How to do a Time Out the right way
Brian picked Caimin up from school recently, and as they walked in the door I was expecting the usual celebration of “Mommy!” as he runs into my arms and we wrestle for a few minutes and talk about his day. But instead, he came in with a frown, and marched straight into his room. Turns out he was disrupting class, (I apologize for the brag here) but he was disrupting “Advanced Reading” class.
So we sent him to his room all afternoon with no snack, no tv. All this time we had a popcorn, snuggle, cartoon party with my 3 year old who didn’t get in trouble at school. Caimin stayed in his room til dinner. It was sooooo difficult to do this, but we want him to understand the importance of education, and that school is not just all playtime. So, I’ve compiled a few tips on how to do Time Out the right way:
- pick a boring spot in the house that you will use consistently, a step, a time out chair or rug in the corner, or their rooms for older kids with no tv, radio, computer, games.
- set a kitchen timer for 1 minute for how old your child is (2 minutes for 2 year old, 3 minutes for 3 year old, don’t go above 5 minutes)
- Remove all stimulus from the time out zone, no tv, no talking (that includes you mommy and daddy, this isn’t the time to verbally scold your child), don’t let siblings talk to the time out kid
- after the time out is over, keep your cool and speak calmly and not critically with your child about why they were in time out, and have your child come up with appropriate options for next time that won’t lead to time out again
- positively reward your kid when you catch them doing the right thing. It is so easy to reprimand a child for doing the wrong thing, but you need to in turn teach them what they can do
Thats it! Just don’t forget to hug and snuggle your kid in between time outs! Here are some more time out tips from Dr. Sears.
Tags: how to do a time out, parenting
My husband is a hunter, not by profession, but he sure wishes that were the case. I used to be against hunting in my early feminist, animal activist college years. But I’ve changed A LOT since then. I highly respect vegetarians for their choices, but I just don’t see how you can be against hunting and yet buy meat from a grocery that sells mass produced, ill treated, over hormoned meat. I’ll stop now before I get on my soap box cause here is a funny hunting story I’d rather share with you:
My little foul mouthed hunter
So my husband takes Caimin, my sweet little pure mouthed 5 year old, “hunting.” I use the quotes around hunting cause they were dressed up in camo and orange and looked all manly in a redneck way, but they didn’t have any real guns with them. As they are in the woods, my husband says, “Where are all the freakin’ Grouse?” To which Caimin replies, “Daddy! You can’t say that word, it’s not nice.” Then Brian gives Caimin this mano-a-mano speech about now that he is 5 years old he can now know the secret that when guys are off in the woods, without anyone else around, they can say all those bad words. Caimin was thrilled with this idea, and the next hour conversation went a little something like this:
Caimin: Daddy, look at that stupid bird flying!
Brian: Cool Caimin
Caimin: Daddy, I just dropped my freakin’ walking stick!
Brian: Well, pick it up Caimin
Caimin: Daddy? When are we going to freakin’ eat?
Brian: When we get home Caimin
Caimin: Daddy, that stupid cloud looks like a freakin’ dragon!
Brian: Awesome Caimin
Brian told me that the garbage mouth from Caimin just wouldn’t stop- he was so privileged to be part of this “grown up” world. Brian was getting a little tired of all this potty mouth, so he said, “Caimin, we’re getting ready to head back home now, so clean up your language before the ladies hear you.”
To which Caimin replied, “Shut up Daddy, you’re so freakin’ stupid!”
Tags: growing up, happiness, happy, hunting
Baby Sprinkles?
I’m only 7 weeks pregnant, but we have already gotten all caught up in the excitement of having another baby in the house. The kids rub my belly all the time and they both want the baby to sleep in their rooms. We have tossed a few names around, just trying them on for size. But Catherine is bound and determined to name the baby “Sprinkles.” I told her what a cute nickname that will be, but we might need to pick another name for the baby too. She says NO, Sprinkles is the best name there is. So we’ve all caved into the 3 year old and everyone has started calling my belly Sprinkles…God I hope that name doesn’t stick, the poor kid will end up with serious identity problems!
One word of advice: While you are picking names for your baby, if you tell everyone the name before your little one arrives prepare-yourself for a lot of unsolicited criticism. However, if you wait to tell people until after the baby is born, everyone will say, “Sprinkles!?! What a perfect name, I absolutely love Sprinkles!”
Tags: baby names, pregnant, sprinkles
Finally I can say it out loud! We already have two amazing kids, boy and girl, so we figured, why not spread more love!?! My husband wasn’t up for the idea at first, but after much begging pleading, bargaining….BAM! I’m knocked up again. We told our family on Halloween night. It was a fun surprise, we had the kids come down in shirts that said, “Guess What?” And everyone was supposed to guess what they were dressed up for Halloween…then they turned around and their shirts said, “We’re having another baby!” The lady screaming uncontrollably is my mother, which is funny to anyone that knows her because she is very conservative:
I am very proud to say that over the course of 3 years I have transformed myself into a real live morning person. No longer do I lounge in bed all morning dreaming of a being a beluga whale dining at a fine Italian restaurant, nope, not me….well, even if I wanted to, the “troops” get me up by 7am no matter what. Now, by my very own free will, I get myself up at 5am just to enjoy “me time.” This is when I do yoga, blog about getting up early in the morning, and pick up around the house. Then I get the kids up at 7 and swoosh them out of the house.
My morning Yoga routine
But nasty ol’ Daylight Savings has gone and messed up my lovely morning routine! I usually do Oxygen’s Inhale yoga at 6am, followed by a much coveted and appreciated meditation time before I begin household chores. Evil Daylight Savings now thinks it’s funny to wake my 5 year old up at 6am so he can watch me do yoga. Only Caimin doesn’t just watch, he critiques me. Here I am twisted like a pretzel nearing nirvana, when Caimin pipes in, “You’re not doing that right Mommy. You need to keep your head up.”
I tried to divert his attention with his favorite cheesy-velvet coloring book, but he kept looking up and saying, “No, Mommy, you need to stretch farther like that guy.” I got fed up hearing comments from the peanut gallery, so I said, “Fine, Caimin, why don’t you come over here and show Mommy exactly how to do that the right way!”
He slowly put his crayons down, quietly walked over next to me, took a deep breath, and did the most perfect “warrior pose” I have ever seen. He then said, “See, it’s not that hard, I know you can do it. You just need to practice some more.”
Needless to say, I never quite reached nirvana this morning, but the day, and my optimism, is not over yet. My son, however, just may become the Dalai Lama of the next century.
Tags: exercise, kids, Oxygen Network Inhale, steve ross yoga, wake up early, yoga
Tags: kids
I have done a pretty good job at keeping my political opinion out of this blog. Sure, I post comments on other blogs sharing my political beliefs, but not here. Still, you have got to check this out, it is just too funny to pass up:
| AARP 08 Video |
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Tags: AARP 08 Video, election 08
Wendy the Witch
There are many hidden jewels to being a parent. One of the best parts of is that you can lie to your kids, make up wacky stories, and they actually believe you! Some say they cherish the innocence of youth, but I just say kids are down right gullible and will believe in anything.
Santa Clause? The Easter Bunny? The Tooth Fairy? There is nothing more fun than telling your kids that some crazy lady is going to sneak in their bedroom in the middle of the night and steal their teeth!
So, my husband and I are taking the opportunity of Halloween to come up with yet another lie for our kids this year. Wendy the Witch! The legend, or at least the lie we told our kids, goes that you gather as much candy as you can stuff in you trick-or-treating bag on Halloween night. Then you lay out all your candy on the fireplace with creepy spiders and bats and stuff in an enticing arrangement. If Wendy the Witch likes what she sees, she snatches all your candy and leaves you a cool toy in its place!
My kids can’t wait to leave their candy out for Wendy! It is such a win-win situation all around. My kids won’t develop early diabetes from all the candy, less trips to the dentist office, they get a cool toy in return, and my husband and I get yet another chance to lie to our kids and not feel guilty about it! I just love being a parent!
Tags: halloween alternative, happy, healthy, trick or treat
Goofing around the pumpkin patch with cousins
This is pretty much why my husband and I decided to move from the murky swamps of Georgia all the way to the majestic White Mountains of New Hampshire.
Family.
In Georgia we had so many amazing friends, (we lived there over 10 years…which is the longest I’ve lived anywhere), but most of our family lives in New England. Our kids were missing out on growing up with family. Sure, we went up north for our yearly Christmas vacation trip to see everyone. We ran around the whole time so anxious, trying to fit everyone in our schedule, fighting over who we’ll spend time with. It ended up more like the necessary yearly pap smear test that every woman dreads but knows she must endure in order to go on with the regular part of life.
Sadly, I did leave my father in Florida by himself when we moved, which he reminds me of every time we are on the phone. But we did so to be near gobs of cousins, aunts, uncles, more grandparents, and extended family. No longer do we have the yearly stressful, over-rated, hectic Christmas visit. Now we can fight and get hugely annoyed with our family whenever we want!
Tags: family, happiness, happy, New England
"white house" in the meadow
It was pretty easy for me to tell all about the physical aspect of my first Reiki therapy….but what about the emotional side of it?
After my first Reiki at a recent spa party, I was so fascinated, that I snuck into the second Reiki room so that I could learn more and compare the two techniques. The woman that did the second Reiki therapy started out the same way as the first woman. She explained the basic principals of Reiki and all of its benefits. I felt the same tingling/vibration sensation and her hands were very warm (as one of my friends said, “that woman has the hottest hands this side of the mountain!”)
So, the Reiki therapist she said she feels that I have a lot of aches and pains all over my body and I am too young for that. In my head, the skeptic in me said, “Aha-wrong lady! I don’t have any aches and pains. You are way off lady, and this whole Reiki thing is just a bunch of hippy-dippy kaka.”
But then, she said that I have guilt over a male in my life and it is blocking my energy. And a light dinged in my head. My husband has generalized aches and pains all over his body all the time, and he is only 35. I feel so much guilt and worry over it because how will he make it to 80 at this rate? He is very active and gets a lot of exercise, but still has a lot of pain. Whenever he talks about his back pain, I shut him out because there is nothing I can do to help, and if I think about it I feel powerless and worry about him.
She then told me that I have the brightest third eye that she has ever seen and that it is as bright as the sun. Wow, didn’t see that one coming…or did I??? She also said that I have been blessed. Now, even the most cynical person is going to enjoy hearing they are blessed and won’t argue with that!
While I am not going to run out, buy a crystal ball, and setup shop. But I did leave that room feeling so completely wonderful, at ease with everything, and just flat out happy. I have had a great week since then, accomplished a lot at work, been more patient with my family and just have been feeling fantastic all around.
Now, about the guilt I feel over my husband’s overall aches and pains? I made him a Reiki appointment and even pre-paid so he can’t back out of it! I hope to get him to write a post about it for me, but I won’t hold my breath. He’d probably just write, “That was cool, but it could have been better with a massage or at least a happy ending.”
Oh yeah, she also said she kept seeing a white house, but I have no idea what she was talking about with that one.
