this too shall pass--repost: one from WAAAAYYYYY back

haha...going through old posts and found this...posted once in a hardcopy family newsletter, typed version!!! then posted in 2006ish...reposted 10/2008 ...and today. Because I need to remember this TOO will pass :)


i will have to dig up the pictures!

hardcopy in my head...oh how I remember like it was yesterday!!!

REPOST:
I can’t help myself. Memories are so fun sometimes.
I am reprinting this from a very long time ago.

This is one of the articles from August 1997:
G would have been 3.

QUOTE:
A Day In The Life Of A Toddler
5:30 G woke up from his nap, a peaceful 2 hours for mom.

533 Mom starts to make dinner

535 G vacuums with the popper on the hardwood floor.

550 Used a chair to climb on the table

551-552 Time out

553 Stood on the chair and give me “THE LOOK”

554 Mom reads a story to G, burns the hamburger

559 Stood on the chair AGAIN

600 Mom tries to distract G with some toys
605 G gets under the kitchen sink, sprays WINDEX all over the newly mopped kitchen floor.

610 Dad calls to say he is on the way home, G back under the sink

611 Mom tries to distract G and talk to dad

612 G unplugs the phone system

615 Back under the kitchen sink, dumps comet all over
616-617 TIME OUT
620 Asks for a drink of Juice
622 Spills drink of juice, floor needs to be mopped again
625 plays and BREAKS angel candles
626 Mom cleans up broken candles
628 G coloring hall carpeting with deodorant
630 While scrubbing carpets, G is finding all sorts of fun chemicals under kitchen sink, AGAIN

I am going to interject here because I know that most of you are wondering why I did not have safety locks on my sinks….we did…read on.

Back to the article:

cont. (with this child, safety locks are only a pain for adults, if you want it open, ask G.)

Sprays Windex again, boy does the floor shine. “hey, can you spay over here where the comet was?”

631 FIVE MINUTE TIME OUT….for mommy
632 Mom ties the cabinet door closed.

636 Out of time out, wants a graham cracker.
639 Ground graham cracker into Oriental rug
640 Mom vacuuming graham crackers. G crushes the rest of the cracker on the kitchen floor, licks it up…at least the floor is clean.
642 Vacuuming interrupted by crash in the kitchen. Drain full of dishes has found a new home on the kitchen floor (with the graham cracker mess.)
645 Dad calls again, not home (obviously), should be home in 17 minutes.
650More graham cracker mess, (where is he finding these, I only gave him one.) What happened to dinner? Sweep up crackers, wipe floor.
653 Mom starts to make spaghetti. G is throwing Tupperware into the laundry room to the dog, thank goodness, at least he is distracted.
655 G is hungry, wants a milk bottle.
659 G sprays milk all over the kitchen floor, imagine that.

700 Mopping up kitchen floor, G sprays milk on the dining room floor.

705 Floors are clean. G is jumping on cereal boxes, one is open, crushed cereal everywhere.
706 Time out. Mommy cleans up floor, again. WHAT”S BURNING???

707 Throw out Spaghetti.

708 Read to G.
712 Visiting Teacher calls. Cleaning burnt dishes and finish making a pie crust.
716 G unplugs phone system again.
717 Karen, visiting teacher, calls back.
720 G unplugs the phone again. WHERE IS DADDY@!@!
723 Karen calls to say goodbye.

725 G moves a chair to the kitchen where stereo and plants are. Pulls Mommy's records (YES RECORDS) down, knocks over plant and full potpourri pot, stereo hanging by a chord. G smiles.

728 PIE CRUST BURNT

730 Mommy cleaning up the plant dirt, broken record and potpourri mess. Daddy is in BIG trouble (this is all his fault, right!??!)

731 While mommy is still cleaning, G opens the safety gate (did I say open the safety gate???) and spills the dog water and food down the back stairs.
732 Dog cleans up some of the mess, the rest is left for daddy
733 WHERE IS G-3?
734 G just finished pulling the all the books off the shelf and removing the wrappers.
735 Mommy starts crying and stacking books (2 years later and the covers still have not been put back on.)
736 G is being so quiet!!! He has pulled all the Kleenex out of the box. "Mommee, you are crying, you need a tissue."

737 What time did Dad call? Mom is folding Kleenex and putting it back in the box (saving .79 cents). G has found his fire engine and is screaming fire engine noises in the dining room on the hardwood floor.
738 Call for Pizza. What happened to the fire engine noises? G is in the bathroom pulling toilet paper off the roll!

739 G is strapped to high chair. Mom finished folding Kleenex (I never knew there were so many Kleenex in one box!)

800 DAD”S HOME. Pizza is delivered, “How was your day dear?”
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
CLOSE QUOTE


I think this whole thing happened because I mopped the floor while he was napping. I should have been reading, writing, relaxing…..that is my learned lesson, my roots are deeper and I can laugh and smile. This too will pass.


---mommee
Do it nice, or do it twice!

by the hair of my chinny chin chin

okay, so for a while i have been thinking, and doing nothing. i make lists, i scribble things down on the calendar, and when it comes to doing i am out of time. i spend more time making lists that will get me organized [and magically happier] than i do cleaning up after my kids. i know, that is a long time.

so, as i was driving my kids today back and forth, forth and back, my finger kept going to this hair on my chin. it is driving me crazy. but, since i can not find the tweezers and i can't get mr. b to pluck it with his teeth, i just have to live with it. i have been playing with it for days.

what happens to us, when we are kids we know exactly what we want to do, who we want to be. we laugh and giggle at the prospects, happiness is all around us. then we grow up, can't figure out who we are, much less who we are going to be. i can't even find the tweezers. life.

i decided that i am having too hilarious of a time trying to figure all of this out. i crack myself up half of the day, when i am not crying, which is the other half. i am sure that i am not alone in my crazyness.

will someone please put me in time-out. and give me a pair of tweezers while i am there.

"Yes, We're Grounded!"

What you must know going into this: We do not generally use grounding. It has only been used as a punishment to fit the crime. Like the time when G had forgotten who we were trying to raise him to be. To remind him, we grounded him to a list of words which he had to look up in the collegiate (1500 pages) dictionary. From the list and their definitions he had to put them in report form. Which word would I like to describe me, and which words would I like to avoid being described as. Sounds easy, except that he was only 7 years old, in the first grade, and we had given him words which would require that he look up more words to define; took him a bit longer than a week, for the first draft. At that age their handwriting is atrocious, so of coarse a re-write was in order. It was so impressionable that no one in our home has forgotten.

Cece had the same punishment…

Second, G was grounded from me once for a period of two weeks; for disrespect towards me. The natural punishment was that he lost the “privilege” of me and, with that, all that I do for him. (This actually works very well. Painful enough that we have had no more incidences worthy of such grounding.)

At this time he was in the 3rd grade. He had the opportunity to eat oatmeal for two weeks, in his room. Do his own laundry. Walk to and from school. Eat pb and j, with carrots and water for lunch (at school…no cookies, etc, notes from mom, just boring old sack lunch – very painful punishment!) and ditto for dinner – in his room. He could not talk to me, ask me questions. He was to report directly to his desk and was given various writing tasks by his dad. He was also given only two bathroom breaks a day. After a couple weeks of missing mom’s dinners, love, attention and attending too, he was ready to understand that respecting his mother gains him great comforts.

You would not think that this would be a good thing to aspire to.

Alas, S-9 and J-7 are grounded. Unfortunately, I allowed them to come up with their punishment this time, and this is how it went.

After walking the dog and checking in with various neighbors to see what their after school treats were, they decided that without telling mom they would stay at the house with the best offer.

After about an hour of dog walking time I began to worry. Not so much for the boys, but for the neighbors whom they were certainly entertaining.

Sending out an SOS (ie G and Cece), the boys were called home and given a stern lecture, dinner, pajamas and meet me at the couch to talk punishment.

They came up with being grounded.

I thought, not what I would have chosen, a bit harsh, but….both agreed it was what they wanted.

I gave in. And then…..in unison, “YES, WERE GROUNDED.” We get to eat in our room. The cheers, I am certain, could be heard downtown, because about that time their dad called to see if everything was “okay.”

Me, in shock, “Yeah, were fine, the boys are just off celebrating that they are grounded.”

(Later I hear them talking, “finally, we get to be grounded.” “I am going to clean up my desk, how about you?” “Yeah, we get a whole week in here, so I want it to be clean.” “What do you think mom will serve us for dinner?” “We don’t have to go to piano….we don’t have to go to scouts….I don’t even think we can come out to go to church.”)

Watch out world. (and in conclusion: why didn’t I think of this, peace and quietly I get to type away, eat what I want, when I want, and they are in their room CLEANING.)