.

Sitting here on the Sunday trying to put the messy house of my head and just enjoy my little man. 

Is there anything better? Baby cuddles <3

So nice to have a relatively unproductive day but a very productive night lol

Today is my due date!

I am learning how different each child is. What works for one does not always work for the other.

Lately it has been a battle with my second to oldest girl. She sneaks into the kitchen at night to get food or snacks and hides it in her bed. She has been lying, hitting and biting to name a few. Time out or spanking just doesn’t seem to work like it does for my oldest. Abby could care less about time out and while she hates spankings and throws a huge fit if you go to do it, I don’t think it phases her at all after it’s done.

So I’ve been at a total loss with her. It’s gotten to where I almost ignore her bad behavior because punishment doesn’t seem to work. I realized I had to stop that right away! Then I went and let my pregnancy hormones overtake me and I bawled my eyes out for just how horrible of a job I have been doing with Abby.

So I got online (pinterest) and started looking for other options. I was raised more traditional with spankings and time out and that is how I started with my kids. I’m not saying it’s not the way to go, but it just doesn’t seem to be working for my Abby.

So I found a few things I really liked. We already have a chore system in place where they have daily routines and chores and earn ‘reward tickets’ for doing them so when I saw this discipline board that used a ticket system I thought we would give it a try and see if it could incorporate will. Here a link to the website HERE. I printed off their ‘rewards and consequences’ PDF for now but if it works then I will go ahead and make my own.

Then I found another printable HERE that has bible verses and consequences for different actions. Last night I printed both of these and got them up on the frig.

So this morning I talked to them about the how things were going to change and what they could expect. We also started back up the daily routine and chore board to go along with it.

Today has been tough to say the least. Poor Abby has lost quite a few tickets and privileges today. I’m not sure how it’s going to go. I will give it some time and see if her behavior improves at all because before it was just going down hill.

Today she has already gotten in trouble for hitting and kicking, bad table manners, acting up bad in public and lying >_< she has lost a lot of tickets and cried more then usual.

But on the upside I have been able to speak a lot more scripture to them for their actions, there has been zero yelling and no spankings. So for me, a lot less stress! And Abby has came to me and asked what she could do to earn tickets back,

She currently has a lot of tickets she needs to earn back so before bed she has some catching up to do.

I am crossing my fingers this works for her because I really need something to help us.

This morning i thought 'oh I can't wait to be able to sleep on my stomach', thinking about after the baby. Then reality hit.... Heh.... Like that will be happening any time soon! There is to much nursing and baby holding a newborn that sleeping arms free enough to sleep on your stomach is an immense luxury.

I’ve seen many different list of age appropriate chores for children pinned on pinterest. Most all of them say that kids as young as 5 years old can help with loading the dishwasher and putting clean dishes away. I had personally let my oldest (5trs) put the clean silverware away but had never gone as far as putting the rest of the dishes away, let alone loading the dishwasher. Today I decided to give it a try.

First I had Abby (4yrs) scrap all the lunch dishes. This was something they were use to doing so no big deal.

Then I had Anabel scoop the lunch food into a tuber ware and put it in the frig. They love to help with chores in general that adding another task was very exciting to them. Usually I don’t have them do to much in the kitchen in less it is a designated time where they help me make cookies or something.

Then I had Anabel get up on a chair and had Abby bring her the clean dishes in the dishwasher for her to put away. Abby was like ‘We are doing team work!’

Then Abby took her turn on the chair at the sink. I showed her how to rinse the dishes and hand them to her sister which in turn Anabel would put them in the dishwasher. I took time to show and explain to them how we fill the dishwasher to get the most dishes in at a time ect. They adored this! Anabel even learned how to load the soap and turn on the dishwasher.

It did take a little long then if I was to do it by myself but I felt it was so worth it and I was very glad I gave it a go. I’m not saying I’ll always have them help me do the dishes but I think it was a good chore for them. I also think that Anabel is so detailed oriented that she will learn the correct way to load the dishwasher fairly quickly.

Overall very successful!