I'm sending you away...

... to flickr, where you can see some photos (it's easier loading them on flickr) from a walk with our neighbours on Saturday. Mud and sticks and stones and splashing and even wild chamois (or some kind of sheepy goaty animal), all just 10 minutes drive from our house.

He may need to rethink my status as meanest mummy

Téo (sighing dramatically): My mummy is reeeaaaallly strict. She only lets me watch TV while she's making dinner.

His friend (incredulously): Every day?

Téo: Yes, but only while she's making dinner.

Friend: But you watch TV every day?

Téo: Yes.

Friend: But my mummy only lets me watch TV once a week!

Téo: .... oh.

Passing moments

So I feel a bit bad now about the manners post, because this week Téo has been lovely. Sweet and funny and happy and nary a grumpy or rude word from him.

Of course, he did tell me to shut up on Saturday evening*, which ended his meal there and then and landed him immediately in bed**. But it seems that outburst has cured him, at least for a while.

And how I appreciated my sweet-again boy yesterday afternoon. After hours of trying to sort out a major client's major report, I went to pick him up from his weekly gym class ... where the sight of 20 small people practicing a dance routine for their upcoming show brought a smile to my face ... and Teo's dancing of us home freed the last scraps of text and tension from my mind ... and my focus shifted fully from work to my boys, to where it should be.

* To be fair, I was laughing at him when he was tired and having a sulk. And he did warn me he was going to say something I wouldn't like before he said it.

** Yes, it would appear that being sent to bed is our consequence of choice. What paradigms of positive discipline and encouragement we are!

Weekly battle

Oh look, how cute, we asked Lukan to put away the toys, and instead he put himself in the toy basket.

Too bad it ended with the toys purposely, stubbornly spread across the room and a little boy in bed with no dinner, book or goodnight song.

A little boy who, when I zipped him into his sleeping sack - a sleeping sack which since last night has been a snail shell - gave me a cheeky smile and said I a little snail dat didn't put away de toys.

A little boy who knows Wednesday is tidy up day because Thursday is cleaning lady day, and so if he doesn't put away the toys, someone else will.

A little boy who doesn't care about consequences.

And a little boy who, at his daycare, puts toys away with no fuss, without even being asked, like tidying up is the most natural thing in the world.

Meet...

...the very originally named Tabby Cat.

Born 13 May 2010, to Téo and Lukan's cousins' cat.

Coming to live with us in August.

:)

Model behaviour

You know, there was a time when I just kind of imagined that once you had a kid reliably saying please and thank you and may I, then you were done with the teaching of manners.

I'm not really liking that this is not the case.

I was thinking about it the other day, about how I don't like having to endlessly do the same things over and over. It was one thing I didn't like about science as a job - always having to repeat experiments. I still remember the relief and... I'm searching for the word here... freedom, somehow, I felt after I finished my first writing project at QIAGEN: I worked, the job was done, and it was finished. No more going back to it, ever. Woohoo!

I'm always having to go back to Téo about his manners.

Daily, repeatedly, I ask him to talk more nicely. Explain that he is more likely to get what he wants if he talks politely. Give him time outs for not talking politely. Refuse to acknowledge what he's said unless it's said politely. Try to use the times when he's upset because someone has not spoken nicely to him as an example of why he should talk nicely to others.

But daily, repeatedly, he is bossy and rude - to me, to our neighbour's girl, to our neighbour's boy, to Lukan, to someone. Not every time he speaks, but often.

I was getting more and more irritated by his failure to just Stop Being Rude already... and then last week, once again, I heard my own tone in his voice. My own words, too.

Oh.

Now, I do think that adults have a right to speak to children in a manner that is not acceptable the other way around.

And, not that this is an excuse, but it is different to be rude as a matter of course than to be driven to the point of rudeness because your kid has not listened to the several polite requests that came beforehand.

But still, the fact is that Téo is having a lot of bossy, annoyed, frustrated speaking directed at him lately, because it's not just his manners he's forgetting but, over and over again, the rules we have set.

Some are minor, like using cutlery instead of fingers. Others are not. Like not riding his bike on the street without an adult. And looking both ways before crossing the road. And not leaving from the playground or someone's house without first telling an adult that he's going.

We do need to speak to him sternly about these things, but nevertheless, I do see the hypocrisy of ordering him to speak nicely in all situations, even when he's annoyed, when I don't always make the same effort myself.

So last week I started trying to consistently speak politely to my kids.

It's really hard.

I feel like some fake sit-com mother as I force out a pleasant tone through gritted teeth.

I don't always manage it.

But if I want my kids to respect what I say - to respect me - then I need to practice what I preach.

Daily, repeatedly. Endlessly.

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