Charts and more Charts

About 3 years ago I bought a book called Accountable Kids.  I read it and then made my own charts for the kids.  It WORKED!  My household chores became less and less as the kids were actually taking care of a lot of the little things on their own. 

Then we moved….. and sort of got out of the habit. 

Two weeks ago I pulled the book back out, found the charts I had made, and printed off new tags and tickets for the kids.  I had made the charts out of wooden picture frames that I painted in a different color for each kid.  We have 2 hooks at the top of the chart, one for chores to do and one where the completed chores get turned over and placed on.  At the bottom there are 3 hooks, one for tickets received, one for tickets used and one for book points.  They get 30 minutes of electronics time for each ticket (tv, computer, Wii etc….)  If they get all 3 tickets (morning, afternoon, evening chores each = 1 ticket) they get a punch on their book points card.  When that card is full they get a trip to the bookstore to buy a new book.    Here is a picture of  their charts.  Ignore the faucet.  The only place I have to put these right now is on the window ledge in the kitchen.  It is VERY important that these charts are in a place where they are visible to all.

 

Another chart we have been using is our Family Home Evening Chart (aka Family Night).  One day I was frustrated with the fact that we were not regularly having FHE and if we did no one knew what they were in charge of that night.  So I grabbed a plank of wood from the garage told Rodi to cut it about 16 inches long.  I then painted it blue.  When it dried I went to work with a paint pen (LOVE THESE THINGS) and some hooks.  Here is what the finished product looks like.  The lesson hook is really lesson/activity hook.  Oh and it does have a place on the wall but I painted in the kitchen and just haven’t gotten this hung back up.

 

 

Charts can be a fabulous thing when you use them.

The Auction Box

Tonight at the end of family night we tried something new, a toy for chore auction.  Over the past week as I have picked up the family room, kitchen, dinning room table or any other room/area I have collected toys, books etc… that did not belong there and put them in the “auction box”.  Tonight I brought out the box and the kids had to bid chores to retrieve the items.  We took notes and they won’t be getting their treasures back until the chore they bid is done.  Tonight no child could bid on another child’s toy unless the owner of said toy decided it wasn’t worth a chore for them.  If there were no bids the toy went in the trash.  Next week if toys went unclaimed due to the chore not being done the anti goes up and anyone can bid.  Should be interesting.  I will keep you posted on how it goes.  I am thinking that if a toy is up for auction twice and still never ends up in the hands of the winning bidder the toy will end up in the garbage can.  What I am really hoping is that there will be less and less toys to auction each week as the kids will realize it is just easier to pick it up in the first place.

Another thing we re-instated was the laundry schedule.  It just works so much better than me trying to do it all (I think that doing laundry is worse than cleaning toilets!).  Monday through Friday everyone has a day to do their laundry and then on Saturdays we will wash all the bedding.  Sunday there will be NO LAUNDRY.  This system was working so well for us and I don’t even know why we stopped doing it.

A new year should at least start off somewhat organized, I guess. *grin*

An Interesting Phone call…

Cheryl: Poison Control Center this is Cheryl

Me: Hi Cheryl my name is Heather and well my 2 year old “Moe” decided it would be good to brush his teeth with ICY HOT.

Cheryl:  I don’t mean to giggle but do you know how much he managed to get in his mouth?

Me:  No, but I don’t think it was much

Cheryl:  Do you have the bottle?

Me: yes

Cheryl: Can you tell me the active ingredients so we can determine what the next step is?

Me: Sure (and so I did)

Cheryl: Do you think he was able to get a teaspoon or more in his mouth? If he was able to get a teaspoon in then we would be looking at an aspirin overdose.

Me: I don’t think so.  It appears by his hair that he thought that it might have been hair gel at first.  I am thinking that once it was on his hair and he could smell it that he thought it was toothpaste instead.  I am sure he only licked a bit off his hand before running to me in the laundry room screaming “mouth hot, MamMa, Mouth HOT.:

Cheryl: *giggling again*  I would just keep rinsing his mouth out with water and then give him some food and milk to drink.  He should be fine.  If he did get more than we suspect in his mouth you will want to watch for nausea and vomiting.

 Me: Lovely.

Cheryl:  Call us back if you need anything else and have a good ummmm better day.

Me: Thanks and I will try.

Just another day in Moe’s World of adventure.

Where oh where have I been????

I have been here, just too pre-occupied to post.  I have been very busy taming the home-front.  Simple battles to extreme they vary from day to day. 

One such battle would be The Battle at Toddler Falls.  I was upstairs trying to combat the villains on Mt. Saint Nina, the piles of shirts were gaining on us but with hangers in hand we were making some progress, when all of the sudden I heard running water.  MOE!  I told Nina to run downstairs and turn the water off. 

Mistake- NEVER send a 6 year old to take on a 2 year old, the toddler will always win.

I hear Nina shrieking and decide it’s a job for the Admiral (that’s me *grin*) I run down the stairs not sure what to expect.  As I round the corner I see Nina has armed herself with a bath towel that she has placed over her head and she is marching towards Moe. Her arms were outstretched blocking the water that was being sprayed towards her face.   Moe has taken his post high above the ground on Ft. Sink and is prepared to battle to the end.  He has the spray nozzle in hand and is spraying water EVERYWHERE!  His laughter and chuckling were very villainous at this point, he seemed very proud of himself.  I ran by Nina being mindful of where I stepped so as not to fall on my backside (very important).  I took a hit to the face and one to the shoulder but I had to show Mighty Moe that he was no match for Admiral Rodi, I would not go down!  As I got closer he just squeezed the nozzle more.  Finally I arrived at Ft. Sink and grabbed the ammo from his little pudgy monkey hands and save Chez Rodi and all it’s inhabitants from the wrath of Mighty Moe.

Then of course I had to battle Lake Tiny One on the floor of Chez Rodi’s Kitchen.  Man Toddler made lakes and puddles have no place inside the house.

That was just one of the many battles that took place over the past week.  Many of the battles included laundry, closets, lost remotes, boo-boo’s, name calling,  and bed times.  I am sure this week will be no different but we did manage to start today off on a good note as both Bubba and JJ received A’s on their math tests.

Just because

Just because I should be sleeping and am instead sitting here at the computer I thought I would share what I never thought I would be doing when I grew up…..

Never in a million years did I think I would live where I live and have COWS.

Never did I think one of the things on my to do list would be “call Mr. E about getting a round bale of hay”

Never did I think I would be on the board of a youth wrestling league

Never did I think I would be homeschooling my children

Never did I think I would be married with FOUR children

Never did I think I would be e-mailing and talking long (very long) distance to my husband rather than eating dinner with him and discussing the daily events.

Never did I think my Faith would play such a HUGE  role in my DAILY  life.

Never did I think I would be  interested in politics

Never did I think I would clapping and cheering for events such as going “poo in the potty”

Never did I think I would dread doing laundry quite as much as I do.

Never did I think that all these things would make my life feel so full and wonderful.  Some may seem to be a great challenge at times, but still, they make me who I am and for that I am thankful. Very thankful.

Big Boy Choo-Choo Pants and bedding

Well after a wonderful day of Hide and Go Seek Poo yesterday I decided today I needed to be a bit more hard headed about Moe and this whole potty training thing.  I don’t know what is taking me so long this time.  With the other kids as soon as they turned 2 (if not sooner) they were working on becoming diaper free.  It only took Bubba 8 days to be free of diapers day and night.  JJ and Nina were relatively speedy as well, though not quite as fast as Bubs.  Moe turned 2 in August so I am a bit behind my norm.  Maybe I am just being the lazy one?

 Well today after I witnessed him diaper off squatting in front of the closed bathroom door grunting away I decided that we HAVE to get this boy to use the actual toilet!  Luckily I caught him before the grunting produced anything. *Whew*

We went to Wal-mart to get some Hair Color (not for me of course *grin, giggle, LOL*) and some other needed items.  While we were there I thought I should go and check out the toddler bedding to see if there was something Moe would fall in love with and actually want yearn to sleep in HIS OWN BED!  He loves trucks and tractors so I was hoping but nope, no such luck.  Instead I was greeted by ugly licensed character bedding.  Well all hope was not lost as there was one last Elmo set left.  Moe has recently fallen head over heals for anything Elmo so I thought this would be great.  Not that I was going for the Elmo look in his room.  He was quite happy but then out of the corner of his eye he saw the Thomas the Tank set.  “Choo-Choo, mom, Choo-CHOO!”  Okay so Thomas was his pick and he was THRILLED to be holding it and walking away with it.  I am hoping it has the magic touch and will keep him in his bed.  I then passed by the sock isle.  As I was walking by I noticed they had some Thomas under-ware as well.  Hmmmmmm, I wonder, just maybe???? 

Well since we have returned home we have had 3 accidents but none of them Poo.  I think he is figuring out that sensation but the wet stuff still has him baffled.  This could be a very long training session…. *sigh* It will all be worth it in the end though.  I am hoping that I have just enough diapers left to be able to say we will no longer be buying them.  The last time I bought diapers I bought one of those big huge boxes from one of those warehouse type stores, I have quite a few left.

****UPDATE*****

Moe happily went to his room at 7:15 to go to sleep on the big boy “Choo-Choo” blanket.  Well at 10:20 he fell out of bed and was crying (rightfully so).  I went to his room assuming he would not go back to sleep in his bed.  I WAS WRONG!  *mark your calendars peeps ‘cuz I think that may be a first….LOL*  He crawled back in his bed and went to sleep!  I am sure this won’t be the only “wake up” we have tonight but I am encouraged by the outcome of this first one.

Is it just me….

or do other people have days like this?

1. I am helping 1 child with their laundry and the toddler decides that would be a good time to pour dish soap all over the floor. (Don’t ask how he got it, you’d have to understand his monkey/spiderman skills to really get it)

2. I am carrying an armful of “things” down the stairs and I trip over a toy tractor.  It wasn’t there when I went up the stairs.  (I’m okay I have to be, I’m the mom)

3. I go to make sandwiches for lunch only to find that a certain person who had earlier spilt milk forgot to mention that milk found it’s way into the sandwich bag.  Instead they just folded the bag back up and tucked it away as if nothing had happened.

4. I had to watch/listen to the Cinderella movie for the 332nd time

5. I swept the floor only to find it covered in dry cereal from an “exploding” box.  “I swear mom it just did that,  I didn’t do it”….Whatever just find me the broom

6. The 2 year old is mad at the 10 year old for who knows what and decides that an empty paint can (from recent room painting) would be his weapon of choice.  Clocks 10 year old in head.  10 year old acts like 25year old in bar brawl and I had to break the two apart.  10 year old has HUGE bump smack center on his head.

I am thinking of moving the clocks ahead a few hours and just telling everyone it’s time for bed! 

I think when Rodi gets home I am going on deployment!  Maybe I’ll just fly  when we plan our travels and let him make the 20 some odd hour drive with the kids by himself. 

Those of you who know me know I would never do that. 

Those of you who know him know that he knows that.

Preparing for tomorrow

Thanks to some readers of my blog I have found a GREAT help in my homeschooling organization quest.  They pointed me to a tool called Homeschool Tracker.  What a LIFESAVER!  I had a hard enough time last year keeping track of one child’s attendance, assignments and grades, now I am having to do this for three and it has been pretty time consuming.  This new tool is going to help so much.  The best part was that it was FREE!

Thank you both so much for pointing me in the right direction.  If you want to see a couple of great Homeschool blogs check out their blogs by clicking here and here.

 I have everyone’s assignments and lessons planned through the first week of October.  I am happy with that.  Having said that though I know something is bound to throw a wrench in those carefully thought out plans.

We are going to be studying the 50 states this year along with our regular History lessons.  I have found some great sites out there to help us in our quest to be Educated Americans on America (or EAA).  About.com has a wonderful unit study called 50 Great States.  They e-mail you lessons for 2 states each week and in 25 weeks you have studied all 50 United States.  There are so many great educational sites out there it can be overwhelming and that is the biggest wrench in my “carefully thought out plans”.

 Last year we downloaded a US map puzzle on-line.  The kids love to play and see who can fill in the blank outlined states on the map the fastest.  They also like to just sit and see how much time they can shave off their last attempt.  They are getting pretty fast, especially Bubba.

Tomorrow includes:

Spelling, Math, Language Arts, Handwriting, Gospel Principles,  and History.

 It will be a full day, there is no doubt about it.

I believe I am ready for it though.  Of course I won’t really know until I am doing it.

I have also decided that there is going to be a laundry schedule.  I am so tired of thinking I have done all the laundry only to find that one child has neglected to bring their clothing down all week.  The reason I discover this is of course because they are complaining that they can’t find a certain article of Clothing.

 So… They each have a basket and now they are really going to use it! 

Monday – Mom and Moe (he’s only 2 so I will give him a break)

Tuesday – Nina

Wednesday- JJ

Thursday- Bubba

Friday- Mom and Moe (there are two of us, three when Rodi comes home, so we need 2 days)

Saturday- Bedding and towels that were missed during the week. (I guess that is a Mom day huh?)

Sunday – NO LAUNDRY!

I will assist until they show they can operate the machines with confidence.  They already know how to sort so that shouldn’t be a problem.  They can wash, dry and fold their own things.  Maybe now I won’t have to keep finding CLEAN CLOTHES in the hamper!!!!  Nothing irritates me more than washing close that didn’t need it (except they were in a hamper for a couple of days with dirty things).

 I will keep you updated on the laundry plans.  I am hoping I am not just dreaming about how wonderful this really could be.