MOMMY OF YEAR.........

My sister, Allison, gets the award for Mommy of the year in my book. I called her last week after a terrible morning of getting Kate ready for school. Kate hates to wear socks and shoes. She loves flip flops and crocs but hates any other type of shoe. Soooooo after asking twenty million times, time out, and spanking I still could not get her to wear socks to school in the 38 degree weather. So when I called Allison I was in tears and didn't know what in the world I was going to do with my 4 year old. Here was Allison's great advice. Go home while she is at school and put ALL her toys up.....clear her room out and do not make any toys available to her. So I took on the task and went home and did just that. I organized all her toys under the bed in the playroom, in the closet, etc(i will say this task did take me a couple of days) but that day I just threw it all in the playroom and locked the door. Now when she has quiet time she has nothing in her room to distract her.

I picked her up from school and brought her home and told her what had happened. She said, "is this b/c I was naughty?" I said yes and that until she could show me that she knew how to obey her mother and father that she no longer had any toys. Her big brown eyes looked at me like, "no you didn't do that". Still to this day she has no toys in her room and has to ask me if she can play with her toys. If she has obeyed me then she gets to play with a couple of toys at a time. If she disobeys then the toys go up. I have talked to her and explained that these toys are a gift and a priviledge and that God commands her to obey her mother and father. She is slowly learning and we have had good days and bad days but she is getting better and realizing who the boss is. If she doesn't mind then she has to go to her room with no toys and think about it. It is not something that she wants to do.

SO.......Allison, thank you for the great advice. We might just nominate you to help Supernanny out. Your suggestion sure has helped us try to teach our sweet little girl boundaries.

And yes, Jackson has been learning about time out and sitting in the time out chair. I have been working on him obeying too b/c i don't want Kate to feel like she is the only on that gets in trouble.

This has been a really tough mommy week for me and I can say that I have been on my knees asking for patience, kindness, strength and many other things to help me be a better mommy. I know she will thank me for all this one day!! Well, maybe!!!!