Door Mat Parents

A friend of mine pointed me to a blog that rubbed me the wrong way. I read both the post the link took me to and the previous one that "caused" the author to write the linked one. I can TOTALLY see the humour in the posts, but the blog read to me that BECAUSE toddler behaviour is normal, we as parents should just sit back and let our toddlers/preschoolers, hell, teens, do whatever, because their behaviour is normal for their ages.

And yes, I'm betting the author DOESN'T just sit there and smile while her child pisses on the floor, but it reads like she does. Unfortunately I see this too often. Parents that just let their kids do whatever. This was one of the reason I pulled Brianna out of school to homeschool her. Cause a lot of parents don't give a crap anymore! They don't raise their kids, they let other kids do it or the media. There is no more teaching of manners, courtesy or appropriate behaviour. It's just easier to tell them to go play.

I could go on and on about this topic, but in this day and age it's like beating a dead horse.

$19.90

That's how much Brianna charged to Lee's cell phone. Now she gets to pay me back. Roger's thankfully took the charges off my phone, but I need for her to learn that doing things like that costs REAL money! If it happens again, Roger's won't take the charges off so I want to make sure it won't happen again. So she gave me all the money in her kitty bank and paid off $12.90. Still owes $7 but is willing to work extra chores to pay me back faster. Let's hope she actually does it!

New System for Brianna

On Wednesday I hit rock bottom with Brianna. Nothing major happened, she didn't do anything super terrible, I just had enough. Nothing has been working. So I asked my girls for advice and here's what one came up with... Dr. Phil-ing her. I guess it's a matter of stripping her to nothing and making her earn everything.

So I started with her room. All the posters and such came off the walls, no stuffies on her bed, only one pillow, ect... The radio and night light stayed, but only cause I can't punish Olivia. Then the toy room... the only things in it now is the two booksheves (empty) and the vacuum. Everything else is in Isaac's room with the door locked.

All choices have been removed from her. She will eat a only certain times and only what I tell her. No more do I want an apple or an orange? She will wear whatever I put out for her, no pink or blue shirt choice.

She was very upset by this of course. Especially the prospect of no stuffie to sleep with and no choice over snacks. All was explained to her, how she could earn her things back, ect....

Wednesday and Thursday were a LOT better, but still full of the little things that she knows she can't do. Today was a great surprise. She listened well, finished her schoolwork and chores in a timely manner and so on. So I rewarded her with some Leapster time while Olivia napped. I went upstairs to hang with Lee. Brianna asked if she could get Olivia out of her crib to play with her. I thought sure! I was so happy with the sudden good girl behaviour. Then I went downstairs.... She was ignoring Olivia, watching tv and she had eaten a chocolate bar. *sigh*

So she got her mouth washed out with soap for lying about the chocolate bar (which she then admitted) and grounded to her room for the rest of the day. She was very remorseful this evening. Hopefully we'll get the good behaviour back now!

Cheating

I caught Brianna cheating in her school work today by looking at the answers in the back of the book and copying them. She's been working in these types of books for years and never cheated before. I am so disappointed. I tore out all the answer sheets from her workbooks and she is right now writing an essay on cheating.

I told her that the books she's working in right now are Grade 2 books. She should know all of it since she just finished Grade 2. She says "you know I didn't pay attention in class!" I told her that was her fault not mine. She claims it's not her fault either. Gee, who's fault could it be then?!?!

I plan to work with her teachers in Sept to get all unfinished work home so it can be done. I don't care if they want to mark it incomplete against her school record, but the work will be done! When her school work all came home in June, I couldn't believe the amount of work in there where not a single answer had been done! I don't know how on earth she's getting Cs and Bs on her report card. I don't think she's doing enough work to get even those grades!

She's gonna be in for a big surprise in Grade 3. I am totally cracking down. She'll have her school work at school, whatever work she doesn't have finished at home and her work books. I will not have a child who in only Grade 3 doesn't do her work. I wouldn't mind at all if it was that she *couldn't* do the work, but it's the fact that she *won't*.

Broke the $250 Mark!

Wooooo! I've sold over $250 worth of stuff so far! It's certainly helped. Almost 1/2 of it is in the savings account and the rest has helped pay bills and groceries. We're almost done the basement too. I'll probably get the last of it done tonight *fingers crossed* Brianna caught me taking pics of sale stuff and insisted on being put up for sale lol

Brianna's almost done school. She pouting about it lol We've come to an agreement for the summer. She'll do homework books through Olivia's morning nap. I'm hoping with her home all the time too that her behaviour will get better too. The stealing has gone down to a minimum but the temper tantrums are still high. So we have lots to work on over the summer. Hopefully the behaviour will get better and we can work on any weak spots in school work.

We're all excited about Canada Day coming next week! Olivia and Brianna got some new Canada Day clippies from a contest I entered.

Lee's work has slowed down. He's now getting home before 4pm almost everyday! Waaaaay better than the after 7pm he was doing. The girls are loving him being home!

My dieting has sucked lately. I need to get back on track. Thankfully I havn't gained, but I totally blew my Father's Day goal. I was still off 2lbs. My current goal is to get to 178lbs by Olivia's birthday... only 4.2lbs to go!

We're getting close to the Birthday Season! I'm done present-wise for Olivia and Brianna. I have everything but food for Brianna's party (and I think I need some icing color too). I still havn't done anything for Isaac's birthday but at least I found some of his gifts. And I really need to make up and send out Olivia's invites! Brianna will be taking her invites to school on Monday.

Moving to the Basement

Last night I started clearing out the basement. Got bunches of stuff garbaged, donate-abled and sellable. Did more tonight and majority of it was garbage :( Why on earth did I keep this crap for so long?!?! Well no more! My packrat days are OVER! It'll take a lot longer than the closet but I am tearing apart that entire basement! So sick of all the junk! Hopefully I'll have lots of sellable stuff and be able to make lots of money too!

Brianna had a rock bottom crappy evening. *sigh* I'm so sick of it. I just don't know what to do about her anymore....

Another Day Home

After spending yesterday picking nits out of Brianna's hair we are on about the 8th washing of her hair to get the vaseline out. Happily, when I checked her hair last night I did not see any nits. But her hair still looks like she hasn't bathed in a month so I kept her home again. She helped by sweeping and washing the floors after I explained to her that while yes, the floors are normally Lee's job, we are doing his chores because of the insane hours he's working now.

Life was going great until she decided that in order to keep Timmy out of her wet floors that she'd lock him in the linen closet and spray him with Windex if he tried to get out. OMG I swear I'm gonna be bald.

So she got to sit on her bed doing nothing with Grandma watching while Olivia and I went to the grocery store rather than coming with us and getting a treat after. She did do fairly well upstairs though. She's now in the tub washing her hair again. Hopefully we can keep having good behaviour so she can help me bake while Olivia naps.

Oh! And Lee actually got home at 5:30pm yesterday! Soooo nice to have him home "early".

Arrgggg!

After my "YAY Brianna" post it was discovered that she stole twice today. First I caught her stealing chocolates from my desk, then Lee discovered that she stole 2 juice boxes for school. I am so lost on this stealing thing. I *need* her to show improvements or I'm gonna start pulling out my hair!

On another crappy note... it is so freaking HOT! Lee insisted on going to feed the ducks. Well I aint gonna be doing that again when it's still 32C! We got back over an hour and a half ago and I'm finally cooling down. The upstairs must be cooling down though, Olivia only fussed a minute or 2 before going to sleep.

I *really* need to get back to my strength training. I have skipped it for the last 2-3 wks. I'm still walking (not as much cause of the heat and too dumb to think to pull down the treadmill), but of course my body is used to walking so I really need to go back to adding something else. I'm gonna do a day of legs and abs, then a day of arms and stretching, then go back. My clothes are looser and the scale is moving but I don't seem any smaller to me. Lee says he can tell but I can't.

Child Slavery Day

So Brianna's home today working. She swept and washed all my floors this morning and as soon as Olivia falls asleep she's gonna weed the gardens. She ended up having to sweep and wash the bathroom floor 3 times cause she didn't do it properly. And I know she hates weeding.

She's already be caught stealing twice today. This morning there were Gusher wrappers floating around (I knew I never should have gotten those). Later she was supposed to be washing the kitchen floor and she was into my chocolates on my desk.

Hopefully we can get around to making up her chart. Between her screaming match yesterday and her stealing and chores today I havn't even told her about it. She loves charts so I'm really hoping it works.

Had to go get more chocolate bars for the school fund raiser. Mom asked for a new case yesterday and it's already 1/2 gone! I'm bringing our other box to Gilles tomorrow to sell until I bring Brianna by on Saturday. With any luck I'll need to ask the school for another case on Monday!

New Plan

So had my meeting with the principal.... he approves of me giving Brianna a strike against her field trip and wants me to tell her teacher as well. He suggests a short running behaviour chart. Running no more than 2-3 days before a reward and using no more than 3 behaviours that we want to change. He approved of Brianna's desire to watch tv as a reward because it's obviously something she really wants and will work towards.

So we're gonna do a sticker chart with No Stealing, Not Arguing with Lee and Doing Chores Without Complaint as our behaviours. She can earn up to 3 stickers a day. If she earns 6 stars she can watch a movie or get 1.5 hrs tv time. If those 6 stars are earned in only 2 days one of us will play a board game with her. If she earns all 3 stickers for 3 days in a row she can have 1 hour of computer time. 25 stickers and she gets another reward (I'm going to let her have a say in this reward) and at 50 stars she gets a sleep over at Grandma's.

I didn't get to do up the chart with her today though cause she decided to have a screaming fit for over an hour about whether she should get out of her grounding early or not (can you guess what the answer was?). It was almost 8pm before her chores (that she started at 4pm) were done (properly).

Tomorrow she is staying home from school and I'm putting her to work. Child slavery! She'll be able to find out how easy the chores she has are! And of course, she'll have to do school work in there too.

On a good note, I did manage to walk from my house around the park and the Civic Complex to the clock tower in 20 minutes. At a normal walk this would take around 35-40 minutes. So YAY! I need to get back to my stretching and strength training at home though. And I really need to look into dusting off my work out videos *sigh*

Olivia gave me a fat/bruised lip this afternoon. She got all excited about the picture of me and Isaac on Lee's nightstand that we gave it to her to look at. Well that was apparently *too* exciting and she started swinging it around and my mouth got in the way. Thankfully doesn't hurt, just annoying and looking bad.

Principal Day

So while being grounded for stealing, Brianna stole again. This time the bottle of strawberry syrup. So she was told she wouldn't get the peaches for dessert she was told she could have if she behaved. Ensuing fit.... Since our kitchen sink is broken Lee had to do the dishes in the tub and was drying them on a towel. We started to tidy them while Brianna grumbled at the world while sitting in the tub fully dressed. Brianna decided to finally be nice and handed Lee a bowl. Then the world ended in Brianna's mind because he didn't say thank you. *sigh*

Conversation on the porch about her behaviour led to her deciding she didn't have to steal, just ask.... gee really?!

Meeting with the principal is today. Gonna tell him about what's going on a home and that while her behaviour is good at school, I've issued her a strike against her Zig Zag Zoo trip.

On another note my weight is still a no-go for change :(

Still no to the goal

Weigh in this morning.... no change *sigh* Which means it hasn't changed in a week. I was even 500 calories short yesterday! So peeved with myself. I was even commenting yesterday how the shorts I bough a couple mths ago are now falling off. I should do my measurements and see if inches are falling off and it's just that the scale hates me.

Brianna's stealing has hit an all time high. She stole a family sized chocolate bar from her school fund raiser at 5am and hid it under her pillow to eat. I swear she's grounded for life. I can't wait til Thursday so she can have her hearing test. If she passes it great, I know it has nothing to do with her hearing. If she fails, great, we can fix a problem and hope it solves some others.