In the ongoing fight of disciplining children, Matt and I recently made a punishment chore chart for each of the older kids. Things that are above and beyond their daily chores - stuff like cleaning out the car, washing the windows, pulling weeds, etc. Before writing the chores down, we'd have to quickly think of a punishment. It would go something like this:
"You're not allowed to argue with me. Because you argued, you now have to...hold on, let me think. Geez, there was a chore I was just thinking of the other day. What was it? Wait here, let me call Dad. Maybe he can think of a chore."
Not very effective. The kids would try to be helpful and offer suggestions:
"Should I help organize the Halloween candy? Maybe sort through all the old stuff, you know, candy the other kids don't want..."
We've had the charts in operation for a week or two now and it's working pretty well. Takes the thinking out of it - which works out really well for me. There is precious little space in my brain for new information and I'm not about to waste it on things like this. Not when I could be trying to remember the words to "Hit Me Baby, One More Time."
It's been really nice having some of these chores done. Chores that would normally fall to me. This puts a parent in the strange position of almost wanting the child to disobey so that something will get cleaned. Pretty soon I'll resort to desperate measures when the kitchen needs to be mopped:
"Are you arguing with me?"
"No, ma'am. I'm really sorry."
(Internally: "Darn!") "Ok, thank you for your apology. Wait, did you just blink at me? Don't you blink at me - That's it! Get the mop! I will not tolerate rebellious blinking."
Running with Children
This morning I took Jack and Kate to a local 5k. It was a really great cause - a couple of area churches worked together to organize the run that raised money for needy families and Thanksgiving meals.
My in-laws stopped by to watch the race and my father-in-law decided spur of the moment to run with us. He and I ran together for awhile, along with Jack, Kate, and a friend's daughter. After a bit, Matt's dad ran ahead with Katie. I stayed with Jack and Kaylin, which was perfect for me. Stupidly, I had decided to run 4 miles this morning before the 5k so by the second run, the plantar fasciitis in my left foot was really flaring up.
It was a good combination, me with my planter fasciitis and two kids who alternated between asking to walk and wondering what flavors of Gatorade awaited us at the halfway point.
There was a little excitement when a neighborhood dog excitedly jumped on the kids for 10 minutes before his owners came to get him. That certainly quelled the running for a bit. And then a motorcycle passed us on the road and Kaylin, thinking he was part of the race, called indignantly "Hey! That's not fair - he has a motorcycle! He's cheating!"
It was strange not to have my music during a run, just the melodious sounds of my own voice calling out "Guys - get over to the left!" on repeat.
In the end, it was a really nice morning. Kate beat Grandpa, despite his trash talk before the race began on how she was going to eat his dust. She told me that it was in fact Grandpa who did the dust eating. Jack decided that his mom ran ok, despite the fact that she was by all accounts much, much, much older than him and with far less energy.
My next solitary run? Can't come soon enough.
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