—1—
My 15-year-old has been reading before bed at night, but his current book is an I-almost-died-climbing-Everest story that isn't very good at putting him to sleep. He actually stays up really late reading to see what happens next.
So I suggested he find something that was less gripping narrative, more non-fiction about a interesting topic, and he reserved this at the library:
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Just reading the title makes me sleepy, but he's science-y like that. |
When his 9-year-old brother came home from school and saw it on the couch, his eyes got wide and he asked "Can I read this?"
I told him it was 352 pages long and written for adults so it was really hard to understand, but yes he could look at it if he wanted to. He finished it in 3 days and has been spouting off obscure facts about space ever since. And then he asked me to reserve the author's other book, which he read about on the back.
—2—
I've been trying to encourage the kids to engage in more off-screen activities, but we started to run out of ideas on Monday while the kids had the day off school for MLK Day. So when the three youngest kids (7, 9, and 12) found some facepaint and asked if they could use it, I said sure.
It was a huge mess and required two kids to shower afterward, but ANYWAY.
My favorite part was when my 7-year-old son drew under his eyes and said he was doing eyeshadow. When his 12-year-old sister informed him that eyeshadow actually goes on your eyelids, he laughed at her and said "Shadows don't go up!"
—3—
The kids have loved finally having enough snow on the ground to enjoy. They go out after school and then again after dinner when it's dark. Remember the new hill I made around the mailbox at the top of the driveway? They like sledding on it, which is another plus I didn't even envision.
The downside of being an adult is that snow means I do a whole lot more work. I've been doing a lot of shoveling, we do our driveway and then after getting the kids off to school I go over and do our elderly friend/neighbor's driveway.
—4—
Speaking of my elderly friend, we went out for lunch on Wednesday. There are a lot of aches and pains that come with being old, but you can also say whatever you want to, and no matter what it is you can't get in trouble. In fact, the more outrageous it is the more amused people are.
Our server asked if she could box up our food when we weren't quite finished and Bev threatened to karate chop her, and then when when we were walking out the door a guy asked if he could help her into the car and she snapped "You wanna put me in the trunk, or what??" In both cases, they laughed like it was the funniest thing they'd heard all day and went their merry ways. If I'd tried that, I would have gotten kicked out of the restaurant.
—5—
A heavy squall whipped up and I was watching it out the window. The kids looked up but then moved into the other room, unimpressed. "I just saw a cow blowing down the street!" I exclaimed.
"What are you talking about?" my 17-year-old asked.
"You know, the trope in movies where it's really windy so a cow blows down the street."
My daughter stared at me like she'd never heard of this in her life. I can't remember the names of any specific films where this has happened, which pretty much ruined my credibility, but I know it's a thing.
And sure enough, that old spy Facebook served this up to me the next day when I was scrolling:
—6—
The rest of what I've been doing can be summed up by our fridge:
#1: A set of detailed instructions complete with a diagram of how to assemble a BLT sandwich. I need the kids to start taking more ownership over dinner.
#2: A reading schedule to complete the Book of Mormon in 60 days. This was Phillip's idea, and the whole family decided to join in. I play the audio of it on my phone each night while I'm sitting in the 8- and 10-year-old's room at night so they don't keep each other awake and wrestling all night.
#3: A sheet of coupons that my kids made me for Christmas. We're putting magnets over the ones that have been completed.
#4: A chart with different options for handling disappointment. We've got one child who's default coping mechanism is pouting indefinitely, and this is my effort to help teach that there are other alternatives to curling up in the fetal position and scowling at your knees for 45 minutes when something happens that you don't like.
—7—
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Drawn by the 17-year-old. |
2 comments:
Do you have a link for the handling disappointment chart?
JS - Sorry, it was just something I made with images I pulled from a Google image search - and some of the images are probably copyrighted because I didn't check first.
Update: I got to use it for the first time today and shockingly my kid picked "Hug" and got over it in 5 minutes instead of the usual 30 min to an hour!
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