Auto Self Correct and Getting Your Children to Listen to You

Have you ever had a thought, then not long after, had another thought that totally contradicts the previous thought.   Well I had that happen today.  After a long day and night of telling my children to do things 15 times before they actually did them, I sat folding laundry contemplating how my day could've gone better.  I had the thought that my children's minds are too busy.  They are thinking of all sorts of things and the last thing they hear is my voice telling them to do homework or go to bed.  Then, I had the thought, "How can I quiet my children's minds so they will listen to me?"  Sounds harmless enough right?  Almost immediately after I thought, "NO! I don't want to quiet my children's minds so the only thing they hear is my voice telling them what to do.  Do I really want brain dead children who sit around all day doing nothing but waiting for the sound of my voice to tell them what to do?  That would be horrible!"  I should be happy they are thinking about things, using their brains and being innovative.  It's not my children's fault, it's mine.  How often do I tune them out when I'm on a phone call, or reading a good book, or surfing Pinterest...They are only doing the same thing.  I shouldn't be frustrated with them, I should be frustrated with me.  They are normal and that is what I really want, nice, normal, ok brilliant, healthy children.  So how do I get them to listen to me amongst all the colorful, wonderful, creative things going on in their brains?  Then, I had this thought pop into my head:

Instead of trying to figure out how to get my kids to listen to me, I need to figure out how to get their attention. 

Jana's revelation of the day!

Step One:  Get my child's attention.  How do accomplish this?  I've read a few books, so I'll start with what I remember.

1.  Ask them what they are doing/thinking about.  Get into their world for a bit, share in the fun.  Then, once you've had a good taste and they are in the same hemisphere as you, go ahead and ask that question.

2.  Stand on your head.  Ok, maybe not that crazy,  but do what it takes to get their attention.  Shut off the TV, touch them, wait for their eye contact and then ask the question.  Don't tell them from across the room, shout it down the stairs or murmur it while you're running out the door.  Stop, focus and ask.

3.  I'm not sure why I put a number 3.  I have no other answer.  It just seemed like I needed to have at least 3 ways to get your child's attention..  Let me think....  Food, yes.  Bake cookies and then you will have your child's full attention and they will sit eating cookies while listening to everything you have to say.  That one I made up myself.

Ok.  So, my goal is to get my children's attention tomorrow and see if my day goes a little better, and maybe I will make cookies too.  :)    

Great Easter Idea

A Friend of mine, Lynda Garmon, had an idea for Easter that she shared with me and I wanted to write it in a place that I wouldn't forget it.  I love the idea.  Here is it:

As I was thinking about that experience (The death of her father-in-law and how her children responded to it) and the desire to make Easter a more meaningful and personal time of rejoicing, I had the idea. It is this: Instead of just doing an Easter Egg hunt with candy in the eggs, we will add pictures of our deceased loved ones along with those of ancestors who we have never met into each egg. If you don't have pictures, you could do names with personal stories or info on the back to help your children feel that these names are real people, related to them. There will be candy in the eggs too- because the fruit of the Gospel is sweet. :)  But we will tell the kids not to open the eggs 'til they come back in the house. When we are all together again, we will open the eggs, look at the pictures and names. While the kids eat the candy we will put the pictures and/or names on a family tree that we already had prepared, starting with the ones most closely connected to us and moving our way back  in time. We can change up or add to the pictures each year. We will teach of the Plan of Salvation, including where those deceased family members are now and of the eternal plan for us all of us, including being resurrected and being reunited with our loved ones- gifts from our Savior. I don't know how this will exactly go, but my hope is that our children will understand the beauty of Easter more deeply as they visually see how it relates to them and their loved ones. 

With this idea, there is also the principle of Family History- going out and searching for our loved ones (the eggs) and joining them to our family tree through temple work. 

I'd love to do this with my kids and think I will also share it with my Primary class at church as I am teaching the Easter lesson.  Moms (Laurel and Janet), if you have pictures of your parents, or those who have passed on that you wouldn't mind sharing with me I would love to have a digital copy that I could print.  I would also love a small story about that person that I could put in the egg.  Maybe I can put a new story for the same people in each egg each Easter.  The only thing I would change with the above would be to do this egg hunt separate from the Real Easter Bunny hunt so the kids don't get confused.  Maybe do this one inside and then the Easter Bunny can hide his eggs outside..

Catch up- Alyvia's 9th Birthday!

I've been a total slacker since Lillian was born.  Ok, not slacker, but I have been busy taking care of my cute little baby and her cute siblings.  I just wanted to add a few pics of events that have happened since then.


Alyvia Turned 9!!

 Instead of a larger party, she opted for a small gathering of friends and a more costly outing to the movies.  They ended then night here at our house for a sleep over.  They went swimming at our local pool, at pizza, saw Ice Age 4?  Melt down... and came home and had a fun fashion show,  Alyvia loved it and felt very grown up!  She's growing too fast!!

Childhood Memories- Redneck Water Park and Dave's X Games

The past few days Alyvia has requested that Dave and I tell her one of our childhood memories.  As I thought about my memories tonight, I realized that I remember a lot of traumatic, scary things that happened to me and I really had to dig to remember normal fun stuff.  That's probably our brains way of helping us learn from our mistakes so we don't kill ourselves by doing the same dumb thing twice.. :)

My memory tonight was when my parents would flood our front yard.  We had a circular driveway that  had big beautiful trees halfway around it.  The inside of the circle was grass.  I remember this area would be flooded with about 3-4 inches of water.  I think my parents just rerouted the ditch water long enough to flood it.  We would put our swimming suits on and head out for some fun.  To add to the fun, my parents would put something in the water... clorox?  which would make all of the worms come out of the ground.  Maybe it was just the fact that we were flooding their homes.  Mom, can you clarify.  Anyways, we would "swim" or float around picking worms up and putting them in containers to use for fishing.  Sometimes we would bring out the black inner tubes and float in them.  It was a regular redneck water park!  Ha, ha.  Good times.  Alyvia thought it was very strange that I would have fun floating around with worms... Now that I look back at it, I'm wondering the same thing.  It was fun though!

Alyvia also wanted to know a cat story, so I told her about the time that I woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of baby kittens... I remember being so confused and yelling to my mom, "Mom, I hear kittens in my room!"  My mom replied,"Be quiet and go to sleep!"  to which I did not and yelled again, "Really mom, I hear baby kitten!"  after a few back and forth yelling episodes, my mom finally came in and turned on the light and sure enough, little baby kittens were crawling across my bedroom carpet.  Apparently our pregnant cat had snuck into our closet and had baby kittens in there and for some odd reason, they all crawled out at night.  It was a fun and very exciting night!

I also told Alyvia that we had a lot of cats growing up.   All of them were out door cats, but Shana and I would tame a few to play with.  Shana would always name her kittens Fluffy, which was the kiss of death because every cat named Fluffy always got hit by a car and died.  Shana and I would also dress our cats up in doll clothes and pretend they were our babies.  Poor cats!  

Dave also told Alyvia a story yesterday that he's going to share:

I learned to ride a bike when I was 8 years old so this story probably happened in 5th grade when I was at my bike riding peak.  In our backyard in maryland there was a huge hill.  So tall that you could only see the rooftops of the two homes behind ours.  I would ride down the hill on my bike, go between the two houses and out into their cul de sac.  It was a blast.

One day we decided it would be great to have a ramp at the bottom of the hill.  We took 3 logs and a plank and made a ramp.  It was pretty narrow so we missed it a couple times.  Finally, determined, I hit it square on.  I launched into the air and my feet floated off the pedals.  They never found the pedals before I landed on the ground.  Ouch!  Not only did I land on the cross bar and hit my chest on the handlebars, but I was out of control and eventually crashed into the side of the neighbors garage.  It made a really loud noise.  I don't remember if a neighbor came out before I rode away, but I was really embarrassed, but sure made a great memory!

I got to use my major!!

Today I got to use my major!!!  After doing math homework with Alyvia, I told her she needed to practice her multiplication tables.  She counteracted with a drawing of how she did not have enough shelf space in her brain to hold all of them.  Oh no she didn't!  She can not pull that one over on her mother who knows a lot about how the brain works.  I said, look Alyvia, I agree with you.  Your brain does not have enough shelf space for your multiplication tables right now, but your brain grows when you practice.  "What?"  she says.  "You mean some parts of my brain are bigger than others?"  That's weird."  This is where I actually got to use my major.  I proceeded to draw Her a picture of her brain.

It looked something like this. (ok, sort of like this, I tried!  I'm not an artist!)   I told her that her brain didn't get huge on one side a tiny on the other, but that the little folds are full on Neurons.  

Then I drew a bunch of these neurons.  

 I asked her what she did all the time.  She, of course, said drawing and writing.  I told her that in the drawing, writing part of her brain, these neurons connected to each other.  Not just once, but multiple times.  Making a multi-lane highway between all of them.  So when she needs to learn something new about drawing or writing, all of those new "cars" of information fly through her neurons because there are so many roads for them to travel on.  

But then, I asked her what she didn't spend a lot of time doing... she said multiplication tables.  Yes! the answer I wanted to hear. :)  I told her that because she didn't do them very much, her neurons only had one road going between them, so when she needs to learn more multiplication tables it goes slowly because all the "cars" get backed up because there is only 1 road for them to go down.  

I then told her it was ok if it seems hard right now.  But, if she keeps doing them, those neuron connections will increase until she has a multi-lane highway in the math part of her brain.  I also told her that she didn't have to guess the answers to learn them, but could just look at the problems and answers, or read them, or have someone read to her.  Just listening is also learning.  Any exposure will increase those connections.  

She totally got it and went over to the iPad, and did the multiplication app over and over again.  

Then I told Berkeley the same thing.  He totally got it!  Not only did he want to read more, but he wanted to learn the multiplication tables too!  

Now I know the 4 years of hard work at BYU was not wasted! :)  Ok, actually, I hope I get more out of it than that, but it was very fulfilling.  Even though I am a stay at home mom, I am so glad I got my degree and I know that no amount of education you acquire is ever in vain.  

If you give a child a drink...

I thought I'd write down the parents version of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.  Dave and I thought of this one night after we put our kids to bed.

When you are putting your children to bed and they ask for a drink of water, chances are, they're going to want some bread to go with it.

When they eat the bread, they'll realize that their teeth are dirty and that they will need to brush their teeth.  Again.

When they are brushing their teeth, they will get sticky tooth paste all over their pajamas and ask for new ones..

When you give them the pair of red pajamas, they'll ask for the blue ones.  You'll remember that their blue pajamas are in the dryer.  

When you go to get their blue pajamas from the dryer, they'll start jumping on the bed.  

When they start jumping on the bed, they'll realize that they drank too much water and they'll ask to go to the bathroom...

When they're in the bathroom they'll get cold and yell out,"Mom, I need my blue pajamas, it's cold!" 

Shortly after they yell, the baby will wake up and start crying.  When the baby starts crying mom's going to start crying too...

Let me know if you have a verse that I can add.  I'm sure you've got some good ones!

Somehow I need to fit in the:

I forgot to finish my homework

I'm hot

I'm cold

I'm scared

The joys of putting children to bed!

Christmas 2011

Well, I guess this post is better late than never!  We had a great Christmas this year!  My parents came to visit and Shana was living with us, so we had some fun family time.

The kids had a blast decorating the house for Christmas and making things look festive.  Here is Everett decorating the kids tree in the basement.  He loved that tree!  I think he decorated it like 15 times!

Next we attended the annual ward Christmas Party.  Here is Everett contemplating what he wanted for Christmas.  He was mesmerized by Santa this year.  I think he tried to sit on his lap at least 5 times.     

We had Dave's brother Mark and family and my parents and sister Shana over for Christmas Eve.  It's always fun with family!  Here the kids are reenacting the Nativity.  Alyvia is lucky to be the only younger girl.  She always scores the part of Mary. (which she takes very seriously)

We opened some traditional English poppers and had fun wearing the crowns, playing with the little toys and reading the jokes!

Shana and Ev.

My parents.

Mark and Lisa, Dave's Brother and wife.

Cameron, our nephew.

Here's a picture of the loot on Christmas Eve.  I always love sitting in the still house Christmas Eve, staring at the beautiful tree and looking at all of the presents.  It's such a peaceful time before the craziness the next morning. 

The Children and myself ready for the fun to begin!

Here are the kids with their Santa gifts.  Berkeley got a cool lego set.  Alyvia got a Kanani American Girl Doll and Everett got a scooter.  

Lego fun!

Everett didn't know what to think.   We woke him up (because we had 9 am church) and it took a while for him to be happy about that.  He's starting to come around in this pic.

Dad wearing his new hat!  A little too telling if you ask me!  It keeps your face nice and warm..

Ayvia with Kanani, wearing the matching dressed my mom made for them.

 Sitting in front of all the fun.  A Barbie RV, Angry Birds, a talking Robot and a new building set behind them.  These are some lucky kids!

Everett couldn't make it to the end of the day.  It was a great Christmas day.  I really enjoyed having it on a Sunday.  It helped keep the true spirit and meaning of Christmas in our minds.