Ummmm.... Hi!

We're potty training the girl.
Her idea.
Much mess.
Will be back later to update.
Have pee to mop up, again.

The Mommy

Happy Mommy Day!

Have been having an excellent weekend with the spawn(s).

Received an Azalea from the kids and hubby for mommy day yesterday. (I have not mentioned how funny I though it was that hubby sent me a poisonous plant for mommy day, because it's a kinda twisted humour thing for me)

And when I picked the girl up out of her crib this morning, and told her good morning and I love you, she said I love you back.

Now, relaxing with a coffee and catching up on blog posts while the girl naps and the boy watches a little cartoons.

Yup. Some days, life is good.

He did *WHAT*?!?

So, minding my own business yesterday afternoon, I got a call from the boy's school. In my experience, the school generally doesn't call with good news, but I answered the phone anyway.

The Vice Principal was calling to tell me that the boy *bit* her.

Yup. He bit the vice principal.

After the initial shock, I got the story. Apparently, his class had a supply teacher (or what was referred to as a substitute when I was in school) and she was having some problems with him - he wouldn't sit down, hid from her in the classroom, etc. Because she was not the regular teacher, she was unaware of his past issues, and didn't get help from the office, she just put him a couple of timeouts throughout the day. All good.

But at the end of each day, the boy goes to the principal's office, or if she's busy the vice principals office so they can get a report on how his day went. If he has behaved, no timeouts, he gets a sticker on his t-shirt. that way, when he gets home, I immediately know if he has had any timeouts, and can deal with him accordingly. He is very proud of his stickers, and wants to show them to me as soon as I see him. It is a good series of positive reinforcement that the school suggested, he gets to tell the principal he had a good day, he gets a sticker, he gets to tell me he had a good day - all good, all round. This has been very effective over the past 4 weeks or so.

But yesterday, he knew he was not getting a sticker. So he decided to run away from the supply teacher and the vice principal and hide in the copy room. The vice principal went in, took him by the hand and was walking him out to the pick up area. Apparently, the boy took exception to being held by the hand - that's for babies, apparently - and started trying to get his hand free. When he couldn't pull it out of her hand, he decided to *bite her on the hand*.

He didn't break skin, but nonetheless, I imagine it probably took all that the vice principal had not to let go of his hand.

So yeah. Back to square one. He had gone *weeks* without this kind of behaviour. Not to say he hasn't had bad days, but he has not been hurting anyone for a long while.

So, he spend the evening in his room last night. From 5 until 8, with breaks for dinner and bath. At the same time, I spent a lovely sunny evening outside with the girl. We played with the neighbours, jumped on the trampoline, cuddled in the hammock, and had a turn on the swing set too.

Lets see if spending a gorgeous evening listening to all the other kids play outside will have any lasting effect. He went off today saying that he was going to make good choices and have no time outs, so he could ride his bike tonight.

Here's hoping.

Mommy shrapnel everywhere...

So, the plan. We've hit the first snag. And I involved me losing my temper. Shocker.

This morning, after a week of decent mornings, the boy declared that he *knew* we were running late, but he didn't care!

The morning rule is pretty strict. It's about to get stricter. The boy is responsible to get himself out of bed (with the help of an old fashioned twin bell alarm clock), to the bathroom, teeth brushed, clothes (laid out by mommy in advance) on, and into the living room by 7:45 am. Breakfast should be eaten by 8 am. Shoes and coat on immediately after, and through the door no later than 8:15 am.

This morning, when I pointed out to the still pajama clad boy that it was 8:10, he declared that he didn't care that we were late.

Mommy blew a gasket.

Hence, regression, once again.

And of course, I feel like two cents, because I am the one that deviated from the plan. Mommy guilt has hit. Lovely.

Sigh. Will try again tomorrow. And the day after that. And the day after that.

The Plan

Okay. First, an update.

Things with the boy are getting better - not perfect, but better. He has stopped with the random assaults, for the most part. There have been no punches thrown, no afternoons in the principals office, so that's better. He is still pushing and such with kids in his class, but we're expecting improvement, not miracles.

The girl is also doing better with the sleep thing. May have something to do with the prophylactic pain meds mommy is doling out nightly, but a little children's Tylenol is a small price to pay for a decent nights sleep. She has, however, ramped up the willful pre-terrible two's behaviour. At 19 months. Heaven help me.

So here is the description of the plan. It applies to both kids, in varying degrees, and is being implemented pretty consistently.

1. No mommy (or daddy) freakouts. If I can't control my behaviour, I cannot teach the kids to control theirs. If I want happy, cooperative kids, I have to be happy cooperative mommy. This may kill me. But it will be done. (The shocking corollary to this is no wifey freakouts either - can't lose my temper with hubby when kids are around. This may prove to be the hardest part of the plan. Will update as and when.)

2. No attention for undesirable behaviour. This is a difficult one. When the kids are acting like lunatics, I must not give them attention, as kids could care less whether it's good attention or bad, they just crave your time. So I turn my back to screaming kids. I refuse to be baited. I will not negotiate, debate or justify my position. Get in the bath, please means get in the bath, not ten minutes on why you need to wash daily. It's a straight instruction with an expectation of compliance.

3. No repeating myself. All requests are expected to be complied with. Failure to comply will have consistent consequence. I will not ask ten times for the 5 year old to go brush his teeth. I will ask once, and if it isn't done within a reasonable period of time, there is a consequence.

4. Reward system. This is two pronged. One side is for general behaviour during the day. Our primary objective with the boy is to eliminate the aggressive behaviour. If he has no aggressive behaviour for a day, he gets a sticker at the end of the day. If he gets 30 stickers, he gets to chose his reward. Rewards can be a special meal, a trip to the park, a new toy, etc. Also he has daily rewards for specific compliance of 4 certain tasks per day. If he does what is asked of him, he gets a marble. Each marble is worth 15 mommy or daddy one on one minutes doing something he likes per day. Reading books, painting a picture, watching a tv show. No compliance, no marbles. If I have to repeat a request, no marble. His 4 tasks right now are 1 - get dressed and brush teeth in morning. 2 - put on shoes and coat and get into his car seat in morning 3 -help prepare supper (set table, stir a bowl, etc as requested) 4- brush teeth and get into bed at night. That's it. That's what I want him to do for me in the run of a day. He knows that's what I want, and he knows what he gets for doing it.

5. Cool down time. We've replaced the completely ineffectual time out with a cool down. For the girl,it's one minute. If her behaviour is unacceptable - screaming, throwing things, etc, she goes into her cool down chair. She has to sit for one minute and have herself under control for at least 30 seconds before she can come out. If she comes out, time restarts. If she is not calm for 30 seconds, time restarts. We do not interact with her *at all* during cool down. If she comes out, without talking we put her back in her chair and restart the timer. Same goes with the boy. He has his own cool down spot, and his cool down lasts 10 minutes. At his age, there can be a punitive aspect to cool down. He also has to be calm for the last 30 seconds. If he gets up, time restarts. We also do not interact with him at all during cool down. This loops back to no giving attention to negative or undesirable behaviours. If I ignore his attempts to interact with me during cool down, he will eventually stop, the cool downs will be easier on everyone.

6. There is no holiday or reprieve from the plan. It applies all the time, everywhere. The kids can depend on me to react the exact same way to a situation, no matter how little time I have, how tired I am, who else is around, where we are, anything. If X, then Y. It's called logic. We are teaching it to our kids.

That's it. That's the plan.


We've been working it for a little while. There are some kinks. Things are getting better, but there is still a ways to go.

And if I can survive it, I think it will work.

A Reprive and a Regression

Finally, the weather has turned pleasant for a bit, so Hubby and I have been subscribing to the throw them outside school of parenting. Both kiddos outside as much as humanly possible, burning off energy at an alarming rate, in the hopes that the boy will stop assaulting random kids and the girl will start sleeping through the night again.

And the boy has been doing extremely well, but we simply cannot keep up this level of activity - he has to go back to school next week! We are building up a bank of days when he has proved to himself that he can behave in the way we need him to, so that is something. Lets see if it continues when he's back in school.

The girl's issue has become clear - she's cutting her two upper eye teeth, and apparently that is what has been waking her in the middle of the night. And knowing that, I am much more able to deal with her waking, crying and refusing to go back to bed. Hubby, on the other hand, doesn't seem to much care why she's awake, so much as just wants her to go back to sleep so he (and I) can sleep.

She has also developed a nasty habit of waiting until the minute our heads hit the pillow to wake up and start *screaming her head off*. For an average of *90 minutes* per night.

This, of course, lead to a knock down drag out battle of wills between Hubby and I at 2 am the other night. Apparently, I was directed to go look this shit up, because "what we're doing isn't working." My main problem with that? Hubby has stopped following the bloody sleep plan!

When the boy as about 11 months old, Hubby and I were having a terrible time with him, not going to sleep easy, not staying asleep overnight, etc. And Mat leave was slowly ticking down. So I did a bunch of research and arrived at a modified Ferber method (Cry It Out with staggered soothing breaks) which we started using. Took three night, worked like a charm, and the boy still sleeps like a brick.

So around 9 months old, we implemented it with the girl. One of the main tenants is to not interact with the child when you want them to sleep - No Chatting!

And Hubby is *incapable* of not chatting with the girl in the middle of the night. No matter how many times I argue it with him, he doesn't see the harm. And this has been an ongoing argument in the background for the last year or so.

Hence, 90 minutes of screaming "daddy" in the middle of the night.

So now, in addition to violent aggressive boy, we have sleep strike girl. Nice.

Because that's *just* what we needed.

The Mommy

Karma's a bitch.

So, here's the deal.

Hubby and I are apparently raising the spawn of Satan.

And here's why that's all about karma.

When Hubby and I were first dating, he met my then 2 year old niece. She was the first child in the family for a pretty long stretch, and she was rather remarkably spoiled. And just a few months prior to Hubby meeting her, her baby sister was born, causing all sorts of trouble for my sister. After an afternoon with her, Hubby dubs her the spawn of Satan. She was a pretty good piece of work at that age, but most kids I know are.

Fast forward 10 years, and Hubby and I have two little spawns of our own. One, the boy, is 5. He is the devil himself.

He's always been a bit of trouble - pretty much from day one, he had a strong personality. Now, he has a strong body to support it, and has taken to throwing punches when he's angry. Or kicking. Particularly about the head.

I've spent pretty much the last two weeks in the Principal's office with him. I'm losing what little patience I normally have here.

The annoying thing is the boy *knows the difference*. In the past, he would occasionally act out, but he was a toddler, he didn't know better. I could pretty easily distract him away from bad behaviour, or talk it through with him.

Not anymore.

So basically, I'm feeling like a complete failure as a parent. And I'm getting frustrated with Hubby for not being perfectly consistent too. Not that I'm overly consistent, but no one said I was acting rationally here.

And add to that the perfect storm of being an Irish-Canadian catholic mother, and I feel like it's all my fault. It's the trifecta of guilt.

So here's the plan - as we try a new behavioural modification system on both kids (the girl is 19 months, so a little young, but we're going to see if we can improve her screaming at the top of her lungs for no apparent reason thing), I'm going to share here. And vent. There will likely be a lot of venting. One of the tenants of the plan is to not let the kids see that they are causing you to lose your cool. That should be fun. Now all I have to do is get Hubby to also follow it! And lord knows, neither Hubby nor I are known for our lack of temper.

Tune in tomorrow to have the new plan explained in some sort of reasonable manner. It's supposed to be remarkable simple, and reportedly very effective, so long as it is consistently implemented.

The Mommy.