Parents Anonymous, FOFC Branch

[stevew]

So, yeah....

My 3 year old finally started to pee in the potty, after much prodding. She does it like a champ anymore. However, girl cannot shit in the toilet to save her life, and I'm tired of soiled panties/pants(not such a big deal) and random dumps on the floor(making me fucking furious, even if I know it wasn't intentional). Now I don't know whether to go back to diapers or pullups, or hope that she figures this out within the next week or so. I'm tired of breaking out the rug cleaner.

[Eaglesfan27]

Been a while since I've caught up on this thread, but some great stories on here.

Ksyrup is going to need a big yard and a big shovel, I suspect.


FM, I loved your story.


Great stuff in this thread

[Ksyrup]

I've got both, and about 4 inches of snow right now to help cover things up!

[WSUCougar]

Originally Posted by stevew

So, yeah....

My 3 year old finally started to pee in the potty, after much prodding. She does it like a champ anymore. However, girl cannot shit in the toilet to save her life, and I'm tired of soiled panties/pants(not such a big deal) and random dumps on the floor(making me fucking furious, even if I know it wasn't intentional). Now I don't know whether to go back to diapers or pullups, or hope that she figures this out within the next week or so. I'm tired of breaking out the rug cleaner.

I feel your pain, for what it's worth. Add the fact that I don't do well with cleaning up shit anyway (*gag*).

I'm curious if you've tried any reward offers, or other strategies. Don't laugh, but we had my son Drew get the hang of it with what my wife and I called the "poop train." It was a set of small plastic train engines from a dominoes game - I think there were 8 - and if Drew pooped on the pot "like a big boy" we added an engine to the train. When he completed all 8, he got a toy and mucho congrats. Obviously, you can pick whatever little thing would work for your daughter (plastic animals might work).

Anyway, good luck!

[Raiders Army]

I love my teenager. What part of don't touch your 360 or laptop don't you understand????

[Wolfpack]

Originally Posted by WSUCougar

I feel your pain, for what it's worth. Add the fact that I don't do well with cleaning up shit anyway (*gag*).

I'm curious if you've tried any reward offers, or other strategies. Don't laugh, but we had my son Drew get the hang of it with what my wife and I called the "poop train." It was a set of small plastic train engines from a dominoes game - I think there were 8 - and if Drew pooped on the pot "like a big boy" we added an engine to the train. When he completed all 8, he got a toy and mucho congrats. Obviously, you can pick whatever little thing would work for your daughter (plastic animals might work).

Anyway, good luck!

We used a similar reward tactic with our oldest, developing the "Poo-poo" chart, whereupon if she did #2 in the proper location, she'd be rewarded with a "strawberry" (a cutout of one, anyway). If she collected five, we'd reward her with something (the rewarding and strawberries petered out after a couple of weeks, though the chart is still on the bathroom door). At this point, it looks like the habit has finally taken hold because we haven't had a major accident in some time now. The last frontier of potty-training: nighttime. She's still wearing pull-ups right now at night, but otherwise we seem to be finally out of the daytime accident stage (though my wife has warned me that kids do regress a little when they're 4 or 5 before going forward again).

[Ksyrup]

We're trying the incentive thing with our 2 year old and so far it hasn't worked. But she won't be 3 until May, so we're hoping she'll eventually want to start using the potty on her on during the next 3 months, and if not, we're going to get more aggressive about encouraging her.

The other issue we have to deal with is her pacifier.

[TonyR]

Thanks for the information guys. Ibnsgirl and I are going to try and start with Lucy (19 mo) soon. We bought a seat, and we'll see how she gets the hang of things. I'll keep you all informed.

[Yellow5]

My son just hit the 5 month old mark and I am both happy and a little sad at the same time.

It's exciting to watch him change almost over night and see all of the changes, but sad because I feel like I missed something. It's tough to explain.

I know I have not missed anything because I work from home and I see him more than most fathers so maybe it's just the fear that he is growing up so damn fast. Did any of you go through this when your kids were this young?

---

I picked up a solid 20lbs of sympathy fat during my wifes pregnancy and am going to start getting back into shape. I am currently at 190lbs and holding and plan to lose 15-20 from here until the end of the summer.


Time to start a weight loss dynasty or join one in progress!

How are the rest of the parents doing out there?

[Ksyrup]

Our 2 year old is really starting a break-through with the potty training. Four times on Saturday, and 2 on Sunday. Only problem we're having is that she won't poop on the potty. 6-8 months ago, she tried it and apparently was still going or it was stuck to her butt or something, and when she stood up a piece fell off and landed on her foot. Since then, she refuses to try. Everytime I mention it to her, she mumbles something while shaking her head and I can hear "fall" and "foot" in there somewhere. It's going from cute to possible problem.

She has gone off-the-wall crazy for Dora and Diego. Everything is about them right now. Those are the rewards we have been giving her when she reaches certain milestones with her potty training. One funny/annoying thing is that she calls Diego "Diewogo" because the show is called Go Diego Go, and she apparently thinks the last "go" is part of his name. Now that we're correcting her, I think she understands but is getting a kick out of annoying us.

[stevew]

update

Mine finally figured out when to dump in the toilet, so I am happy. I wish she would stop wasting so much toilet paper, but I guess I can deal with that. I think her problem was something intestineally possibly, where i think she was maybe a bit backed up. I gave her some prune juice and stepped up her fibre intake quite a bit, and I think that helped. I'm happy now that i don't have to buy diapers, and don't have to deal with random shit accidents.

[stevew]

dola-

Never had to deal with the pacifier much cause we took it away at like 6 months. Yeah, i probably wouldn't try to wage battle with her on that until you get her toilet stuff taken care of.

[Ksyrup]

Our first daughter had major issues with pooping, too. She would hold it in until it hurt, for some reason. We never quite figured out why, because we don't recall her ever having a traumatic experience or anything that would have brought on the behavior, but we would have major fights with her, even when she was still using a diaper, just to get her to "release." She would stand still, her face turning purple while trying to keep from going. It was almost comical, in a sense, but majorly frustrating. When she started to use the toilet, she would actually clog the damn thing about 100 times more often than an adult, because when she finally went, it was a MONSTER.

OK, I'm done talking crap now.

[Wolfpack]

Unfortunately, my wife was right. My daughter's taken a little bit of a step backwards from fully potty-trained to mostly potty-trained. She's started having accidents again, though nothing too serious. I speculate that she got too "confident" if you will, in understanding her own body and the signals it sends that she started ignoring thsoe signals reasoning that whatever she was doing was more important and she's got time to get to the potty. Back to cajoling and small bribes again.

Our youngest (11 mos) has started figuring out how to clap and is developing quite the humorous personality. Next big thing looks to be walking. She's lightning fast on all fours now, though. She'll probably be the athlete of the two while the older one may be the more bookish artist.

[Qwikshot]

Missed all of the toilet training issues, my daughter seemed to do well. It was one of the few things my ex did right. My daughter is now six and never had an issue (training pants were off last year, nights seemed to be a difficulty).

That being said, my daughter has messed up teeth. This was one thing my ex failed to understand and so a recent dental exam showed the need for four caps, 7 fillings and 2 root canals! So I'm worried now for my daughter's sake.

On top of this, my ex is leaving husband #2 (I was a boyfriend, nothing more). It's amazing that at 27 she's gone through 2 husbands, and is currently eyeing up a married man (possibly husband #3). So I'm worried for Zia's psyche, but the good news is that my ex plans to leave me to raise my daughter once she leaves her husband (she'll live in the area so as to get our daughter the proper residency). I bought a new house and I'm hoping that some stability in my daughter's life will help even if it has an expiration date.

On top of all of this, I have a new girlfriend, it's been six months, she's wonderful and likes my daughter much (and my daughter likes her much). Plus a new job for me that has me doing well, and I'm hoping the stormclouds are finally gone (for now).

[Suburban Rhythm]

Since we are talking crap...

Our daughter is about 2 1/2...and we were making OK progress. She likes the idea of being in the bathroom, and is intrigued with the potty chair and toilet...actually using them is different. Plus, she regressed with her brother (6 months), which I guess is something that happens often.

She too sometimes has issues, even with diapers...she'll sort of "hold back"...then struggle the next day. So we've got a backup supply of Miralax the doctor recommended mixing a little dash in with her juice or milk.

Anyway...about 2 weeks ago, it was bath night. Got the baby done, handed him to my wife, and got Lucy in the bathtub. She wanted bubble bath, so add that, get her washed, and she'll "swim" around for 20-30 minutes.

So I'll get her stuff ready to change, etc...and walk in and out to check on her. She is laying really still when I walk back in, so I ask "What are you doing honey?"

"Poopin'" (grunt)

"WHAT!?"

"hee hee...Poopin!"

So, it was sort of like a scavenger hunt, with all kinds of bath toys and the bubbles. You know you are a parent when I was proud of myself for finding the prize.

[PackerFanatic]

I look forward to sharing my stories in about 8 months or so. I am pretty excited

[Lorena]

http://www.starfall.com/ is a great to get the kids ready to read. Our 2 and 6 year olds are on there all the time

[ibnsgirl]

Not really looking forward to potty training...

I missed a little window of opportunity a few weeks ago. Tony and I got a potty seat for 20 month old Lucy because she was doing a pretty good job of letting us know she needed a diaper before she actually did. She was just getting comfortable with sitting on it, when Tony had to leave for a two-week business trip. Lucy then takes her cue that this would be a great time to start in with the "No's." For two weeks, all I hear is "no" to everything (and while it has been a lot less frequent lately, it is still there).

Soooo, the potty seat is sidelined for a while. In fact, with baby #2's imminent arrival, who knows how long it will be.

If anything, I'm much more worried about the whole pacifier issue. Right now, Lucy uses it when she is in the carseat for more than about 10 minutes. Otherwise, as long as she doesn't see it, she is perfectly fine without it. If she sees her baby brother with one, though, I'm not sure how that is going to work.

[Ksyrup]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

Our 2 year old is really starting a break-through with the potty training. Four times on Saturday, and 2 on Sunday. Only problem we're having is that she won't poop on the potty. 6-8 months ago, she tried it and apparently was still going or it was stuck to her butt or something, and when she stood up a piece fell off and landed on her foot. Since then, she refuses to try. Everytime I mention it to her, she mumbles something while shaking her head and I can hear "fall" and "foot" in there somewhere. It's going from cute to possible problem.

Our now-3-year old is really doing well at peeing, but still not much pooping. Last night I caught her, ferret-like, sitting quietly in the corner of her playroom and realized she was about to go in her pants. So after trying to get her to come with me into the bathroom, I grabbed her, kicking and screaming, to the bathroom and pulled off her diaper so she'd have no other choice but to sit on the potty.

As I mentioned before, she had an issue with a piece of poop falling on her foot which seems to have scarred her. So last night, as she's sitting there, she got really whiny and worried about pooping on the potty, and she reached her legs out and said, "Daddy, hide my toes! Hide my toes!" Apparently she was scared that the poop would fall on her foot again. So I had to cover up her toes with my hands while she pooped. After it was over, she was fine, and of course we showered her with praise, but damn that was funny. It was all I could do to not laugh during that. I mean, I felt bad for her because I could tell she was honestly scared about it, but at the same time, the whole thing was hilarious.

[CamEdwards]

Keeping with the poop theme... last weekend my wife put the twins down for their nap and took off their pants since their room was kind of stuffy.

A few hours later my oldest daughter comes out of the house and tells us we need to get upstairs right away. The stench hit us at the top of the stairs before we even got to his room. James had pooped in his diaper, taken it off, and proceeded to smear the crap on his crib, himself, and his sheets (not the walls thank goodness). Ugh.

[SFL Cat]

You rookies! Haven't had to deal with poop and pee issues in a long, long time.

Cam's story reminded me of one of his own. I remember when my oldest was potty training. At night he still wore a diaper. He had graduated from sleeping in his crib to a twin bed and since his room was upstairs, we put a gate across the doorway so if he woke up in the middle of the night, he didn't go wandering and accidently fall down the stairs. Anyway, my wife and some friends of ours are downstairs in the kitchen, and we hear him ratting around upstairs in his room, so I go up to check on him. He's standing at the gate and his diaper is off and on the floor filled with poop. He's picking up each piece and pushing them through the holes in the wires of the gate. It was so gross. But he sees me, gets this big smile on his face and continues his business. I just busted out laughing, even though cleaning up the mess wasn't much fun.

[Warhammer]

About a month ago, my wife picked up my 2 year old son from daycare and he had a couple of bites on him. The teacher in his room explained that during recess they saw him squatting and looking at something on the ground. He does this quite a bit, but they noticed that he kept poking at something and saying "Ow!"

They go up to him and check to see what is doing. He found an anthill and was squashing fire ants and going "Ow!" when they bit him.

So the daycare kills the hill and everything is fine, right?

Today we get a call, they are having "Splash Day" which is out in the parking lot. They have water slides, little pools, etc. My son calls over one of the other kids and they are both doing the same thing! He found another fire ant hill and was squashing the ants, saying "Ow!" each time he got bit! So was the little girl.

I know it sucks, but I can't help but smile because I can completely picture this one doing it!

[Lorena]

Originally Posted by Warhammer

About a month ago, my wife picked up my 2 year old son from daycare and he had a couple of bites on him. The teacher in his room explained that during recess they saw him squatting and looking at something on the ground. He does this quite a bit, but they noticed that he kept poking at something and saying "Ow!"

They go up to him and check to see what is doing. He found an anthill and was squashing fire ants and going "Ow!" when they bit him.

So the daycare kills the hill and everything is fine, right?

Today we get a call, they are having "Splash Day" which is out in the parking lot. They have water slides, little pools, etc. My son calls over one of the other kids and they are both doing the same thing! He found another fire ant hill and was squashing the ants, saying "Ow!" each time he got bit! So was the little girl.

I know it sucks, but I can't help but smile because I can completely picture this one doing it!

Our 6 year old likes to stomp on them and watch them go crazy in anger. We need to have some bread ready next time so we can watch them rip it apart.

[Lorena]

dola,

We found out today that one of Ant's cousins passed away. A few weeks ago his grandma passed away so his mom has been pretty down. I'm not sure if you guys know this but our 3 year old doesn't speak very well. Anyway, I was on the phone with Antmeister and when I hung up, I left the phone on the counter and our son looks at it and says, "Grandma". I was pretty shocked so I decided to call her. It's a good thing I did because she was pretty down and when she heard Landon say "Grandma", it took her by surprise and her mood went from utter sadness, to pure joy.

Weird how kids have this intuition. He seems to know when I'm upset too cuz he comes up to me and smothers me in kisses. Gotta love him.

[TonyR]

Lucy, our 2 year old is afraid of bugs, but isn't afraid to squash them. She'll point at it and say ugly bug (although it sounds more like uggie bug). Cute none-the-less. She's gotten to the point where she'll describe her mood. When she bonks her self on a table, chair, etc and she's crying she'll go off saying Lucy crying until she stops. When she's happy she'll say Lucy happy or Lucy laughing. It's cute and helps a lot when trying to figure out if she needs anything.

Lucy loves the phone. Recently Ibnsgirl and I bought new cell phones so we gave Lucy the old ones (not charged - don't want her calling 911 or anything). She'll sit there pretending she's on the phone talking away saying Grapa (my dad), Grama (my mom) or Grammy (Ibnsgirl's mom). While I'm at work, I'll talk to her a bit, and as soon as she gets on she'll say it daddy. Of course, don't know how bad it will be when she reaches the teen/phone age.

[WSUCougar]

Wish us luck, tonight we are camping out at the zoo. It's a special thing for kids (not cheap, either - it better be good!). I'll post a report later.

[sachmo71]

Well Coug, how did it go?

[FrogMan]

cougars ate one of their own?

FM

[Warhammer]

Oh geez... We went camping three weeks ago. The first event was pretty damn funny...

My two year old is getting cranky so we send him into the tent to take a nap. My wife goes in to check on him, and the little one had opened my shaving kit (had no razors or anything dangerous in it) and pulled out my toothbrush. He looks up at my wife, who asked him what he was doing, pointed to his feet, and said, "Clean feet mommy, clean feet!" He then started brushing his feet with my toothbrush!

Later that night, my 5 year old decided to see how hot a propane lantern was by grabbing the darn thing. I felt terrible because I could have stopped him, but I thought he was getting a snack which was next to the lantern. Thankfully, he wasn't severely burned, but we still needed to pack up and drive home at 10 at night.

[Suburban Rhythm]

This is going to end up more of a vent than anything productive but...

We are going through sort of a rough patch. Lucy is 3 1/2 now, Sam is 16 months. Lucy is really testing our patience over the last 3 weeks or so. I guess it part of what 3 year olds do, but these mood swings are killer.

She'll go from playing fine, to evil in 3 seconds flat. Or when asked to do something simple (bath time for example, which she used to love) it turns into a war. The number of times I've bathed her with her standing up in the last few weeks is too many to count. She wails the entire time, we get out, dry off, pajamas on, and I tell her maybe she should spend some time in her room--which she readily complies. Then 15 minutes later, she'll come downstairs, and it's like nothing ever happened. She's in the best of moods and we are good for hours.

We can't really pinpoint where, or why, the tantrums are coming from. Like I said, things she used to love, she'll tell us she wants no part of. Then changes her tune 10 minutes later.

That is all...just wanted that off my chest.

[gstelmack]

She's 3. Our just-turned-five-year-old is doing similar things. They will CONSTANTLY test boundaries, and you just need to be firm on where they are. It helps to find something they DON'T like: our daughter hates to be alone in her room, and I check on her just enough to make sure she's not pulling out toys and playing when I want her spending 5 minutes on the bed. If your daughter is going "OK" when you send her to her room as a punishment, you need to find something else.

When you have those tough battles of will, and the kid finally caves (and my daughter actually apologized after a really bad day on Tuesday with her yelling at a teacher, fighting with two friends, refusing bath, etc after my wife played hardball with her on privileges) it's a great feeling. Keep up the good fight.

[Wolfpack]

It's probably her being a three-year-old. Our four-year-old has some of the same features, but in true Spinal Tap fashion, they all go up to 11. Bathtime isn't much of a problem, bedtime sometimes is, but it's the total crapshoot of her emotional state that wears on us. Sometimes we're able to get her to disengage from what she's doing fine, but there are other times when doing so would make her think you were absolutely destroying her world. She's also recently developed (for a lack of a better term) an attitude, though we're not sure where this came from. This usually is in the form of raspberry blowing or some snide tone to her voice in response to something we're saying or doing. We're usually pretty patient parents and can put up with a lot from her, but this new stuff she's doing is hitting all the wrong buttons with both of us. I don't know if it's a combination of her verbal and intellectual abilities mixed up with a dose of her rather volatile emotions, but I swear I feel like I'm getting a good picture of what life will be like in ten years. The only thing missing is any sort of teen lingo.

[Suburban Rhythm]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

If your daughter is going "OK" when you send her to her room as a punishment, you need to find something else.

It's sort of weird...she'll fight it if we are downstairs, and I send her up to her room. But, it's almost like she knows she needs those 15 mins to calm herself down.

Also funny, we are semi-guilty of bribing her with "we can do this and that, after you do __________." And she'll start with "I hate _______!!"

But an hour later, she'll remember what was offered, and do what was originally asked (bath, eat dinner, sit on the potty, whatever) and bring up "You said we'd play Candyland!" And she'll apologize, although I know she's saying it solely because we've told her to say it in the past, and she feels she is supposed to say it, whatever it means.

I hope she outgrows it before our son starts picking up on it.

[Suburban Rhythm]

An update and a story-

From my previous posts, Lucy has dramatically changed in the last week. Still some whining, but nowhere near the meltdowns she was having earlier.

One day last week, just one of those days at work. So I wasn't home til about 6:30 (usually home around 5:00). So ate really quick, and we gave the kids baths. Afterwards, changed into a sweatshirt and shorts, and grabbed a pair of white socks.

Get downstairs and put them on, and notice a huge hole in the heel of one of them...and Lucy notices too.

Lucy: "Daddy...what is that? Why do you have a hole in your sock?!"
Me: "Daddy is too poor to buy new socks...and Mommy won't buy me any!!"

(This is greeted with from Mommy)

Lucy: "OhhhhhhhhhhhhDaddy! It's OK!" and comes over to give me a hug.

Fastforward, later in the night, Sammy gets a hold of Lucy's piggy bank (no idea why it was downstairs) and launches it to the kitchen floor. He's cracking up "Money money!!"

I tell Lucy we'll get her a new one, and pick up all the change and put it in a Ziploc bag. I take it out to her in the living room and joke "Wow...you have a lot of money in here, what are going to do with all of that?"

Anyone see where this is going--

"I'm going to buy you some socks Daddy!!"

[Lorena]

[johnnyshaka]

Long time listener, first time caller.

My wife and I have a daughter, Emma, who will be two years old in May and we are expecting our second child sometime in mid-June...as you can imagine, I'm starting to get a little nervous. Aside from all the work I have ahead of me to prepare for the new arrival (clear out stuff in the basement into the garage, get new baby's room ready, and all of my regular spring jobs!! YIKES!!!) my wife and I are starting to get a little worried about what we've gotten ourselves into. Moreso her because she'll be home with the two kids. Anyway, that's the short version of our situation...and, yes, I'm sure we'll be just fine but that doesn't mean we won't go crazy thinking otherwise!!

Potty training...worth giving it a try this early or just a waste of time and energy? I realize every kid is different but I can't help but wonder if having my daughter be a little more indendant will help my wife cope with having a toddler and a newborn to handle. Part of me says yes, but part of me also says no. Any thoughts?

Nap time...Emma has been fighting naps for probably three weeks now. Prior to this stretch, she's been a pretty good napper going down for about 1.5 hours every afternoon. She hasn't had two naps a day for quite some time. Now, it's not like she's crying or anything like that, in fact, when we tell her it's nap time she gets really excited. So, we get her into her crib and she proceeds to perform some sort of gymnastics routine and has a great time. We've tried sitting in there with her and that worked for a little while hasn't lately. We've tried putting her in her play pen in a different room. We've tried a humidifier (for the noise). We've tried reading to her. We've tried music/movie. Nothing seems to work. Actually, the only naps she's had over the last couple of weeks have come after she's been crying, for whatever reason, and gets sleepy while cuddling. So, after that seemed to work, we tried cuddling prior to putting her to bed but she won't have any part in the cuddling as she just wants down or into her crib. Now, trust me, she is tired in the afternoon and definitely needs a nap so much so that she's fallen asleep eating supper on more than one occasion so I don't think she's out of her nap phase just yet. Any tips?

Discipline...too early? For example, when it's time for bed we give her a little warning and let her know that she'll need to start getting her toys picked up. She used to love putting her toys away. Over the last week or so, she hasn't wanted to participate in the toy clean up at all. We always try to make it fun for her by helping out but she still isn't interested in cleaning up. Is she too young to start "disciplining" in terms of, say, no toys during bath time or no story before bedtime? If I were to do something like that would she even understand or figure out what's going on? Thoughts?

Thanks!!

[Lorena]

Well, our 4 year old now knows how to count to 100 by himself. I don't know how he learned because we didn't teach him, but it's pretty awesome.

I just wish he'd actually communicate with us. Such a smart kid but he won't talk yet

[Barkeep49]

Originally Posted by Lorena

Well, our 4 year old now knows how to count to 100 by himself. I don't know how he learned because we didn't teach him, but it's pretty awesome.

I just wish he'd actually communicate with us. Such a smart kid but he won't talk yet

What does not talking mean?

[Lorena]

Originally Posted by Barkeep49

What does not talking mean?

Well, I shouldn't say he's "not talking yet", he'll talk but only when he wants something, which is good, but we are still unable to have a back and forth conversation with him. He doesn't enunciate his words and speaks very low and has echolalia. This is a typical conversation:

Me: Landon, when I say "Hi Landon" you say "Hi mommy" ok? "Hi Landon".
Landon: "Hi Landon".
Me: No Landon, when I say "Hi Landon", you say "Hi mommy". "Hi Landon".
Landon: "Hi Landon".

I'm still not sure how to get him to say "Hi Mommy" when I say hi to him. Like today, I asked what his name was and he didn't respond. Since he knows how to read, I wrote his name down on a piece of paper and showed it to him when I asked what his name was. Hopefully this'll help.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Shitty day, as we heard from not one, not two, but three of Will's academic subject teachers. Seems "Mr. I Finished All My Homework In Study Hall Today" for the past couple of weeks was not only not doing it and not turning it in but was also for the first time in his 10+ years had been just bluntly lying to our faces about it. The past 7 hours (since he got home from school) have not been fun for anyone here.

Anybody got a map showing the easiest driving route from Georgia to Nebraska?

[tarcone]

I have an 8 year old girl and a 7 year old girl. Completely different personalities. Almost opposite.
My 8 year old still has problems in the going to the bathroom arena. She waits until the very last minute and by the very last minute, I mean the very last minute. She is doing the pee dance and we tell her to go. Tjis happens when she is involved in something. I have started tracking her PMS. This is the week. She has been crabby and rude and rolling her eyes at her mom. I dont usual;ly get the treatment but she gives her mom the business regularly.
My 7 year is a cuddle bug. Very popular in the classroom. She is a sweetheart 95% of the time and a joy to have around.

A story about my 7 yr old. One of our friends who have a girl in my 8 year olds class and a boy in my 7 year olds class (3rd grade and 1st grade), got hit by a car while walking in a parking lot. She didnt go to the hospital and a week later was bleeding vaginally and throwing up. She wouldnt go to the hospital until my wife and another friend made her. Her kids stayed with us.
the 3rd grade girls slept together and the 1st grade boy and girl slept together. My kids have full sized beds. This was a thursday. on friday it was my 7 yr olds 7th birthday. On saturday the boy brings my daughter 2 presents. Wait a minute. 2 nights after sleeping over, he brings gifts? I dont like that.

[Barkeep49]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Shitty day, as we heard from not one, not two, but three of Will's academic subject teachers. Seems "Mr. I Finished All My Homework In Study Hall Today" for the past couple of weeks was not only not doing it and not turning it in but was also for the first time in his 10+ years had been just bluntly lying to our faces about it. The past 7 hours (since he got home from school) have not been fun for anyone here.

Anybody got a map showing the easiest driving route from Georgia to Nebraska?

Good luck. My not doing homework started in 5th grade and never stopped until college. I hope you have better success with Will than my parents had with me.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Barkeep49

Good luck. My not doing homework started in 5th grade and never stopped until college. I hope you have better success with Will than my parents had with me.

Thanks, we're going to need it I'm afraid.

Bad as the homework deal is, the bald faced lying is more upsetting, as much as anything because it's so completely out of character. It was uggggggg-lee around here for a long time yesterday.

Adding insult to injury (not to mention to our concerns) is the fact that he's proven he can do the work at the new school, albeit as an A/B student instead of a consistent high A student. Given the difference in the curriculum we can live with that but if he doesn't even make an effort on the homework, he's screwed. It's like he's sabotaging his own success here & that's not a trait of mine I'm interested in seeing my child carry on.

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Thanks, we're going to need it I'm afraid.

Bad as the homework deal is, the bald faced lying is more upsetting, as much as anything because it's so completely out of character. It was uggggggg-lee around here for a long time yesterday.

this reminds me of when Andrew tried to pull the whole lying bit on us a couple years ago. He was 9 at the time. It was very similar to your story, not so much in the "I've done my homework" thing but more in the "oh sure, everything's going great at school, no no, I'm done disturbing and talking in class" until we got a message from his teacher a Friday afternoon that he had received numerous warnings and that things had to get better. Yeah, the reasons for lying seemed like nothing at all, but I took it hard and it got ugly at home too, loss of privileges and all. I drilled in his head so hard that we would ALWAYS hear about something at one point or another and that he was better for him that he tell us the truth than we'd learn it from another source. So far, two years later, it seems to have worked. Sure, we've had to remind him here and there that "hey, your parents do talk to your teacher every once in a while", but so far so good...

Good luck with him.

FM

[RendeR]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Thanks, we're going to need it I'm afraid.

Bad as the homework deal is, the bald faced lying is more upsetting, as much as anything because it's so completely out of character. It was uggggggg-lee around here for a long time yesterday.

Adding insult to injury (not to mention to our concerns) is the fact that he's proven he can do the work at the new school, albeit as an A/B student instead of a consistent high A student. Given the difference in the curriculum we can live with that but if he doesn't even make an effort on the homework, he's screwed. It's like he's sabotaging his own success here & that's not a trait of mine I'm interested in seeing my child carry on.

Jon, I understand this situation all too well. I never did a lick of homework in high school, I was an a/b student as well without putting forth any effort at all so why should I bother doing boring homework?

I can tell you for myself I simply thought the homework was beneath me, I didn't 'need' the practice. If I got good grades and passed my tests and classes then why should my mother care HOW I did so?

I'm not sure I really believe even now that I needed to do it, but I think if I had focused more on it then I'd have had an easier life right after school.

I wish you luck with the whole lying/homework issues. If he's as smart as it seems he must be then what you as parents need to do is find a way to help him understand the importance of what he's doing. Find some way of showing him how the lies damage his relationships to you and everyone else. If he doesn't come to see the differences himself then nothing you do or say is going to make him see it. my mother used to bellow and blow for hours too and all it did was make me do less and less. Action - reaction, you get upset, he just does more to make you do so. I know that shouldn't make sense but we are talking about kids here =)


Good luck.

[Lorena]

Wish I knew about this before Xmas as this will probably not work next year (our oldest will be 9 and will surely know about Santa), but nonetheless, this is great.

Original - On Christmas Eve, let Santa take away the old toys, too | Parent Hacks

In the forever battle to keep declutter our house, Christmas inevitably causes stress, especially when it comes to toys and our 3-year-old. So in our house, we're not the only ones who recycle. Santa recycles, too.

About two weeks ago, when she started getting really excited about Christmas and Santa, we started talking about how we need to make room for new toys. I told her on Christmas Eve, when Santa comes to visit, that next to the cookies and milk she can leave a biiiiig box of toys by the fireplace (I do a lot of Christmas shopping via Amazon.com, so I've saved one of their larger boxes just for this purpose). When Santa stops by our house to leave *her* toys, he'll take the old toys with him back to the elves who will fix them up, recycle them, and send them to little boys and girls who may not get as much from their parents for Christmas as she does - so those kids have lots of toys, too!

Well, she has been *all* gung ho, even putting some of the toys that used to be her favorites and telling us that the little boys and girls who don't have as many toys will love them even more than she does. So on Christmas Eve, when my husband and I are sneaking around to play Santa, the box will go in grandma's trunk for a trip on Dec. 26 to the local women's shelter.

[Flasch186]

dont really know where to put this or what not but the sickness we got in New Orleans over the Holidays was that we had a miscarriage. She was going on 8 weeks. Anyways, Were taking it in stride and know it all happens for a reason and we'll be trying again shortly. Melancholy around here though but we're in good spirits. It was weird though because everything you read on the internet about the symptoms and such give you very little to go on. Is enough blood to go the the ER? Is it orange, Brown, Red? is it clotty? etc. etc. What the hell do I know. Is it a lot of blood? Well compared to the descriptions on the net....no. But it sure looks like a lot to me! What color is it? Its on white paper....I dont know if it's red or orange or what. Anyways, we went to the Er last night and got the news but it was a good thing to go because we were going mental with the not knowing. We have a regular obgyn appt. tomorrow (it was already set for the pregnant path but we'll finish on the not pregnant path). anyways, ya'll are family around here so here you go.

[Neuqua]

Sorry to hear Flasch..

[Lorena]

Originally Posted by Flasch186

dont really know where to put this or what not but the sickness we got in New Orleans over the Holidays was that we had a miscarriage. She was going on 8 weeks. Anyways, Were taking it in stride and know it all happens for a reason and we'll be trying again shortly. Melancholy around here though but we're in good spirits. It was weird though because everything you read on the internet about the symptoms and such give you very little to go on. Is enough blood to go the the ER? Is it orange, Brown, Red? is it clotty? etc. etc. What the hell do I know. Is it a lot of blood? Well compared to the descriptions on the net....no. But it sure looks like a lot to me! What color is it? Its on white paper....I dont know if it's red or orange or what. Anyways, we went to the Er last night and got the news but it was a good thing to go because we were going mental with the not knowing. We have a regular obgyn appt. tomorrow (it was already set for the pregnant path but we'll finish on the not pregnant path). anyways, ya'll are family around here so here you go.

Sorry Flasch.