Desperately Seeking Dry Nights

I need help. If you are a parent of a child who does not wet their bed, then I need to hear your secrets because I HAVE HAD IT!

I thought by now Ellis would be out of pull ups at night and keeping her bed dry. Not only is this not the case but the other morning she woke up and had filled her pull-up SO FULL it leaked and got her bed wet. Very wet.

This is new to me because Logan has a bladder of steel and was night time trained before she was day time trained. She just did it herself. Ellis, on the other hand, is a pants wetter. She will even get right next to the toilet and pee her pants thinking she can't make it those few more inches.

We have done the sticker chart, money, praise up the yang. Do I just remove the pull up and do boot camp? I am at my wits end!

So, mom's of dry bed kids, how do we get out of the pull up and in to dry panty nights? Feel free to FB me, email me at kdejong803@msn.com, or leave a message on this blog. But do it fast because we are almost out of pull ups!

Parenting 101 - take notes

I am task oriented. While this has caused me some relational discomfort in the past, it has served me well in many other areas. However, there are a few detestable tasks for me in life:

• Yard work - any kind


• Cleaning floors


• Meal planning/grocery shopping/putting away groceries


• Picking up the same mess over and over and over and over

The dread I experience as one of these tasks looms over my head and I come to terms with the fact that no one else is going to do it is enough to make me want to run away sometimes. So here is how I have figured out how to cope with each of these loathesome details:

• Yard work = hire someone else to do it


• Cleaning floors = do it once every 4 months - if that.


• Meal planning etc = no coping skills. Still hate it.


• Picking up messes = throw it all away

This may sound harsh, wasteful, and even irresponsible until you examine the method to my madness. Case in point: the girls' bedroom. Now, I know they are going to mess up the play room. That's what it's for. But their bedroom isn't hard to keep clean. In theory.

Last night, I told them the room needed to be cleaned and I left it at that. When I went in to read to them, that little tidbit of information had clearly not been understood as a directive. Instead of getting mad... again and picking it all up... again, I went to get the laundry basket. I came back in the room and calmly started putting everything that was not put away properly in the basket.

They FREAKED!

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?!?!?" they both shrieked. I told them that if they weren't going to take care of their things, they would lose the privilege of having those things until they could prove that they were responsible and appreciative enough to have them. They both started in with "I'm not happy now!" and of course had to quantify their unhappiness. This was clearly an italian level unhappiness. They cried, Ellis kept quantifying, Logan actually apologized. She was very upset because she knew every single thing that was in the basket. Although Ellis couldn't remember if any of it was actually hers, she still carried on like a southern mother at a funeral.

This morning, Logan woke up still crying about it. She really wanted her robe. I told her I was not throwing those things away but that they would have to earn them back. Here's the new deal:

If I come in your room at reading time and it's a mess, everything not in it's place goes in that basket. If the room is in order, they may each choose one item out of the basket. Tonight, when I went in to read, it was clean. I brought in the basket and Logan went right for the robe. Ellis started to pick out her old, disgusting slippers until she spied one of her dresses and snagged that. They formulated a plan for tomorrow night and strategized about who would pick out what item.

This plan is working out famously! Why didn't I do this sooner? The responsibility is completely on them, takes the frustration out of it for me, and teaches good stewardship of your belongings. Now if I could just do something about their crumbs at the breakfast bar...

Quantification

Is that even a word? I don't know if this is unique to my children but I sure do enjoy it and want to share it with the world.

My daughters quantify everything. Hunger, emotions, magnitudes... you name it, they can quantify it. I think it all began a year or two ago and stemmed from this book

The Nutbrown Hares profess their love for each other with competing measurements: "As high as I can hop" or "As high as I can reach". It's a sweet book that seems to have inspired my daughters to employ measurement as a method of emphasis.

It started with phrases like "I love you 39". Then the ante was upped to "I love you a hundred" or "a thousand". Not to be outdone by the other, it elevated to a million and a zillion. "I love you a zillion" is commonly heard around our home. Other common phrases are, "I love God a zillion but I only love the devil 10." That quickly changed to zero when I reminded them what the Bible said about that.

Some of the funniest are when they quantify their disdain, disappointment, or disgust. "I am a zillion unhappy" or "I am a hundred-thousand-million sad/angry/disappointed/frustrated".. Just pick an emotion and fill in the blank.

They didn't know how to raise the bar after they hit a zillion so they have created an even larger quantity: Italian. Yes, "I am italian hungry" is now a normal expression among the DeJong girls.

Tonight after I put the girls to bed Ellis was angry because I didn't show her the picture in the book I was reading to them. She was horsing around, had taken off her glasses, not paying attention so I didn't wait for her to get situated again. She just missed it. As I walked out of her room and sat back down on the couch I heard her say, "You made me Italian sad and mad!" Which is unfortunate. It's got to be so exhausting to be italian mad. And sad. And... well, anything, really.

Reading Rainbow

Getting the girls ready for school in the mornings has historically been a challenge. If our morning routine had a theme song it would probably be "Flight of the Bumblebee". In fact, there have been moments that I could swear I have heard the song playing in the background as we hustle through breakfast, teeth brushing, getting dressed, hair, packing up and racing to the car.

Just as we got a great routine going and I was no longer raising my voice and clapping my hands (shameful, I know) a new element was introduced into our arsenal of distractions: chapter books.

Rewind a minute: September-ish of 2010, Logan started reading. She was 4 and a half. First it was limited to the 3 and 4 letter words I would write down for her. Then I heard about BOB books so we test drove those and OH. MY. She took to those like a pig to mud. Here is her first attempt at a BOB book:

Confession: I have not been a stellar model when it comes to reading for pleasure. I haven't considered myself a "reader" for easily over 10 years, if not more. I used to love reading. I devoured books. I was one of 2 kids who could read entering kindergarten. I was a reader all the way through middle school (V.C. Andrews books being a favorite) but somewhere between middle and high school my fire went out. I have no idea why.

In spite of my poor example, Logan has become a reader. Her Kindergarten conference was eye opening. Her teacher (who I deem The Kinder Whisperer and a bit of a teacher 'Messiah') gave her a solid report which I was thrilled to hear. Her one concern was that Logan wouldn't be challenged enough by the reading they were doing in class. She looked me right in the eye and all but made me 'pinky swear' that I would provide Logan with challenging reading material at home and to really make this a part of our every day lives.

When Mrs. Schuldheisz tells me to do something, I do it. She mentioned the "Junie B. Jones" series by Barbara Park so I got right on Amazon and ordered one for Logan for Christmas. When she opened it I told her it was her very first chapter book and that Mrs. Schuldheisz recommended it for her (instant street cred). She didn't pick it up right away so I read her the first chapter out loud. After that it was GAME ON.

Once she started reading Junie B she couldn't put it down. We read that first one together with me reading some and her reading some but she finished her first chapter book, all by herself on February 2 - a Junie B. that she checked out from the school library She returned it back to the school library that next Wednesday and brought home a new Junie B. She started reading that book at 3:30 and by 5:00, with several interruptions, had finished that one! She returned that one the next day but didn't get library time for another week so we had to go to the Mid Columbia Library to get MORE books. I am having to really push her to read books other than Junie B so she checked out 4 and I checked out a Clementine book by Pennypacker per the first grade teacher, Mrs. Stiles' recommendation.

Since Thursday, Feb 9, Logan has finished another Junie B, a Cam Jansen chapterbook, and has started on Clementine... which is proving to be much more of a challenge than the others... and she has only been at home, awake, for a total of 9 hours! She can be found with her nose in a book nearly every spare moment she has. Yesterday morning, I got out of the shower and found her in the hall outside my bathroom door using the bathroom light to read at 6:30a.m.

Logan is participating in a reading challenge for kids K-8 called the Countdown Club. If she reads for 10 hours during the month of February she will earn a free pass to Silverwood Theme Park. As of the time of this post, Logan has tallied 8 hours and it's not even the middle of February yet!

I think a big part of what sparked this new found obsession was our new bed time routine. I hadn't been consistent with our 20 minutes a day even though I am fully aware of how crucial that is for my kids' development as readers and thinkers. After the visit with Mrs. Schuldheisz (and after the 4+ weeks of kids being sick) we instituted a new bed time ritual. Here's how it goes:

• 6:30p - both girls go in for pjams, teeth brushed, potty, drink, snuggle buddies


• 6:45p - free reading time = reader's choice. Must be done while in bed.


• 7:00p - Mom comes in and reads until 7:15-ish


• 7:15ishp - lights out

This has guaranteed the girls both a minimum of 30 minutes of reading per day between their personal reading and hearing me read (which I believe is one of the biggest links to literacy later in life). It also provides a 'winding down' time for them. They must be laying down under covers while I read to them which has been most helpful at getting them settled and sleepy.

Even Ellis (who was resistant to even learning her letters and their sounds) is now fake reading much more frequently and actually sitting still to listen to me read.

I encouraged Logan to try some of the Nancy Drew and the Clue Crew books but she did the proverbial 'Judge a book by it's cover' and opted out of those. I think that will be my next bed time read to them after we finish Clementine. It would tickle my toes to see her reading the big kid Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys mysteries some day. For now, I will just let her live vicariously through Junie B's naughtiness and enjoy every minute she has a book in her hand. She has reminded me how much freedom reading provides and has inspired me to try to rekindle (no pun intended) my love affair with literacy that fizzled so many years ago. Step one: The Help. I bought it :)

National Holidays

I know most people were aware of Groundhogs Day this week but Saturday was also filled with a few lesser known holidays. As I ventured out on the day before Super Bowl Sunday I quickly learned that the following holidays were celebrated at the following places:

Costco: Everybody in Benton County Come To Costco, Get a Cart Whether You need it Or Not, and Drive it Right Down The Middle of the Aisle Day. Also known as None of the Sample Stations Have any Samples Ready Day.

The Mall: Bring Your Entire Family and Walk 5-Wide Day.

Target: Move Things Around So No One Can Find Them Day... or I guess that should be Month.

Payless Shoes: Make Sure You Don't Have Any Shoes That Fit My Kids in Any of Your Locations Day.

And finally... Pick Up 3 Nails From the Construction Site Across the Street and Have To Buy A Whole New Tire Because Costco Will Only Repair 2 Nail Holes in One Tire and The Tread is Too Worn to Be Covered by their "Warranty" Day. Also known as Spend 100 Bucks I Don't Have Day.

I don't think any of these days are publicized enough to warrant media coverage but I did find myself "celebrating" frequently as I ventured in and out of the corresponding establishments. I'm thinking next Saturday before Superbowl Sunday I will probably just stay home.

Sick of sick.

This blog post is brought to you by Purell - "Only Purell helps kids reach higher..."

During the month of January, I was out of my classroom 32% of the time with sick kids. This means I had a sub, usually a different one each day, with my 'challenging' students a third of the time they were in class.

This started with a round of strep in early October which we cleared up quickly and emerged from relatively unscathed. Since Thanksgiving, we have had illness knocking on our door, prowling around our home, stalking us - every 3 weeks. The majority of my blog posts seem to be about sick kids.

Although this is frustrating, to say the least, it's not nearly as troublesome as some of the comments and implications that have been directed my way: "Boy, your kids sure are sick a lot. Have you had them checked out?" "Gee, you guys sure get hit A LOT. What's going on?" "Wow, sick again? You can't catch a break!"

Perhaps I am just paranoid but I am wondering if there are CPS calls being made behind my back since sick kids is CLEARLY a sign of poor parenting.

For the record, my kids eat balanced meals, take multivitamins, brush their teeth, go to bed at 7:15 and wash their hands. I wash their clothes, change their sheets, and bathe them regularly. They are just massive face touchers, as am I. I have just built up the teacher/mommy immune system so I don't get stricken with everything like they do.

Because I was starting to wonder if I needed some kind of genetic testing to check for Immune Compromised Disorder (I'm confident there isn't such a thing as ICD. Just sounds smart), I did the next best thing and googled the following: Why do my kids get sick so much?

Here is what I found...

It is normal for young children to have six to eight upper respiratory tract infections and two or three gastrointestinal infections each year. Children in school and day care can often have more (often called day care syndrome). As your child gets older, his immune system will strengthen and he will build up immunity to many common infections and he will get sick less often.

6-8 and 2-3?!? So my kids aren't even in the 80th %ile when it comes to illness! HA! Take THAT Munchausen By Proxy haters! We just need to use more Purell - or 'hanitizer' as E calls it. Maybe a Purell bath now and then in the winter months would keep Mr. Fever Bug at bay.

Every morning I pray that I would be teachable and quick to learn the lessons God has for me through all of this. The relentlessness of the viral attacks is maddening enough that this has to be some kind of refining process for me. Let's hope I learn it fast before my sick days run out!