Can I get a push?

I asked someone to give me a push today on facebook. I got the reply, are you stuck in your driveway? ha. Nope, I'm stuck in my bed. I need some motivation again. See I get up in the morning and the day, I get dressed and get going. (Which really means, I head back to my room or maybe sit down at the kitchen table). I just frequently wander back to my room for little rests where I'll sit down with my laptop, or lie down. I'm tired, and demotivated. I lack the drive and energy to keep moving. So I pulled out my old trick, I got up and put my shoes on. Yep, I find even when I'm not going anywhere if I put my shoes on inside the house it helps pick my motivation up, and get me moving faster. Weird, I know! That and some good tunes. But I didn't get to do that today, because the kids were already claiming the stereo with "fun kid cd's" they got for christmas. Nothing like a little rain, rain, go away to keep the motivation levels up! haha. So since I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired the big plan for the day was to call the clinic and make an appointment, because somethings got to give, but it was closed due to the holiday on the weekend. I guess I wasn't thinking about that one.

I had big plans to clean and organize the kids bedroom too, its become disasterous since the holidays and all the new toys coming in, and I've been putting it off way too long. I had planned to tackle it while they were staying with there dad but I procrastinated, that's right people, I used the "P" word. I'm hoping for 2011, I won't be doing any more of that "P" thing. So, here's a look at what the room looked like:









Scary I know! I did end up cleaning their room today, so a little pat on the back for me, but I didn't manage to organize it, and get all the toys into new homes like I wanted to. You know how it is when the kids get new toys, they don't officially have homes in the room, so you have to re-organize everything to make it fit right, and the old toys all needed to be shuffled back into their proper drawers (cars with cars, and trains with trains, etc). So instead I managed to tidy it, and make it presentable (unlike the pics) but not get what I wanted done, so I didn't take any amazing after photo's for you. Hope you're not too disappointed. If you are, just close your eyes and image the above, just clean. lol. I'm such a jerk.

So, as a part of trying to improve myself worth I am trying to do away with the negativism in my life. I know, it may be hard to tell from my facebook status's or my blog sometimes, but believe me, this is me putting the upswing on things. Just read it in a cheery tone. lol. Seriously though, I do often find myself trying to find the positive in every situation, so I can remember the blessings.

Speaking of blessings, my little blessings with heartbeats, yes I mean my children! We played monsters today. After the whole I need a push thing, well, Berlyn was getting drastically bored too, so she was right next to me, mom, mom, MOM! So when I got up, we played our - no wait - THEIR favorite game. Lets face it, running around, making a hoarse voice, screaming and chasing for an hour is NOT my favorite game. BUT! I find the joys and the laughter so rewarding! It reminds me why I love being a mommy. When Shane and I were together he would often watch me play with that with them for so long and say, you're such a good mommy. (I think I exhausted him just watching). I was totally out of breath, picking them up, throwing them on the couches, its hard work! We do play it often. The best part, I will never need a gym membership, because it is physically exhausting. I think I needed 3 breaks, just to catch my breath! And everytime we stop, the kids never want it to end, no mommy, lets keep playing! You can just sit there and tickle us! haha. I love them so much.

As for my goal to master the strong willed parenting techniques, I'm not doing so good! Eek! I haven't started STILL! See here's the problem, I am supposed to be practising the "attending" skill with Elias for 10 minutes twice daily. This is where you sit down with your child with some toys and talk to him about what he is doing. More specifically repeat what he is doing back to him, without asking any questions, or issuing any instructions. Also do not try to teach. Its also reccommended if possible try not to praise them always. For example:

Elias is driving the train. The train is going up the track. The green train is going to hit the red one!

See, it sounds uncomfortable, and difficult. And they say at first it is. But what its doing is noting the positive behaviors of your child, without directing which can aggrivate a strong willed child. It also is helping to open up the lines of communication between parent and child. Often parents of strong willed children are so used to only pointing out the childs negative behaviors they get into a habit of "let sleeping dogs lie" so to speak. So if the child is being good, don't bug him by trying to talk to him etc. because it could excite him or make him angry. This attending is supposed to help break that habit. I don't know how much of all of the above is neccessarily true in our home for Elias, I don't feel we struggle with only spending time with him when he's bad, but I want to do all of the steps in the book, so I will faithfully practice the skill anyways. BUT you're supposed to record your sessions because it is difficult not to ask questions or give directions so if you record it you can take note of how you are doing and improve and I don't have a recording device, so I have been putting off starting. I know i should be practising anyways!!

So, looking at the POSITIVE side of things, I did implement something else I had read in the parenting book I thought was important! There will be no more of this all the time:



That's right. Too much computer time for my kids. I know in most homes it is monitored and for River it is, but somehow I managed to let it slip away for these little guys only in the last 6 weeks. They didn't even know how to use the computer before that. I just one day, needed to occupy them, and had an epiphany that hey, Treehouse has some games they may like, and they should be safe for them. Next thing you know, they were playing maybe 3 hours a day! Its a lot. Admittedly I was using it like a babysitter. It just became so convenient. So, no more. I will still let them play, but today, I implemented my alarm clock. 20 minutes each. I know thats not much, but their not that old. Also, another bad habit in my house that got the kibosh (yes, this is a word, I googled it!) was leaving the tv on in the background. Here is what I learned from my book, a few interesting facts on tv and children. I was SHOCKED!

• Children 2-5 on average spend over 32 hours a WEEK in front of a TV screen. approx. 25 of these hours are watching tv. The remaining time is spent watching recorded media (dvd's or videos) and playing video games. This time does not include computer time.
• Approx. a third of children 6 years old or younger live in a home where the tv is on most of the time if not all of it.
• It is estimated that 42% of 4-6 year olds have a tv in their rooms, and 29% of 2-3 year olds have a tv in their room. (OK, mine do, but they don't use it)
• Only 5 to 25% of the avg. child's tv watching is spent on show's specifically produced for children.
• Approx. 40% of parents do not have rules about how much time their children under 7 can spend watching tv.
• By 18 the avg. child has seen 200 000 violent acts and 16 000 murders, with 8000 of these being by the age of eleven on television alone. (And people wonder why I don't let River play call of duty like all his friends! All their doing is murdering!)
• Children ages 2-7 veiw approx. 14000 commercials per year not including ads on the internet or other media
• Children who watch the most tv tend to have the lowest grades at school. In FACT the amount of tv watched in a young childs life is a strong predictor of whether or not they will graduate from college. (Gives you something to think about when you are feeling lazy and want to turn that tv for a break. Um, no thank you.)
• There is an association between young childrens media exposure and later aggression as well as bullying.
• children who read well tend to watch less tv.
• children 2-11 have increased their time spent online by 63% from 2004 to 2009.

So, they did say a bunch of stuff to do, obviously, like limit your child's tv time. 1-2 hours of quality tv time per day is plenty. And try to sit down and watch television with your child, so you can explain what they are seeing. Don't use the tv as a baby sitter. (I'm guilty, sometimes its just that much easier to cook dinner if they're watching a movie). Don't leave the tv on as background noise, children don't play as well when it is on. Did you know for every hour the tv was on in the background parents spoke less words to their children? (between 500-1000 less words) Which leads to speach delay and language development issues. I was amazed. Elias was a late talker, and now I'm feeling really guilty! You bet they watched cars the movie once today and that was IT! I'm making changes baby! And I hope reading this will impact others to change things in their childs lives too.

Its funny I chose to write about this tonight since at the dinner table, River was talking to me about how he doesn't know what to say when his friends ask him why he's not allowed to play those kinds of video games (like call of duty etc) I tried my best to explain to him that we just have a different set of values. I was trying to explain to him that when people are exposed to killing and murder they can become desensitized. So we do our best not to watch shows or play video games that contain things with it in it, because heavenly father wouldn't want us to take joy and entertainment from killing. I related to him how there are gangs in the states where teenagers have to kill someone to get into the gang. This is considered normal, and will be there way of proving they are tough. But we are so far away from that, that the thought of killing someone is not only very frightening, it is appalling, pretty much un-thinkable. I said to him, if we watched it every day, and "practised" it on our video games, we would come to think it was ok, even normal. Like the teenagers in the gangs. I tried to explain how hopefully one day there will be enough rightous people in the world who will refuse to watch tv and movies with violence in them or play video games with it. If no one played it or watched it, they wouldn't make it anymore. It would be less acceptable. And crime rates would go down. I'm sure some people reading my blog right now think my way of thinking is idealistic but I'm ok with that. I know the likelyhood of that happening is slim too, but that does that mean I should call up the devil and ask him how I can help him recruit? No, I continue holding strong to the iron rod. Hopefully River and I will set an example one day.