A Good Day

We had a good day today. It all started with E staying up late to organize their rooms. When kids clean, or we clean in a hurry, everything doesn't get put exactly where it belongs. So E put everything where it belonged in both of their rooms. When we woke up, the kids saw their 'clean slate' of a room and couldn't help but go in and play. It is so much more fun to play with your toys when all the pieces are there. No video games this morning. :-)

We had LEGO league this morning. The team finished their LEGO structure. It was really neat. They were so proud to explain each part and how it worked. I'm sure it won't win any big prizes, but the boys had a great time. At our next meeting the boys need to make an explanation poster. I'm thinking that is not going to be so fun, but we'll see. We went to play at the indoor playground after the meeting. I'm so amazed at how a random group of boys and their sisters all get along so well. It must be LoA at work.

After dinner tonight, Bridget wanted to do some more baking. She decided to take the easy route and EasyBake. She was able to do the entire thing by herself. What a huge difference from six months ago. I think my trust and confidence in her is increasing her trust and confidence in herself. She did forget to spray the baking pan and was really disappointed that they did not turn out just perfect. When she started crying, I hugged her and validated her feelings instead of attempting to minimize them. This was a major shift for me. I always tried to minimize her feelings since she is such a drama queen. This time, she really responded very well to my compassion and felt much better after.

The only one who didn't have such a great day today was E. He was really trying to force Owen to do all kinds of things today... wear gym shoes instead of sandals, put his legos away, put pjs on, go to sleep, etc. I was starting to do the dishes and asked if he could tell them a story to help them relax and go to sleep. Well, he told them a story, yelled at them to put pjs on and yelled at them to go to sleep. Needless to say, they were still awake 45 minutes later. I mentioned to him that it seemed to me like he was arguing with Owen a lot. He agreed, but said he didn't know how to change. He knew the theory, the idea, what he should do, but he just couldn't do it when he was in the middle of an angry moment.

So I went upstairs to see if I could settle the kids. When I opened the bedroom door, they both pretended to be asleep. I noticed one of them was on the floor. So in a really sweet voice I said, "Is that someone on the floor?" They both popped up and said, "Mommy!" Both of them instantly started telling me all about their bedtime experience with daddy. Bridget expressed how it seemed that he was very angry and she didn't want to make him angry. Owen was very complimentary to me and suggested that I take full responsibility for taking care of them and let daddy just take care of work 'and stuff'. They quickly calmed down and went to sleep. Now it is my turn to go off to bed.