Tuesday, July 13, 2010

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. Photobucket

13 comments:

kbiermom said...

Excellent, Liz! Really excellent :)

Unknown said...

Chore charts are such an awesome idea! Someone gave my girls the Melissa & Doug wooden charts a few years ago and now at age 4, we pulled them out, set them up and they are LOVING their responsibility. Plus they're getting allowance and saving money, woot!

Good for you and your family! I loved the part about you girl hugging the chart :)

Garret said...

I like the charts! Good deal. Did you make up the one including clip art?

Eternal Lizdom said...

@Garret I did!! The long term plan is to print it out in color and I have a friend who has a laminator. She's going to laminate our charts and our family rules for me and I'm going to stick magnets on them. I want to get a white board to hang in the hallway at home where we can attach the charts and also write encouraging notes and pictures.

@Huckdoll Teagan was also really excited by the idea of being able to help Mommy and Daddy with our chores. I got to explain that while we might ask if someone wants to help feed Sassy, it is ultimately Mom and Dad's responsibility to make sure it gets done. Eventually, those kinds of tasks will get moved to the kids' responsibility chart.

Garret said...

Well GREAT job Liz. Give yourself a sticker (or 2)!

Alison said...

The Mommy & Daddy chore charts are a good idea for anybody! I wonder how dirty a look I'd get from Miss Chef if I tried to write one up for her!

Nancy C said...

Awesome, awesome. Forgive me if I missed this, but could you post the template charts?

Seth M. Ward said...

Haha, Megatron! LOVE IT! Took me a second to see that. lol Glad y'all had a good time!

Anonymous said...

Liz, LOVE the chore charts! I am a charting & list fanatic.

Here's a tip for you since our charts are quite fluid around here, being adjusted for sports schedules, school, etc. You can place the chore chart in a sheet protector, write on it with expo dry erase, and it works! Comes right off. If it gives you a hard time just scribble over your check mark with expo and it will then come off.

Great job family!

Eternal Lizdom said...

@Lety That is on the list of things to do! My work friend (Latifa) has a laminator at home and she is going to hook me up!

@Seth I know!!! I cracked up!

@Nancy I created these in Excel. I'd be happy to e-mail you the file if you'd like! Drop me an e-mail (gentlemomlc at gmail) and let me know!

@Flartus When we first weer adjusting to having a baby and both of us working, we had a "chore chart" on the fridge just for the grown ups. It listed what needed to be done daily and what needed to be done weekly. I created it so that Jeff would have a visual of things to do to help around the house. It was his request- he had a hard time looking around and seeing what needs to be done.

Unknown said...

I LOVED this post!
I would love a server named Megatron : )

C. Beth said...

I love the rules, charts, etc.!! Where did you get them?

Eternal Lizdom said...

I made them in Excel, Beth. Customized to our needs! I can e-mail them to you if you're interested!