Both boys had little fevers this morning, and were more than usually interested in snuggling before breakfast. Ah, I thought, this is not the day we have great breakthroughs in understanding arithmetic algorithms, lets just move boxes. They greeted this announcement sceptically, "Aren’t they both work mom?"
Well, yeah, I guess box moving and organizing is just as hard as arithmetic, but we can play fun music with lyrics while we do it, and no one will get distracted like they would with school work.
I have bitten my tongue about 3 times this morning when the boxes were opened in the new bedroom so we could put away old Sunday School prizes, wrapping paper, plastic dinosaurs, and such clutter. I want to say acidly "You kept this? Why?" I’m trying to remember that B threw out or gave away three large trash bags, and 3 large boxes. I’m trying to teach them to sort and organize so they know how to do this themselves. I brought this on myself by not setting a volume goal of how much to give or throw away. They are young and learning well. Messes now are worth the pay off when they can organize things as young men. Surely organizing clutter will help them organize term papers? I hope?
At least I’m learning from my years of teaching Jr High Sunday School. Lots of kids I’ve taught resent their parents throwing away their stuff stealthily, or selling it on e-bay. It’s one of those issues that come up about a month before the sullen teenager face jells. But I’ve still got to be the grown up here a little bit more!
I need to give more guidance . I need to set a better example too. But I do wish the cheap toy pipeline would help out though: if only the various Sunday school, co-op, community, YMCA classes would ask me to deal with bad behavior rather then reward good behavior with junk. Since neither B nor M behaves badly, they get lots of junk. Much of it edible. They now have year round Easter baskets to keep their edible rewards in, the Halloween candy doesn’t disappear before the Easter candy arrives, the Easter candy is supplemented by Summer birthday goodies. Maybe if we didn’t have the eat your dinner before a treat rule it would disappear faster, not sure how that would be on teeth.
Ugh, I guess this means I need to speak up to their teachers, as well as set a better example and set boundaries. Ugh.
Maybe tomorrow.