Looking at differences

After the show Monday night, I told Dan a couple of concepts that were new to me regarding Contributions. He started looking very concerned, and this led to another conversation about his feeling like this all might be too much for our kids, too much work, too many expectations. These feelings were freshly underscored because Toby left everything to do until late last evening and ended up crying on the floor, tired and frustrated. He had been plugging along, getting things done, until the piece that pushed him over the edge: he had his own clean laundry to put away, but I had already gone to put Hazel to bed in their room, so I didn't want him to turn on the light. Being confronted with either putting his clothes away in the dark, or not getting it done, was just more than he could manage. He cried for a few minutes, put them away in the dark, and came to bed. Done. It seems to me that this is more of an issue for Dan than for Toby. I explained to Dan that this experience set the stage for a conversation about other ways Toby might plan his afternoon and evening to avoid being stuck like that again. I also drew a parallel between the small stakes/supported learning of allowance over the years, and the Contributions/Training process - that they learn about time and energy allocation, and responsibility, when there's nothing major riding on the mistakes they make as they go. As opposed to finding oneself at college with no idea how to do laundry, shop for groceries, cook, or make sure they have time to study for an exam before going to a movie. He seemed to understand but still somewhat suspicious. We need to have clearer discussion about how much household work we each think is reasonable to expect of children at different ages.

A few random updates:

Hazel has been wearing underwear most of the time during the day, and often refusing a pull-up for naps. She has an accident once every two or three days. I have felt confident to take her to her gymnastics class and the grocery store in underwear, offering the bathroom but respecting her choice if she says no. Naps are dry about half the time.

Nighttime sleep is still erratic but so much better. We have had several nights where Hazel slept through to 5 or 6 a.m., and some nights where she woke up but went back to sleep quickly. There are still occasional crying fits but much less reliably. I think the duck lamp made a big difference, but it could be just the phase of the moon.

Bedtime: um, well, uh... we have sort of given up on this for the time being, and one of us stays with her until she is asleep. When we were trying to move her beyond that, there was so much yelling and crying, and it was impacting Toby so much, that everyone was just miserable. For now, for peaceful evenings and energy leftover for other progress, we are sticking with our bedtime status quo.