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Christmas Preparation

My Little Elves

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She's going to be a Movie Star

As many of you know Naomi gets speech therapy every other week from Laura Mize her speech therapist. She has been doing very well, but I will save that for another entry on her progress. Laura called last week and asked if it would be OK for her to film Naomi for her 4th video that she is shooting (it will be out soon). Teach me to Talk vol 1 is already available at Teachmetotalk.com (Laura's website). Video 2 and 3 will be released very soon and then the video Naomi along with other children will be in will be released after that.

Friday morning Naomi and I went to the church where they were shooting so that Naomi could record her few minute of fame. Since being therapy Naomi has starting talking a lot, but there is this strange thing that happens when she is around Laura. She reverts to all signing and very little spoken word. That is exactly what she did Friday. It was kind of funny since she had jabbered away all morning until Laura asked her to talk. Laura said she got some footage that is usable. We had fun and hopefully soon we can see the finished product. Laura's website is teachmetotalk.com where she has all kinds of helpful resources for parents.

What Motivates a 4 Year Old?

We have always known that Josiah needed was the kind of child that needs strong boundaries and consistent reinforcement (what kid doesn't?). The trick has been to figure out what would motivate him enough to listen, obey and stick to it. We have tried so many different things, but recently started a new system with him that so far is working very well. While we were in WI for Thanksgiving we attended our old church. During the Bible Study hour we watched a video on parenting. The one thing that stuck with me from that video was to make contracts with your kids. I thought that it was worth a try, but also thought that Josiah would be too young to do this with.
I went out and bought poster board and fun colored cards to make charts. We sat down as a family and decide to make house rules. We asked Josiah what the rules should be and low and behold we discovered the kid has been listening to us for the last 4 years. He came up with several things that were right on target to addressing his own personal discipline issues. The first one was: No hitting, punching and kicking. Another he came up with is: Use kind words and no whining. How appropriate. We also came up with consequences for violating a house rule. Josiah wanted to get a spanking for all violations. I think for him that was quick and easy. He definitely did not like a consequence of loosing toys or screen time.
Several other things we have implemented are cards for 30 minute blocks of screen time. I Have never known him to be selective with what shows he wanted to watch or how much Wii he wanted to play. Now with the cards he will ask, "How many shows do I have left?" and then will decide if a particular show is worth watching or not. We gave his what we thought was too much screen time per day and he has not had a day where he has used it all up yet. We also have the Mommy Toy Box thanks to Tracy. Clean up time has become a breeze in my house. Josiah gets 20 minutes on the clock to clean his room and anything left out or on the floor when the timer goes off goes into Mommy's Toy Box and no one knows when they will come back out. This is a great motivator. The last thing we are doing is for every 3 days of obedience reflected by a card system Josiah gets to pick a fun activity to do that we would not ordinarily do. The time frame for this will be increased periodically until we reach a week of obedience. The last week and a half we have had home made cinnamon rolls for breakfast, a trip to the Science museum and gingerbread house decorating. We have had a very happy house lately. I would highly recommend these techniques to anyone.

Happy Thanksgiving - a week late!

Last week we were in Wisconsin for Thanksgiving. We travelled up on Saturday Nov 22nd and got to Dave and Tracy's house just in time for dinner. We went to church at our old stomping grounds on Sunday and saw many of our firends. It was fun to be back and see all the changes and renovations going on at Spring Creek. On Monday we woke up to the perfect snow. Tracy went to volunteer at Nathan's school in the morning so we were a little lazy around the house. Greg, Josiah and Naomi went out side and built a snowman and an igloo. I am sorry I never went outside and got a picture of them. Greg got a few pictures of the kids though. Naomi decided that the snow was fun for just a short time and then it was just too cold. Most of the week we sat around talkinging, playing the Wii or eating. On Wednesday tracy and I prepared many of the dishes we were going to eat on Thursday. WE so tired by the end of the day we both crashed at about 9pm. Thursday was a wonderful Thanksgiving day. We ate excellent food all day and topped it all of with Tracy's Mom's delicious pies. The kids played well together and everyone was sad when it was time for us to leaveon Saturday morning. 2 minutes into our car ride home Josiah was planning his next visit.