check off her chores for the evening and literally HUGGED the chore chart.

It wasn't all sunshine and roses. My daughter is a child who needs to test and push and see exactly where those limits are. And she did just that with bedtime. No meltdowns or crying. But testing to see how serious we were about the directions we gave for bedtime. And she found out we were serious- she didn't have to take any consequences because we did give her one warning. And she also witnessed the use of the rules and consequences on her brother when he hauled off and smacked her in the stomach (he was so excited about the cleaning up thing going on- he wasn't trying to hurt her) and he was told that he broke a rule- our family rule is that we respect each other. When you hit someone, you aren't respecting them. He had to take a brain break in his room.

I'm feeling much better about it all today. It felt totally weird to have such a scheduled night but I could see how much she thrived on it so that makes it worthwhile. I have plans on how we will display our charts and agreed upon rules. It's a new way of doing things in this family... a new way that I hope continues to yield positive results for many many days to come.

Thank you again- many times over- for the support and encouragement yesterday. I appreciate all of you who commented or otherwise contacted me with kind words and messages.