How Do You Handle Your Kids Fighting?

This is in response to a Daily Blog Prompt from Social Moms.  While I honestly can handle all the “Happy Screaming” the yelling, name calling, screeching, that goes on when the kids are fighting can sometimes drive me to the point that I am going to put myself in timeout just to get away.  But with 4 kids running around that is not always an option.

The prompt from Social Moms wanted to know; Do I let them fight it out?  Do I stop them?  What is my resolution?  Well, in all honesty, it really just depends.  Erik & Jackie fight all the time, and most of the time it is over something silly, like who has the remote for the TV.  At the ages of 12 & 9, I think that this requires more of a compromise rather than a solution.  With their ages, I make them figure that out on their own, and until they do, they have to watch dreaded “Mommy TV.”  However, if it is a more serious fight then they both get separated and sent to their rooms for 15 minutes, or until they can figure out a way to get along, this can sometimes mean hours of peace; if you didn’t count Saige & Alex running around.

I do however remember once when Erik & Jackie got into it for what seemed like forever.  No matter what it was, they just could not agree on anything, including not agreeing.  I don’t even remember what they were fighting over but I had, had enough.  I simply tied their wrists to one another and told them that they would have to figure out how to agree since they were stuck with each other and that when they could figure it out I would unattach them.  Talk about a look from both of them, of “Did she really just do that?”  Well, yes I did.  About 2 hours later they FINALLY agreed on something, the agreed that it would be fun to have Saige, who at the time was about 18 months old, run over to them and flip her over their arms.  This was not really the solution I was looking for at the time, but hey, they finally agreed that it was funny, Saige was laughing, and they had even put out pillows for her to land on. 

Not to long Erik ask me what made me tie them together and my response was “because you are brother & sister and you will always be a part of each others lives, you need to learn to get along and sometimes just agree to disagree.”  I once again got that look of “What are you talking about?”

 

There are a lot of great writing prompts on SocialMoms, wish I had the time to participate in more, but it is fun to read everyone’s responses.

It’s Potty Time Part 3

Hopefully we do not have too many parts to this segment of my blog.  For some reason Saige thinks that she can wear underwear but not use the potty.  Yesterday I told her that if she peed in the potty her underwear wouldn’t get wet.  You would’ve thought that I told her the earth was round, I could almost see the light bulb above her head come on.  Her response “OOOOHHH, I got it.”  Not so sure about that one.

This morning after she once again changed herself from her pull up to underwear, I made a deal with her; if she was going to wear underwear, she had to use the potty, once again response was “OK, got it.”  Now I am not sure how well a deal with a 2 yr old as stubborn as Saige is going to go over but I figure it’s worth a try and as long as I stick to my side, we should be good. 

Hopefully the next Part of this blog will be a “YAY, she did it, no more diapers for Saige!”  Imagine the money I will save when I only have one left in diapers!?

It’s Potty Time Part 2

Day 1 of potty training I’m not sure if I can say it was a success or not.  Saige managed to pee on the floor, then clean it up then go sit on the potty.  She definitely knows what she is supposed to be doing, just need to work on the order that she is doing it. 

We did leave the house for 2 hours and no accidents.  YAY!!  However, as soon as we got home and she was playing out front & peed in the driveway, guess it’s better than on my floors.  She took a good nap and of course refused to put on a diaper or pull-up but managed to wake up bone dry.  Before bed I did convince her to put on a pull-up with underwear over top. 

Now we are onto Day 2.   She promptly got out of bed and once again handed me her wet diaper and put underwear on.  So far we have had one accident, but still not going to the actual potty and doing anything.  Hopefully at some point today she will sit there with progress, one can only hope.

It’s Potty Time

Just for the record, I am a firm believer that kids will let you know when they are ready to use the potty, rather than you letting them know when you are ready for them to use the potty.  Also, I am not a big fan of pull-ups during the day.  I think that kids need to “feel” the wet and that pull ups are simply fancy, expensive diapers with the neat little thing on the front that disappears when wet, which in the eyes of a toddler, is pretty cool.

With my oldest he was just about 3 and with another baby on the way I decided that I did not want to have two kids in diapers at the same time.  Not believing the whole “boys are harder to potty train than girls” or “wait he will regress once you have the baby.”  I thought in all my years of wisdom that I could do this.  Of course with some help from the guys I worked with they taught him how to pee on a tree.  This worked great until it got so cold in Northern Virginia that it froze.  Needless to say by forcing this on him I think is the reason that it took me YEARS to get him to master the art of the potty. 

With my oldest girl, I decided that I wasn’t going to push the potty in fear that it would once again backfire on me.  She was just about 3 and the daycare told me if she was potty trained my rates would go down.  So we went home that weekend, I asked once, “Do you want to use the potty”, she replied “sure” and that was the end of it.  She has not had an accident since.

So now we are onto my wonderful 2 year old.  I bought her the coolest training potty that sings songs whenever weight hits the bowl.  For the past 9 mths she has gone in sat on it, then gotten up and pushed it so it would sing to her.  Well in the past 2 days, she has decided that she is going to wear big girl underwear.  She woke up this morning, took off her jammies & diaper, handed me the diaper to throw away and proceeded to put on underwear.  This was an hour ago and we are now on pair 3 of big girl underwear.  I will have to give her credit though, she pees, cleans it up then goes and gets new underwear then sits on the potty.

My goal for the next 3 days while I have her home with me is to POTTY TRAIN.  My goal for the day is to get her to understand that we have to sit on the potty before we pee, not after.

Saige Day 1 of Potty Training in her Big Girl Underwear

First Days in Prescott

We moved up all of our stuff to Prescott the weekend after Thanksgiving.  Knowing that the temperature here was going to be below freezing, not really sure what we were thinking.  However, after moving to Phoenix I thought that the last thing I would ever hear in the morning was “Mommy it’s snowing, can we go play?”  After convincing the kids that snow is actually cold and that would require long pants, jackets, and mismatched socks for gloves the older three went out to make snow angels.

You can see Jackie’s at the top, Erik in the middle and they even taught Saige how to make one.

After this none of the kids wanted to head back to Phoenix.  We did have to go back for school and for my work though.  Thank you to all my great friends that gave us a place to sleep and for watching the kids while I put on a seminar in Scottsdale.

Though we did come back up a day earlier than expected, which was great to finally be “home”.  Prescott and our house reminds me of growing up on the East Coast with the parades and the cold, and of course the parades.  The kids and I attended the Annual Prescott Christmas Parade.

Not sure if Saige is scared or confused.  But it didn’t take her long to figure out that there was music to dance too and people throwing candy, and she had Erik there to help her figure it out.

Alex joined in from back on the grass with Mom.  He did start dancing when the marching bands came by.

Saige is patiently watching Erik & Jackie play basketball out front, while eating candy from the parade waiting to go to story time down town Prescott.

We are all still trying to get used to the cold, the actually having a yard and to the small town, I will try to post more as to how we adjust.

The Preston’s Move to Prescott

Back in October Tom got the job of Executive Chef at the Wyndham Garden Inn in Prescott, Arizona.  While I thought that I could handle all 4 kids until the end of 2010, I couldn’t have been anymore wrong.  We moved all our stuff up Thanksgiving weekend, then the kids and I followed the following weekend. 

Our first weekend was a lot of fun.  We went to the annual Christmas parade downtown that everyone seemed to enjoy.  We even managed to keep Saige from running out into the street.  Then the kids and I decided to go to the Christmas Story reading and the Annual Lighting of Downtown Prescott.  While the idea behind this is great, unless you hung out all day and had a seat right up front then you couldn’t hear anything.  Erik and I decided that next year if Dad can’t go then we won’t go either.

Today Erik started at Granite Mountain Middle School.  This is a complete change.  He now has a locker so he doesn’t have to carry around his backpack completely full all day.  He has a class schedule that even I can understand.  I did drive him to the bus stop where I was quickly informed I could leave.  We did have a misunderstanding of the Prescott School Districts bus schedule for after school.  We discovered that he is to take one bus to the High School then another to his stop.  Due to this he missed the bus and I had to pick him up from school, but at least now we know.

Jackie also had a great day.  She had two buddies to show her around today at school.  Her classroom is right inside the front door of the school.  It was a bit different not having half the neighborhood hanging out right outside the doors waiting to pick up their kids though.  She managed to go through the day with no bumps or surprises.

As for myself, Saige & Alex.  We did find a home for drop in daycare that is extremely close to the house.  I also think that we have decided to enroll Saige in pre-school for 3 days a week for a few hours.  However, for my first day working from home with two babies I would say we did pretty well, considering I FINALLY got them both to nap at the same time  This is a major accomplishment.

We are all now home at the same time with Alex sleeping, Saige curled up with Daddy, Erik & Jackie having a rare moment of getting along with a fire in the fire place.

Good night all, Plan for tomorrow is to do a recap with the pictures that I have since we have been here.  Check back later for more.

Day Two

I guess the first two really don’t count since we have been up in Prescott with Tom.  Today we went to breakfast at the hotel with Tom and were able to meet some of the people he now works with.  We did get some good insight into the neighborhoods and the schools which was a definite plus.  The kids and I then went and got lost attempting to find a house that we found online but had no luck.  We will try to go out again later today before we have to drive back home.

We are now home safe and sound.  The drive isn’t too bad, just not something I would want to do every day.  I am now hoping that everyone goes to bed early and that this week flies by.