A Checklist to Help Kids Get Things Done

My 10 year old was having some trouble managing all the tasks associated with his 5th grade life, complete with swim team practice 3 to 4 times per week, school work, and his safety patrol duty.

He was leaving dirty clothes everywhere, forgetting to bring his lunchbox and water bottles in from the car, he was getting to bed too late, running late for places he needed to be, and having to be reminded tons of times about basic tasks.

So, this weekend we created a checklist of all the things he needs to do after school, including tasks for before his swim practice and tasks for after.  All tasks have an end time.  And we even agreed on some consequences should he not have the tasks completed on time, some privileges he'd loose.

It's only been 2 days, so I'm totally asking for a fall by saying this, but so far, it's WORKING!!

He is like a new kid!  A new focused kid who can accomplish many tasks efficiently.  I'm not having to go behind him and do all the things he should be doing for himself!  And (this part is really huge) I'm not having to remind him of anything!

Some tasks take seconds, like lunchbox by sink or agenda signed, and some take longer like homework done.  But even he has been amazed at how quickly he can get through the list when he focuses on getting it done!

Oh and he's already figured out a quick way to eliminate a task.  He used to shower after swimming in the master bathroom and would leave it a mess with a wet swimsuit, towel, clothes on the floor, and his watch on the counter. My husband and I got tired of wading through the mess all evening after our son had gone to bed and we faced the choice of waking him up to clean it or clean it up ourselves.  So, the task of "Mommy and Daddy's bathroom picked up" went on the list for sure.  But, guess what?  Since the checklist, he's gone back to showering in the kid bathroom -- hooray!

I laminated it so he could use a dry erase marker to check off tasks.

So far, this checklist works for me!!

Find more Works for Me Wednesday here.

Dear Tooth Fairy, Part 2

Do you remember the "Dear Tooth Fairy" letter my 8 year old daughter wrote a few weeks ago?

If you missed it, my 8 year old daughter lost her tooth ("lost" meaning it fell out of her mouth) at the beginning of September but then she lost it ("lost" meaning it went missing somewhere under her bed) before she could put it in her tooth fairy pillow in her bed.  So, she wrote a note to the tooth fairy saying, "I can't find my tooth.  Will you still give me money?"

The tooth fairy was very generous and did give her a shiny gold one dollar coin in exchange for just the letter and not a tooth.

Well, there is an update in the "Dear Tooth Fairy" Saga!  A letter the same 8 year old daughter wrote yesterday and put under her pillow:


Dear Tooth Fairy,  

Remember when you got a letter from me saying I lost my tooth but guess what I found it!  Please take.  You can give me money if you want.  From, your friend, (and then she signed her name).

And she taped the letter to a Ziploc baggie containing the long lost tooth.

I laughed out loud at my daughter's boldness telling the tooth fairy, "You can give me money if you want."  But, at least my daughter realized when she found the lost tooth that she owed it to the tooth fairy and was honest about it not being a newly lost tooth.

The tooth fairy did come by to collect the tooth that was rightfully hers, but left no additional money.  Only one payment per tooth, is perhaps the tooth fairy's policy?

Find more Wordful Wednesday here.

I took my 4 kids for flu shots, how was your week?

My 8 year old daughter has to get her flu shot at the allergist because she is allergic to eggs.  Yesterday when I took her in for her normal monthly allergy shot, I asked if she could also get her flu shot.  Then I asked (okay begged) if my other 3 kids and I could get our flu shots, too, to save us a separate trip to the pediatrician.

They said "yes".  When they called us back to the injection room where there is typically 1 or maybe 2 nurses, I ushered all 4 of my kids through the doorway and looked up to see 4 different nurses all ready and waiting on us!  I think one nurse had called in reinforcements from the clinic area!

My boys were super brave, the girls not so much!  My 4 year old daughter had to have a ton of shots to catch up on regular childhood immunizations after being adopted from Ethiopia at age 3, so there is always drama now when she needs a shot because all those shots most kids get as babies and don't even remember, she REMEMBERS.  She was her typical pitiful self after the shot with tears and the saddest expression, the nurses couldn't stand it. "Just look at her!  That breaks my heart!"  one of them kept saying.  Little Girl KNOWS how to work a room and she does pitiful really well!

At one point as my 8 year old daughter was literally on the floor trying to avoid her shot and a nurse told her, "Your little sister did it,"  my 6 year old son piped up and loudly announced to all the nurses that he did it and he was "THE SECOND YOUNGEST!"

I've never heard him refer to himself as "the second youngest" before.  But it cracked me up and also made me feel like I had more like 10 kids instead of 4!

But, we survived!  And they talked me into chocolate shakes at Sonic to celebrate!

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We had some rainy weather last week, which always means the "dog towel" takes up residence by the back door to wipe muddy dog paws.  Only Madeline doesn't like to leave the towel by the door, but prefers to carry it around the house!

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If you've been following along on this blog for very long, this next statement will make you laugh.  Somehow I ended up as room mom for my daughter's 3rd grade class.

I know!  Room mom.  I have blogged before about how I avoid that job like the plague.  There are tons of other volunteer jobs that I do, like helping children learn to read in the library, doing special projects for the teachers, teaching children's bible study, visiting child abuse victims in foster homes and testifying in court on their behalf, but that "room mom" job always seemed like too much soliciting help/money from other parents for whatever class party/school function/teacher gift was coming up for my taste.  So, I'm not at all sure how this happened except that it did involve an email specifically requesting help with the role and I couldn't say "no".

Now I'm in the world where I get approximately 17 emails every day with the subject line "Fall Carnival Class Basket".  Meanwhile thousands of children died of starvation around the world today.  

As you can see I am perfectly suited for this class mom job! 

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On a related note, have you ever been drafting an email to your child's teacher and you suddenly become overly worried about your grammar and use of commas?  Happens to me all the time!!

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Happy Friday, Friends!  Find more Friday Fragments here.

That Newborn Baby Cry

Recently I was in the grocery store checkout line and I heard it.  

That unmistakeable newborn baby cry.

From 3 lanes away!

The mama was checking out, a toddler-aged child in the cart, along with an infant carrier containing the wailing baby.

It's been a while since I've had a newborn in the house, but the sound of that cry is unmistakeable.  It is very different than the cry of a 2 year old or even a 6 month old.  You hear the cry of a very young baby and you cannot ignore it.  Literally the pitch, tone, whatever of that sound tells every fiber of your being to respond.  DO SOMETHING!

And it was an interesting scene to watch unfold that day in the grocery store since I'm a mama who keenly remembers being in that position of checking out with a crying baby.  A baby that has maybe made it through the entire grocery store trip peacefully asleep but has awakened just 5 minutes too soon before the groceries can be paid for, and is hungry and must be fed RIGHT NOW!  It was as if everyone in the store was tuned in to that baby.  The mother got the baby out of the carrier and was trying to cuddle the baby against her chest while also sliding her credit card through the card reader.  The sacker was wildly sacking the groceries in an attempt to allow the mom to leave the store as quick as possible.  The checker was digging through her drawer trying to find a sticker for the baby's big brother to keep him happy so he didn't demand any more of his mom's attention than the newborn and paying for groceries were already occupying.  A checker from another lane even ran over to provide the desired sticker! 

Humans are wired to attend to that sound, the sounds of a newborn baby's cry.

God made us that way!

He made us that way for a reason.  Because tiny babies are helpless and dependent on other humans to survive!

When a mama or a daddy respond to a baby's cries by picking it up or feeding it or changing it's diaper or speaking softly to it or singing to it or rocking it, that baby learns that the world hears her voice and her voice can be used to convey her needs.  She learns that she is important.  And that the world is good, people are good, because they attend to her needs.

( My 2nd child at only hours old.)

So, of course, God was so smart to wire into every baby this very unique cry so that other humans hear it and respond.

The only ways that a baby's cries are not going to be tended to are if the baby is in an overcrowded orphanage (in which case the babies stop crying after about 2 months because they learn their cries do not work) or the baby's caregiver is incapacitated by drugs, alcohol, or mental illness.

And what then?

If the baby survives, how does that neglect as an infant play out in their behaviors later in life?

And how do adoptive or foster mothers attempt to make up for all that was lost in infancy to heal that child?

Those are big questions I am not going to attempt to answer today, more on that later.  But, the beginning of finding those answers is realizing just how much a child has lost when they did not have an attentive caregiver as a baby.  The losses run deep!

I sometimes joke that at least I missed out on potty-training, getting our 4th child as a 3 year old through international adoption after having 3 biological children I did have to potty-train.  But, the truth is I'd give just about anything to have been able to be there for my Little Girl from the time she was an infant.  And there's not another adoptive mom I know that wouldn't say the same thing.  Those early months are so important!

For When You Don't Feel Like Scheduling the Family Portrait . . .

I should have done it weeks ago, set up a session with our photographer for our annual family pictures.  A younger, more energetic version of me, who had fewer children vowed we'd do this once a year every year while the kids were growing up.  But, now there is zero motivation to schedule it, plan everyone's outfits, and, of course, endure the 1 hour of torture that is getting my children to cooperate for photos!

But looking at this picture from 5 years ago, when my oldest children were 1, 3, and 5 years old, I'm really glad to have captured that moment in time!  It is so fleeting!  Those children are 6, 8, and 10 now.  They have changed so much since then!

As much as I love that picture, I haven't forgotten the reality that day.  The photographer was late (which was really unusual for her), the mosquitoes were terrible there in that little wood, my 3 year old had to go potty about 2 minutes into the photo shoot, the 5 year old got his clothes dirty sliding on his knees before the 1st picture was even taken, and there was a little gazebo that the 1 year old just wanted to run around over and over again instead of posing for pictures!

And still, I know it was worth it, every bit of wrangling those monkeys, to remember them just as they were.

Find more Wordful Wednesday here.

Reading Time

As part of his homework, my first grader is supposed to read to someone for 20 minutes each day.

Some days the reading time looks like this:

Him reading to us while my girls and I snap beans.

Multitasking works for me!

And this is way less shameful than the next day when I convinced him to read to me from his seat in the third row of the car while I drove the girls to dance class.  "Just read a little loud.  I can hear you."  Poor 3rd child!

There Is No Title

My 10 year old went off to camp this week with his entire 5th grade at school.  For 3 nights they stayed in cabins and do all sorts of outdoor activities.

So of course, I helped him pack with my favorite ZipLoc Bag method.  I'm hoping that in a cabin full of 10 year old boys my son was able to proudly own those ZipLoc bags of clothes without any shame!

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We've all missed him this week, even his younger siblings.  It's been interesting the different things his brother and sisters missed most while he was gone and the different ways his presence affects our home.  We will be glad to get him back this afternoon!

 

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I was thinking about how we all missed my son this week when the radio DJ shared an excerpt from Rick Warren's appearance on CNN this week.  Rick Warren wrote The Purpose Driven Life and sadly his grown-up son, Matthew, committed suicide a few months ago.  Rick Warren said, "I need the presence of God in my life more than I need the presence of Matthew."

What powerful statement!  It is true, but also so hard for most parents to say, especially one who has so recently lost a child!  

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When my 10 year returns from camp he may find his bed has already been given away!  The 6 year old who typically sleeps on the bottom bunk has been asking for a while when he would get to sleep on the top bunk.  I thought these 3 nights his big brother was away would be a great opportunity for Little Brother to fulfill his top-bunk sleeping dreams.  Well, Little Brother loves it and now there may be Battle of the Bunks this weekend at our house!

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 New this year, our elementary school is teaching spelling rules to kids in addition to spelling words.  My 8 year old came home talking about the "Floss Rule".  She was incredulous that I did not know the "Floss Rule".  She was like, "But Mom, you went to school!"

Learning along with my kids, I give you the "Floss rule":  "If a one syllable base word ends in the (f), (l) or (s) sound immediately after a short vowel, the (f) sound is spelled ff, the (l) sound is spelled ll, and the (s) sound is spelled ss.

Don't you just feel smarter now?

Happy Friday!

Find more Friday Fragments here.