My Toddler Can Read My Mind (and Other Thoughts)

Yesterday evening, Logan sat facing me when Sophie walked by. I looked at her, admiring her new casual dress that I bought for $6.80 at Kohl's (Score!) Logan wasn't looking at Sophie, but at my face. He said, "You like Sophie's dress." How did he know what I was thinking?!

I'm blogging right now, because I'm toast. Since we are on a summer break from schoolwork, I have started exercising again. I have been doing a fifteen minute T-Tapp workout, but this morning, I did the forty minute T-Tapp Total Workout. At first it felt great to be the "good kind" of sore, but now exhaustion has set in along with the soreness. I'm off to a good start, though, and I know from past experience that this exercise will get me in shape and more energetic! I thought I'd have to go through the instructional video about the exercises first to re-learn the workout, but I guess it is like riding a bike: my muscles remember what to do.

If you could look inside my refrigerator and freezer now, you would see another sign that we are on summer break. The organization and shining clean are beautiful to behold. Yeah, my kids think I'm a little strange too. Don't get me wrong, I did clean out my refrigerator during the school year, but not to this extent.

It is nice to get more cleaning and organization done, but I'm not getting as much done as I had hoped. I still have a toddler and a lot of distracting interruptions. But really, I'd rather have my toddler and the interruptions of my family than have a perfectly organized house!

James recently gave me an occasion to laugh my head off. While at the CO Railroad Museum, he walked out of the men's bathroom to come suddenly face-to-face with upon a woman in a burqa. He was so startled that he jumped, and then embarrassed by his reaction, he nervously said, "Hi." I think the burqa somewhat defeated the woman's desire not to be noticed. James certainly noticed her more than any other woman around!

This is an unusual post for me without pictures, but new pictures are up at Colorado Kids.

Mission Accomplished

Ah! We finished the garage!

Anyone who has seen our garage will immediately know that the garage was a MAJOR project. For everyone else, be thankful that you did not see it. I did not even take Before pictures. The After pictures are my way of trying to erase the bad memories. Hee hee.

[James: I can now look forward to winter without having to scrape the frost off of the car windshield. Melissa helped me to organize and to realize what we did not need. It is now possible to keep the garage clean, and I plan to do so!]

Taming the beastly garage gave me the courage to slay the paper dragon on my desk. Today I revamped our filing system and added a binder for pressing household business that needs attention. Hopefully I now have a place to put everything.

Train them while they are young! ;-) Logan seems to think that the vacuum is his friend. He gets excited whenever it appears and will sit quietly mesmerized, watching it in operation.

He took a couple unassisted steps this weekend and again tonight, but he still leans too much to keep steadily balanced. It would be fine with me if he kept crawling for awhile longer.

He has added even more drama to his crying lately. Prior to this past week, at times when he was told no about something, he would stick his bottom lip out and let out a rather fake "WAAAAaaaaaaah" while squeezing his eyes shut tight and then blinking them. Quite the little actor! Now, mainly when he must endure a diaper change, he sounds like a miniature Tarzan. If he wants us to feel sorry for him the way he is feeling sorry for himself, it is not working! We all think it quite hilarious. Maybe I can catch him on video so that he can laugh at himself later.

WFMW: Camoflauged Classroom

Last spring, before the birth of our fourth child, I converted our homeschool classroom back into a bedroom. With the loss of a schoolroom, we thought of having our basement finished, but we decided against it upon finding out the cost! Instead, we returned to "doing school" on the main floor of our house, and I was forced to come up with a creative storage solution.

My china cabinet, in the dining room, was given to me by my grandparents. I enjoyed having china displayed in the dining room, but practicality won out. I moved all of the displayed china into a kitchen cabinet and moved the schoolroom supplies to the cabinet. At first, I intended to hang curtains inside the glass doors to hide the clutter, but then I found baskets at Target which sufficiently contained the supplies while still looking nice (I think). Here is the end result:

I am thankful that the supplies are hidden so that the dining room doesn't look cluttered! Works for Me! (Now what to do with my pathetic plants...)

P.S. The time change definitely does NOT work for me!

Previously on WFMW:

WFMW: Musical Mornings

This past fall, I grew discouraged over the length of time it took my kids to get ready in the morning. When I came across a CD program online that set a morning routine to music, I thought "Great idea, but I'll do it myself!" The tasks featured in the program would not have been all that helpful to my family, but my husband James and I took the concept and created one of our own tailored to our family.

First I made a list of all the tasks that the kids needed to accomplish in the morning and listed a time frame that I thought would be appropriate for each. Next, I located short, upbeat classical pieces or kids' songs that would fit the time needed. James found a blank tape and recorded his voice cheerfully greeting the children and instructing them step-by-step through the morning chores with music following each instruction. (Since the kids hear my voice for the majority of the day, we decided to have James give the instructions.) Some of the chores differed with each child. For instance, James told my daughter to brush her hair while the boys cared for the guinea pig. Finally, I made a chore chart on the computer with each child's chores listed and a place to check them off when completed each day.

The original CD program recommended rewarding the children with a one-on-one date with a parent as a reward when a certain number of points were achieved. We used that reward once with each child, but then changed our minds. We told them that we didn't want them to feel like they had to earn time with their mom or dad. We wanted to just spend one-on-one time with them whenever we felt like it. I suggested that we change the reward to a book for each child which they thought was a good idea. Recently, after about a month of work, each kid earned a book.

As to the effectiveness of the tape, it works wonderfully! Though it took some time to set up, we are extremely pleased with the results. The tape reminds the kids what needs to be done in an orderly fashion and they are motivated to get each chore done in the time frame to earn a point. There has been less "forgetting" and more timeliness without nagging. I've been able to take care of the baby without distraction, knowing that they are getting their jobs done!

We have used the morning routine tape in our family Monday through Saturday (later start on Saturday) since early October. My seven year old daughter says that she has the tape memorized and doesn't really need its prompting anymore. Maybe we ought to test that claim sometime! My nine year old son still likes the tape. Prior to the tape, he was the most likely to space his duties and dawdle. The tape has been a cheerful, upbeat way of keeping him on task. My ten year old son appreciates the tape, because it helps them to get going faster, which allows a timely start and finish to homeschooling each day. He says that he doesn't want to ever quit using the tape! Of course, they all enjoy the positive reinforcement of rewards.

Works for me! To read more helpful tips, visit Rocks in My Dryer.

Click on the pictures to see previous WFMW entries:

Works for Me Wednesday: Refrigerator Pictures

The following is a re-post in order to share this idea with WFMW participants:

The messy collage of pictures precariously held up by magnets all over my refrigerator has been getting on my nerves. This week I decided to try a new idea.

Sophie has a French memo board in her room where she puts pictures of her friends and cousins, as well as birthday cards, or presently, Valentine's cards. She did such a nice, neat job of arranging it, that I decided to figure out a way of attaching such a board to the fridge. I bought a board, found strips of magnets that I had saved, and with a glue-gun, attached a generous amount to the back of the board. Here is the result:

If you decide to try this idea and the magnets aren't strong enough, someone suggested in the comment section to try using adhesive velcro strips.

For more Works for Me Wednesday tips, visit Rocks in My Dryer

WFMW: Changing Station

When my oldest three children were babies, the house where we lived had a bathroom with a long counter next to the sink. I enjoyed having a diaper changing station on the counter by a water source, making clean-up a snap.

Seven years later finds us in a new house with a new baby, but no bathroom with a counter long enough for a changing station. After a week with my newborn, I came up with a new plan. Our new changing station is in our powder room/laundry room. The changing pad sits on top of our front-loader washing machine with room behind it for a basket containing cloth diapers and a small diaper pail. The sink is within arm's reach and the cloth wipes are located in a small basket on top of the toilet. We have a colorful mobile hanging by fishing line from a clothes pole above the washing machine to provide entertainment for baby during the changes. The benefits to having the changing station in the laundry room?

• Access to a water source
  


• Hard surfaces for easy clean-up when baby behaves like a human fountain (saves the carpet in the "nursery")


• Mom can multi-task. While baby is still happy on the changing pad, a load of laundry can be thrown in the washer right below, or switched to the dryer. (If I had a top-loader, the changing pad would be on the dryer.)

Works for me! To see other Works for Me Wednesday ideas visit Shannon at Rocks in My Dryer.

Still Clean...

My system appears to be working. Today a 3 year old, 4 year old, 5 year old, 6 year old, and 8 year old were all playing together in the basement for about 3 hours total...and the toys are all picked up! This is how it worked: They at first checked out the play dishes and the balls (two cards). After a while, they wanted to play with the toy box toys and the stuffed animals. I told them to pick up the dishes and balls first (with which they were done playing) and they did so and replaced the cards. Then they checked out the other items.

You may laugh at my excitement over such a trivial matter. The mess before to me, though, was so overwhelming that it was difficult to know where to start, much less for the kids.

Battle of the Basement

For the last two days, I have fought the Battle of the Basement. I won! I've gone through boxes, weeding out items for our garage sale this weekend. With the kids, I cleaned up and organized their toys. I put an envelope and card on each container. If they want to play with something, they have to check it out, by giving me the card. I will limit how many toys can be out at the same time. Before supper, or at least before bedtime, they'll have to pick up what they checked out. I'm hoping this will work, because I don't like to spend my time in the basement. That's why it got so messy down there to begin with. I wasn't always aware of how much they were hauling out and all of the little toys (i.e. Tinker toys, legos, lincoln logs, blocks) scattered everywhere became a daunting task to clean up. Now the kids can actually ride a trike and a Big Wheel down there!

Now our Family room is full of garage sale items. I'll be glad to be rid of it.