Thursday

This morning Toby asked me several times to help him make his bed. Each time, I said I was busy with something (emptying the dishwasher, changing Hazel's diaper...) and finally I said I didn't have time, he should go ahead. Of course he knew I was not supposed to help. He started crying and said, "I don't know how! You don't want it to look terrible, do you??" Oh, yes! I left to get Hazel dressed to go out to the bus. When I came back to get her socks, he was sitting on the messily made bed, reading. How can I use this moment to the good?

I said, "Honey, if you're not happy with your bed-making skills, then after DNSN week is done, I can teach you more about how to do it." He looked up and responded, "Okay, yeah." I told him that anything he's not happy with his skills about this week, we can work on later. Positive connection.

Hazel has refused to get dressed a few times to go out for the bus and of course I used to get more and more anxious and eventually force her into her clothes, with much crying. The past few weeks, I have learned to tell her that if she wanted to come outside, then she needed to wear clothes because it is cold (15 degrees!). If she didn't want to come out to get Toby on the bus, she could stay inside by herself. She has chosen to stay inside alone (for about 3 minutes) twice - once intentionally and the other because she refused to get dressed until after we were walking out the door - she came after us in a shirt and diaper, waving her pants in the air. I told her she needed to be dressed before the timer goes off to be able to come outside, and she could try again tomorrow. She sadly said, "Okay..." but no crying!

The kitchen is killing me, but I am feeling kind of liberated from cleaning up after everyone all the time. I realized that our DNSN week will have to be cut short, since we are going to be away Sunday and Monday, and the cleaning person is coming Tuesday. So Saturday afternoon we'll hopefully all get the house back in some sort of order.

Now Hazel is eating the bits of food that Toby has left all over the counter, some since last night - how do I deal with this, Vicki?!?