Wednesday, December 13, 2006

A Little Peace - Works For Me!

This is my first entry for Works For Me Wednesday, hosted by Rocks In My Dryer (http://rocksinmydryer.typepad.com).

As an only child, my creativity has had to stretch a little when dealing with my girls' sibling "stuff". When Hannah was our only child, and even after Rachel first joined our family (but was still a baby), she got to do everything important to a kid - choose the video we watched, choose the music we played in the car, choose a bedtime story, get in the car first (for some reason, this is extremely important), push the buttons to turn things on and off (TV, dishwasher, etc). But once Rachel started to have her own choices about TV and music and books and could push buttons herself, there were terrible fights over whose turn it was. And my Mommy Brain just couldn't remember who did what the last time! So each girl got a Day. We just rotated every other day, and when it's your Day, you got to do everything, or at least do it first. And if there's an argument over which show to watch or what music to hear, the sister of the Day gets to choose first. There's very little arguing when I just say, "Well, whose Day is it?" It's even more helpful now that there are three of them, each with strong opinions! Abbie caught on very quickly, and was assigned her Days before she was even two! But I have to mark whose Day it is on the calendar at the beginning of each month, because I simply can't remember, and Heaven help me if we leave the house and I haven't checked whose Day it is...

5 comments:

Becca said...

Hmmmm, maybe we need days around here. There's an awful lot of bickering about the silly trivial stuff. What a great idea!

Anonymous said...

That IS a great idea! When I was growning up, my sister and I fought over who got to sit in the front. (this was before the days of seatbelts and airbags and car laws...). And my mom made a car calendar that hung by the garage, so we ALWAYS knew whose day it was. And it worked! Now.....if we could just make a calendar for whose day it is to talk.....(sigh)

Anonymous said...

P.S.....Your girls are GORGEOUS. :)

Amy said...

Great idea! When I was young it was always who rode in the front seat too! :) Amy

Faith said...

Great idea! I finally got chores listed by week for our kids (I'm a bit late to the delegation routine) and it has cut down the grumbling significantly.

I enjoy reading about your life! I just ran across a photo we took of you and Al before you two were even engaged! Im so grateful for your love for him!