Dinner Party

Family Meeting today: Toby had his Appreciations for everyone ready on the board, Hazel was too tired to say anything, and Toby picked doing laundry on his own initiative for Contributions. Again, Problem List blank! I have been waiting for Toby to come to me with an issue so I could suggest writing it there, but that hasn't happened. Things have been going fairly smoothly.

Last night we had several people over for dinner and the kids were great. They both stayed at the table for the meal, made very little mess, and interacted with the adults. There was no asking for different food, no yelling, and no throwing. Both played with the visiting children (kids they didn't know) inclusively and generously. I was very pleased. When Hazel brought her dishes to the kitchen counter, and came into the dining room with the Dustbuster after dinner, with no adult prompting - our guests were quite impressed!

My main difficulty is maintaining control over my own behavior - NOT reminding, NOT nagging. When I see clothes on the floor, or things I know Toby is supposed to bring to school - it takes a lot of willpower to keep my mouth shut. The library books did finally make it back to the library - Dan invited Toby to go with him yesterday (and reminded him to bring his money for the late fine, arg). When they got home I asked Toby if he took out new books. He said no, that he needed to think about how he could remember to get them back on time! His late fines were $4.50, most of his allowance.

I have been having a hard time staying calm about the mess he makes when his friend comes over - this week she was over three times. They get themselves a snack and usually run off to play, leaving everything out on the table and food scattered across the floor. Several times I have had comversations with Toby (and sometimes his friend) about the responsibilities that go along with the privilege of having a friend over, a.k.a. cleaning up. The other day I sat down with him and asked how he would like to make sure that happens. He didn't have any suggestions, so I asked him to think about it and when he comes up with a solution to try, we could invite Kelly over and see how it works. So an evil, sly way of saying she can't come over until he proposes a strategy to clean up the mess. Was that bad? It does put the ball in his court, but maybe this is too much to ask without problem-solving training. We'll see.

We had a spectacular connection today over some kitchen science experiments. I saw a book at the library called "Science Experiments You Can Eat" and we tried one that used red cabbage water as an acid-base indicator. Gorgeous colors when you mix different things into the cabbage water. He loved it. He made predictions and a chart for his findings.

A simple goal for this week: let the morning wake-up play out without inteference.