Battles I've chosen to fight:
Kid Cleaning. I have always made each of the boys clean what they can. Sometimes I want to give up because I could do it 10 times faster but I know it's good for them and hopefully they will be a help to me down the road. Levi is great at putting things away, picking up garbage and toys, 'helping' make the bed, and putting his dishes away. For him it takes a lot of reminders but he does it and usually is pretty happy to help. Max has also just started to put some things away if he knows where it goes, can put laundry down the laundry chute and hand me dishes when he's done eating. He's very proud of himself when he does.
Eating together. I try really hard to have a meal on the table in the evenings and have us eat together more days of the week than not. Sometimes it's more sometimes less but it's always my goal to have that family time.
TV. No, I haven't banned it. Let me tell you the joy I felt the day I realized I could have Levi watch Sesame Street while I laid next to him on the couch. He was 18 months and I was VERY tired and VERY pregnant. Why I hadn't thought of it before, who knows. It was a nice break. I try really hard to limit the time he watches TV in a day. Part of that is often a Spanish learning program and the rest is PBS in the morning. I've found if he watches TV later in the day he's a grump about it and will demand it the rest of the day, it's awful. Now he knows he can watch his shows and then we're done for the day and that's worked out pretty well for us.
Time Outs. I'm all for them. Levi has gotten used to the idea of time outs and is pretty good about sitting there, though it's gotten a little trickier because our time out chair has been claimed by Max who will start screaming if Levi gets in it. I think we'll have to move it for a bit. But after a good 3 minute time out he will have normally calmed down and so have I and we'll talk about whatever it was. Time out's I've found require a lot of patience but for us it has worked so far.
Gospel learning. Anyone ever try to sit with a 3 year old and a 1 1/2 year old and read scriptures? It can be kind of a joke sometimes. We have a great set of Book of Mormon picture books but many times Levi will start some crazy story about them though I think he kind of gets some of it. Who knows what's going on in that little boy head of his. I try really hard to pull a book out once a day, or have a picture to talk about or I'll tell a story or sing a church song at least once, hopefully a couple times a day. Also we are pretty good about prayers, as simple as they might be. None of it's very profound but I think at these ages it's not the depth but rather the repetition that is most important.
Social time. It is my goal to have the boys have 'social time' at least once a week. We offer to baby sit a lot and try to make it to play groups when we can. So if anyone needs a sitter......
Battles I've chosen not to fight:
Bedtime. We do our best to have the kids in bed by 8 but sometimes when 'Nese' is over, or uncles/aunt (which is often) the boys will stay up WAY too late and have a party with them. I'm fine with it because they both usually end up sleeping in a little the next day anyways and they get some fun family time. They can only do this for so long until school will start running our family life.
Me cleaning. If you come to my house there is usually at least one area that's a little 'disorganized', ok probably a complete mess. I've come to realize my house will NEVER be clean, at least to what my 'clean' is. I'm learning to let go a little of having a perfectly clean house all the time. Like that would ever happen. So I don't follow the boys around cleaning or clean 5 hours of the day. Usually I do a big clean in the morning for an hour or so with the boys helping and then I try to clean along the way. Like when the boys are eating, I clean the kitchen a little or taking a bath and I clean the bathroom a little if it's needed. But that's it. Once I've done it for the day, I let go and save it for another time. I'll do a little here and there but that's it. It's been very stress relieving.
Food. I try to give the boys healthy choices and let them decide what they want. If they don't want it or want to finish it, I'm not going to force feed them, but I make a good effort to give them healthy options. My boys hate vegetables. But they love fruit. Levi hates meat (sorry bud, hot dogs aren't meat) but loves mozzarella cheese. He refuses any sort of 'yellow' cheese in fact. Both boys have had their share of hot dogs and macaroni and cheese and processed food, but I've seen them both turn down cookies, soda, candy, french fries.... and BEG for an apple or choose wheat bread over white.
Grandparents. I really do believe in the saying "What happens at grandma's/grandpa's house, stays at grandma's/grandpa's house". I used to care about what was going on with the grandparents like what they were feeding them, having them watch... but I've given up caring. I realized that they can have/do special things with grandparents that they don't do with us but while they're home, they know the rules. I'm just happy they have fun and that's all I need to know.
Shopping with kids. I have a confession. I have NEVER gone shopping with both my kids by myself. I stress out way too much and I just don't want to deal with it. I stress out enough being in a store with both boys and Jason or some one else. I figure there is nothing I need that can't wait until Jason gets home or someone can watch at least one of the kids. I think a lot of this is because Jason worked from home for all of Max's life up until a few months ago so I could leave whenever Max was napping to go do what I needed to do with Levi. Going shopping with 1 kid? I LOVE IT! It is such fun bonding time. But two? No way. I'd rather go grocery shopping at 4 in the morning than put myself through that torture. I'll still go out with them but it has to be something I can just walk away from if there is some sort of break down.
So there it is. We're not perfect but that's ok. Who is?
3 comments:
Kendra I love you! And I loved this post too. Being a parent is all about picking your battles and I think you've done a great job with your boys. Thanks for the reminders on what's important. :)
I totally agree that you pick your battles. It's always interesting to me which battles I end up picking over time. Some of them I thought would swing the other way, but in the end I realized it really didn't matter as much.
I think you've picked some good ones!! I need to be better about getting Raymond to help me clean up (it really is so much easier to do it yourself once he's in bed... but not so good for HIM!)
Your kiddos are so lucky to have you!
I totally agree about picking your battles. Grace and Levi would get along in one way...Grace doesn't eat white cheese, it has to be "lellow cheese." And I just don't care what shoes Grace wears. She picks some of the dumbest shoes to go with her outfits and it just doesn't matter to me. She even wears her dress up shoes in public and it just doesn't matter to me that much.
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