Alice Vs. The Mornings

About once a week Alice protests the world.

Something, and it could be anything -- like unfair strawberry distribution at breakfast or being too rushed or not finding her favorite black sweater -- sets her off and the whole morning is thrown. She doesn't want to leave the house, doesn't want to get on the bus and certainly doesn't want to go to Kindergarten.

This always surprises us because this kid has been going to day care every morning since infancy, so you'd think she'd be used to this. But no. Those long weekends confuse her and here we are, usually on Mondays. But, she likes to spring these on us. Just to keep us on our toes.

The secret is to not lose your temper. Not think about missing the bus or my morning meeting. Keep upbeat. Distract her with plans for the evening. Games. Music. Yoga. Whatever. And bustle her out the door and to the bus stop. Yelling, arguing, logic or punishments just set you back.

Her favorite form of protest these days is just to go boneless and lay down. Favorite locations: the kitchen floor, the family room floor, while I'm pulling her boats and jacket, in the hallway by the garage door, backseat of the car where we wait for the bus to stay warm and finally the sidewalk.
Man Down! 
They say this parenting thing gets easier as the kids get older. When exactly does that happen?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Behold! Everard Blue!

Image
Here's the After picture of our master bedroom now that the walls are a dark and moody blue. Maybe the best part is I was at work while the painters were here, so I walked in and found -- as if by magic -- the room no longer minty green but a bold blue. That's pretty awesome. They also painted the trim an eye-popping white, which I just love against this blue. And the angle is a dark beige-y, tan color that I hope goes with the headboard. I spent the evening cleaning and re-hanging the drapes, and moving the furniture back into position. It will be a while before I dare hang anything in here. I'm too in love with the walls to put too many holes in them right now. So, just in case I'm looking for this information later: The walls are "Everard Blue" by Benjamin Moore . And the tray is "Curly Willow" by Behr . Now, does that furniture look too dark against the walls or is it just me? And wouldn't a lighter wood or white look fabulous agains
Keep reading »

Family Calendar Improvement

Image
 Made a quick improvement at the start of the school year that I'm pretty excited about.  And yes, I'm probably the only one excited about it, but here goes ...  Here's our "command central" in our kitchen. This is a good landing spot, and a central place to all look at the family calendar ... it's that huge wipe board in the middle of the photo. All our activities are supposed to be written on here and our electronic family calendar on Google.  (Brief aside: my family is the WORST at writing their plans down in either calendar and Dave still doesn't share his events on our Google Shared Family Calendar consistently, which makes me nuts. And they all ask me "what are we doing today?" instead of looking at the calendar, usually directly behind me. But, that's another post.) I went to so much trouble putting this little area together and that huge calendar with wobbly writing was really killing the sophisticated look of that space. PLUS, we don
Keep reading »

Basement Shiplap Project

Image
The guys left me all the unused shiplap from the bathroom and I've been trying to think about where to use it. I had so many ideas but not a lot of shiplap, so I eventually settled on this corner of our basement. It's where the exercise mats and treadmill live, right behind the sofa. And also where the Marvel-themed bathroom with shiplap is located. So it made sense. It took much of a rainy Sunday to cut and nail up the new boards ...    I even had enough to do on the "backsplash" of our little kitchenette in the basement I've been slowly building out.  Next up will be to patch all the nail holes and calk around the edges for a clean look. And then the best part ... picking out paint color. Since this is a "free" project, I'm hoping I can find a color in my paint cabinet.  I'll keep you posted. 
Keep reading »