A success and updates

A success! This morning Dan was in charge, and I told him about trying to encourage Hazel to get down from the bed herself. There is a foam cushion on the side rail of the bed on one side, to protect from falling onto a hard edge. I heard after the fact: when she started asking to be carried down, he moved her over to the padded side, with lots of crying and protesting like yesterday. He walked to that side of the bed to assist/push her, while she moved back to the other side of the bed. Toby, meanwhile, had removed the padding and was trying to attach it to the side of the bed that Hazel wanted to use. During this activity, she sat on the edge of the bed and jumped down to a pillow on the floor! She created her own way of doing it, different from what we had been trying to teach her, and tried it out on her own terms. And my boy was trying to help her with her own goal. Rockin'!

I wanted mention a skill that Hazel has been doing regularly, that I was already encouraging gently without a lot of thought to PonT methods. She pees in her little potty usually twice a day, usually on her own initiative. She will run to the bathroom from another part of the house, take off her pants and diaper, pee, wipe, carry the potty to the toilet to dump it, and flush. She does pee in her diaper most of the time. After we get back from a vacation in February, I will try some more vigorous training - probably several days at home in just underpants.

I have been successful at Not Interfering with Toby waking up in the morning for school this week. There was that day I expected him to oversleep when he woke at 6:30, then a day where he woke up naturally at 7:15, a day off from school but he woke up to my alarm at 6:30, yesterday he woke up naturally at 7:05, and today he slept through the alarm for several minutes and woke up on his own around 6:50. So it seems that even if he forgets to set his alarm, or he sleeps through an alarm, he still gets up in time to get ready for school. Great information.

Toby's checklists have been getting done sporadically. In the mornings, he's still pretty regularly doing 6 of 8, and occasionally more. His bedmaking has improved dramatically. The quality of his breakfasts has plummetted, but at least he's putting something into his stomach (bunny crackers and limeade). In the evenings, he is very consistent with his school-related stuff and his bedtime routine, but practicing piano and doing his contribution are about 50%. There's a load of laundry that came out of the dryer 2 days ago, still not folded in the basket in the laundry room. In general, for very little specific incentive, I think he's doing a lot. The only P&R connected to the checklists is screen time, which he hasn't been using every day. It certainly seems to be true, what Vicki says, that there is much less mischief in the house when kids have a lot of jobs to do.

Something that I am coming to understand is that I get extremely frustrated and angry when Toby does not do house-related responsibilities that he knows are supposed to get done. Things like clearing dishes, putting food away, cleaning up after preparing food, throwing trash in the garbage pail, or wiping up spills. I was asking Dan for support in calming myself down last night, so that I could avoid expressing the anger to Toby - and he reminded me that what Toby is and isn't doing is fairly age-appropriate. That it is simply not realistic to expect him to clean up after himself all the time, to remember all this stuff. Regardless of where he is in relation to other kids, or to my desires, what I need to focus on are progress and improvement. I need to remember that his development trumps a clean house.