During the month of December I always expect to be running around lots preparing for Christmas, however our extensive running around has dwindled into January.

Normally the most that the kids & I are away from home (running around – in town) is 3 days a week, including Mass on Sundays.  However since the beginning of December we have only been home ab0ut 2 days out of the seven!  Yikes!  December was packed full of Christmas parties and Christmas preparations and January has been packed full of specialist, dentist and speech therapy appointments!

I’m exhausted & the kids are exhausted!  Is this ever going to end?!!

Until recently I thought we were doing not too bad of a job with the discipline aspect of parenting.  On the most part our kids listened and behaved well.  Usually for punishment we take away a privilege but lately the follow through on the punishment has been quite lax.  My son just doesn’t seem to care if he loses a privilege, I know it’s because he doesn’t really believe that he’s lost anything (lack of follow through).

Every time I give him a consequence for his actions (losing a privelege) I always think “What privilege can he lose that I am going to follow through with?”  Like for example, if he is misbehaving and we have an upcoming event, I could take away the privilege of him attending the event – but is that something I’m going to want to do – not attend the event?  Or do I really want to take away his toys or ground him from playing outside etc.  I guess my problem is trying to determine which privileges he’ll lose.  I guess I just have to start being a little more creative in chosing privileges and consequences.

Potty Training Boys and Girls

Well after potty training a boy and a girl, I would have to say that girls are easier.  However, that being said I also had two completely different approaches to potty training each child.  So you might say that either girls are easier or I’m just getting better at it.

I guess that’s the thing with parenting, some tasks get easier because you as a parent are getting better at it.  I keep telling people that my third baby was the easiest so far and they always tell me “No, you’re just getting better at it so it’s easier.”

Any way back on topic, as soon as my little girl made up her mind that she was going to pee in the toilet, she was done wearing diapers.  She kept asking to go in the toilet for about a month, so I would take her.  The real turning point though was when she asked to put on ‘real’ underwear.  I always gave her the options – diaper or underwear.  (And by underwear I mean the training underwear.)  One morning I gave her the options as usual, she said no to both and went to her dresser drawer and pulled out a pair of ‘real’ underwear.  That was it she was done training.  Surprisingly, even through naps and most night times, she wears underwear and doesn’t have an accident.

Now with my son it was a completely different story.  He was basically potty trained before his first birthday, I think around nine months.  However I went back to work and he needed to be in someone elses care during the day and had to go back into diapers.  When he was 18 months old, I was back at home full time with him and tried to get him back to peeing in the toilet.  This was however quite challenging as I had a newborn and was breastfeeding frequently.  It seemed like every time I would get the baby latched on, he would need to use the toilet.  It became quite frustrating for me.  But I was determined to get him out of diapers not matter what.  Looking back I don’t think he had made up his mind that he wanted to use the toilet, it was more me pushing him.  Which is probably why it took about 6 months to get fully trained.

So I guess all in all I can’t really tell you if girls are easier than boys, although it seemed that way.  I guess I’ll have to let you know how my second daughter potty trains and if we ever have another boy then see how that is compared to the first boy.

Do you struggle with your children’s bedtimes?  There are many parents that do.

Some of the best advice that I got from my mother-in-law was about bedtimes.  She said that her kids always had a bedtime and they didn’t get out of bed again until morning.  It didn’t matter if they were asleep or not as long as they were in bed.

My kids go to bed and usually stay there.  Sometimes they don’t go to sleep right away, they sometimes chatter away or play with their stuffed animals, but at least they are in bed.

I’ve heard many stories from several different mom’s who constantly struggle with bedtimes.  We’ve all heard the stories of moms who have had to use their vehicle and drive around for hours to put the child(ren) to sleep.  For some, it takes hours to get the child to go to sleep, with the child getting up out of bed every five minutes needing something (water, toilet etc.)  I know I would get very frustrated with that.  There are some that have different bedtimes for their children – for example child ‘a’ will get up at 6 am and go to bed at 8 pm and child ‘b’ will get up at 8 am and go to bed at 10 pm.  In this case the mom is parenting from 6 am until 10 pm at night.  And granted the job of parenting never ceases, we all need a break from the action of parenting – this mom would never get that break.  Maybe this works for these moms and their families, I know it doesn’t work for me.

Like I said, my mother-in-law said that her kids were always in bed at a certain time.  Looking back, I know that my mom had a set bedtime for us kids as well.  I’ve implemented that with my kids too.  Kids being kids will occasionally test the boundaries.  When this happens they lose a privilege the next day.  I try to keep the privilege associated with sleep time.  Such as, they lose the privilege of getting a story and a song before naps/bedtime the next day.

My kids all have a bedtime routine and they do not like a change in the bedtime routine at all (which is why they don’t risk losing it very often!).

Bedtime is the one thing that I’m pretty firm on.  Not only do children need sleep to grow, heal and stay healthy but I’m exhausted by the time their bed time rolls around as well and I need my parenting break.  Not to mention that I still have hours of work to do!

**Please do not take offence if you are using any of the bedtime situations I mentioned.  If it works for you and your family – great!  I only mentioned them because I know of some moms who were struggling with those particular situations.

Well I’ve finished the website that I was working on.  I actually ended up taking a week and just dedicating my work hours to completing it.  I was just so anxious to get it done, I actually contemplated not sleeping until it was done.  However being as I already suffer from sleep deprivation, by the time my normal bedtime rolled around, I couldn’t function any more.  Not only that but if I did stay up all night to finish the project all of my other projects as well as my kids would suffer the next day.

So now that that project is done and behind me I now feel like I can get back on to my normal work schedule.  Actually, I’ve been working quite a bit on scheduling lately.  I’ve started meal planning, I’ve finally got my husband agreeing to a budget (after 3 years!), scheduling my work time and of course my Mother’s Rule of Life, which encompasses it all.    So stay tuned!  I’m going to be doing some writing about my scheduling.  And of course if you have any ideas or if you would like to share any of your schedules, what works for you etc. with me, feel free to drop a comment.  Thanks!