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8 years ago
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
The toys vs. mean mom
In my last blog I meant to talk about the conflict I've been having with toys. My Inner Mean Mom (apparently not so inner) has come out and attacked a couple times the last few weeks, and we're trying to decide how to stop this. See, a few weeks ago the toy room and the family room were a mess with multitudes of toys. I told the kids they had to clean up before dinner, and Caleb looked at me and said "no." Inner mean mom started to rise. I told him I was going to put some of his toys in time out unless he cleaned up. He just said no again. So I told him I was going to get a big bag and everything that wasn't cleaned up was going into the bag for a long time out. He laughed and said no and started running around the room. Inner Mean Mom was not Inner at all any more, and all the toys throughout the house, even the stuffed animals they sleep with were shoved in the guest bedroom. After I calmed down I made a deal with them that they could get a toy out each time they made their beds or helped us or something like that. They were really good about cleaning up after that, and we had guests coming and a play group at my house, so I eventually brought all the toys out (except the toys I decided were D.I. bound). Then on this last Friday the Mean Mom reappeared. This time it was Felicity that said no. It's really the defiance that gets me mad, as long as the toys aren't too chaotic and are all in the toy room out of sight I'm o.k. But when they start acting like teenagers (or two year olds) look out. Anyway, this time I had the kids put the toys on the shelves and then the whole toy room went into time out for a week. I have the door barricaded and everything. They had a few toys up in their rooms and they have their bikes and books and coloring so they're o.k. (they've been pretty creative: Joseph played with a cardboard box last night, and Felicity and Caleb were using books to make tents for their stuffed animals.) So now we're thinking about keeping some toys out and switching every few weeks. They really don't have a huge amount of toys, it all just seems to multiply when it's on the floor. And the bag of 150 balls and bags and wagons with 500 or so mega blocks doesn't help. So that's the situation at my house. The mean mom is still lurking but maybe I can keep her inside for awhile.
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2 comments:
Heck, we have had toys thrown away plenty of times because the girls won't clean the room. Brighton will say things like, remember my such and such that mommy threw away, I mean they are only toys and they are constatly getting new ones, so if they don't clean them, I trash them--which means DI. Brighton gets emotionally attached to the toys and really cleans when I tell them Mommy is coming to clean with a trash bag. Aspen on the other hand does not care, so its not to fair because, she lets Brighton do all the cleaning. One day I hope they have their own room.
I so know what you mean. I took all of the toys out of the girls room the other day and told them that toys aren't allowed in there. They will play instead of going to sleep. Lindsey doesn't tell me no, she tells me that she wants taylor to clean her things up and the crazy thing is, Taylor does it. I think that will change next year when Taylor starts school, at least I hope it does.
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