Tag: good behavior

children, happiness, humor, kids, mommyhood, motherhood, parenting

Clean Slate

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If you are new to this blog, meet Full Speed and T.Puzzle. The most calm and quiet brothers you will ever know who always, always behave. For everyone else, please disregard my previous posts. It's time to wipe the slate clean.

We made it.  To IHOP that is.  The boys were well behaved, the food good and we met some friends there as well.

Full Speed and T.Puzzle were excellent.

Let me repeat that.

Full Speed and T.Puzzle were excellent.

We went to Full Speed’s book fair after IHOP and you will never guess.  They were excellent there, too.  I mean really, really good.  It was swarming with people and chaos.  They never wandered far from my side and patiently ( yes, that’s right, I said patiently) waited in the very long line to purchase our books.

You could have knocked me over with a feather.

We came home, got in our pjs and curled up to read our new books.

I couldn’t have written a better ending to our night so I won’t.

The. End.

children, gratitude, happiness, mommyhood

Well Behaved (don’t get your reading glasses, I really wrote that)

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We went to Costco as a family. I do not enjoy shopping in a large warehouse setting packed to the gills with merchandise and shoppers. The noise, colors and smells in this vast space bombard me at every angle and make my skin crawl. You add in the antics of the boys and I’m all but hunkered down in the wine department pleading for a Costco worker to give me a sample. Now there’s an idea, if Costco gave out wine samples like they did their foodstuffs, it would quickly go to the top of my best-store-ever list.

Of course Mad Dog loves it even without the promise of free alcohol. He could spend hours bumping into people, perusing the gigantic lasagnas and nibbling on samples of cheese if he so desires.

To compromise, our trips to this mecca of bulk-shopping are rare and since I know how much Mad Dog loves it and I love him, I go.

As we entered the store I took a deep pull of breath and braced myself for the worst.

I was pleasantly surprised. This surprise is in reference to the boys.  They behaved with the utmost respect and decorum. They behaved how I always knew they could. The rest of the experience was much as I imagined; crowded, loud and larger-than-life.

This refreshing and unexpected of calmness of T.Puzzle and Full Speed was enough to help me endure the ocean of Costco madness.

Way to go, guys!  Now, let’s take this rare occurrence and supersize it Costco style!

gratitude, happiness, humor, kids, life in pictures, mommyhood

Goodish Things Will Happen

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As I was getting little T.Puzzle dressed for the day, he is always curious to know what kind of character underpants he is going to wear. He is delighted when the characters are Thomas the Train related.

“Don’t peep or poop on Thomas!” he exclaims. I love that he says peep. It never fails to entertain me. I will be sad when he finally figures that one out.

Our day was action-packed as usual. We started at the sprinklers, headed out for pizza and then topped it off with Target. Mad Dog even had additional plans for our evening but I quickly nixed them. I told him I needed a break.

Desperately.

He then offered to take the boys to the grocery. This left me with some peace and quiet.

Finally.

When my trio of men returned, Full Speed was the first one through the door.

“What kind of report am I going to get from your Dad?” I asked referencing his and little T.Puzzle’s behavior at the store.

“Goodish and badish, Mom.”

It was goodish that he told the truth I guess.

children, gratitude, mommyhood

The T.Puzzle Connection

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We may be turning a corner here. There certainly are no guarantees when raising a family but I’m sensing a slight shift in little T.Puzzle. He actually made the connection that bad behavior equals the loss of privileges. When I picked him up from school the first thing he said to me was, “Do I get to watch a show and have a treat?” I told him that he could but only if he was a good listener and was respectful. He seemed satisfied with that and went on to be mostly well-behaved for the rest of the evening.

I remember when Full Speed was in the heart of the terrible threes and he would have moments and phases of clarity just like Little T.Puzzle is showing. It would bolster me up for the next inevitable slide back to tantrum-filled defiance. I guess that’s what I need to do now. Soak up Little T.Puzzle’s slice of sanity and put the memory of it in my reserve tank of parenting energy.

You all know I’m gonna need it.

children, gratitude, happiness

Another Day, Another Purple

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Ouch. Yesterday was a toughie. Glad it’s over and I have officially made it through that dreaded first year without my Mom. I need to shift my mood so I am going to share something positive. Remember how Full Speed had a choking-of-his-classmates phase? Unfortunately if you don’t, I do. No matter how much denial I throw at the memories, I still cringe at the thought of red-marks on little Jimmy’s neck (name changed to protect his identity). It got to a point if Full Speed received a yellow mark (just okay) for talking out of turn or not waiting in line properly, I wasn’t upset at this behavior but infinitely relieved that no bodily harm had come to any of his peers.

Anyway, over the past two weeks, Full Speed has consistently gotten green marks for behavior (green is good). And, you could have knocked me over with a feather when I walked in his class, checked the behavior chart and saw he had a purple mark (above and beyond good, and, dare I say it, exceptional?) resting under his name. To celebrate I told him he could pick where we would have dinner the next day. Like any red-blooded American boy he chose…., McDonald’s.

So, the next day I have little T.Puzzle in tow and we head to pick up Full Speed for our fine-dining McDonald’s experience. We walk in the room and guess what? Full Speed had ANOTHER purple mark. I had to run it past his teacher to make sure it was legit and not an error in record-keeping . Turns out, it was a completely approved purple mark.

Two purples in a row. Here’s hoping for another choke-free day (fingers crossed!).