I know when I take time to think about it that my children are sweet, caring, conscientious, smart children who will grow into wonderful, mature adults. In the day to day scuffle, though, I sometimes think I am doing a bad job! Xander often has a wildly negative interaction with me and/or Nick as he transitions from school to home. Nick is still - sometimes - in the screaming phase. I guess he has gotten much, much better, but he will still let out a frustrated or disappointed scream when he feels those emotions. It's a short scream and he responds to my "quiet voice" by stopping right away, so I guess that's great. But his voice is so loud! Short screams are still bad when they come from Nick!
Anyway, today I got a taste of what a great duo they are all on their own. Xander came home telling me about the "DS" he was going to make for me and three others for various other friends. (I love how he takes these high-tech games and systems that he hears about from peers and makes them into low-tech drawings and paper figures.) I managed to redirect him to make mine for his soccer teammate whose birthday is today. We have the last soccer game this evening, followed by cupcakes and pizza. Yeah, wrong order, but not everyone is going to pizza and his mom is serving the cupcakes immediately after the game. Well, when you hear what my kids had for snack, you won't worry about what she's serving when!
Nick was still whining that he wanted ice cream cones. I had bought ice cream cones right in front of his little face at the grocery store this morning. They are part of my new chores reward system.
The chores on our chart right now are: Clear your place. Wipe your place. Pick up toys. Compliment your brother. Set table. Plan meal with Mom. Make grocery list. Help prepare meal.
Each chore done results in one star. Five stars = playground trip. Fifteen stars = ice cream cone. Thirty stars = small present.
So back to the car on the way home from school... I explained to Xander that Nick was wanting ice cream cones but couldn't have one until he earned it by cleaning up toys lots of times or doing several chores. Xander came up with a Plan to Get Them Both Ice Cream Cones As Soon As Possible. He and I and Nick struck a deal: If they went into the house and immediately cleaned up the whole living room, I would make them both an ice cream cone.
The reason this was a good deal was that the living room was strewn with their toys. In Very Bad Shape. I was feeling a bit overwhelmed about it and thought the momentum created by the boys cleaning up the whole room would get us over the Dirty House Speed Bump.
These had been up for play for a couple of days:
They always seem to encourage a hugely messy living room. They are like the two broken windows on a car at the side of the road. An open invitation to trash and plunder.
Back to the Plan. Xander was cheerful about the large task and he even coached Nick into helping clean and corral toys where they should be. I was so impressed! They got the living room 90% done and I didn't nitpick after having Xander pick up the remainder of his clothing. Ice cream cones for both. Amazingly, Nick ate his properly without spilling, and he did it faster than Xander.
This is one of the very few instances of the boys getting along in the last few months, let alone cooperating. It made me feel so good. I gave Xander kudos for not only cleaning up quickly, but also for leadership.
Nick and I had an unrelated scare right before picking up Xander from school. I was trying to get Nick and my purse and other things out the door, as usual, and somehow left the keys on the inside with us on the outside. I am a very good door- and window-locker, so I thought we were probably out of luck. The cars were totally locked. Couldn't get into the garage to check the garage-house door because our garage door opener was locked inside a car. Our windows are burglar-proof, except for smashing them, I suppose. I didn't try it. I wanted to check our back door, and I thought I could scramble over our tall fence, but not with Nick. And I couldn't leave Nick out in the front yard, crying, while I tried it.
I decided to go next door to our neighbors that we don't speak with very often. I knew their baby would probably be sleeping, but I was panicking. We had only a few minutes before we had to pick up Xander and no way to get to him. I wasn't even sure if the school would allow a phone call from me as permission for a friend to pick him up instead.
Our neighbor graciously invited us in and said not to worry, her baby was a sound sleeper. Nick stayed with her while I scraped up my legs getting over our fence. Door was locked. Suffice it to say I found a weak point in our house's defense, which I will fix before tonight. Thank goodness I did! Our second set of keys is in another state! Our landlord does not live very close!
I went back over to get Nick and say thank you. He screamed as I grabbed him up to get him out of their house and into the car. He wanted to stay to play with the baby's toys. I'm afraid their little boy didn't sleep much longer after that screaming.
I am very glad this happened, actually, because it broke the ice. She mentioned she had almost asked me to watch her son for an hour the other day. I told her I would love to. I've been wanting to lend more of a hand around the neighborhood. Plus I can obviously use some help myself!
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