The Great Awakening

Have you ever been rudely awakened by your own children??  I'm not talking about the midnight bathroom runs or the 6 a.m. "I'm Hungry" kind of awakened. I'm talking about the "What is up with that behavior?" kind of awakening. Every now and then I get smacked square between the eyes and realize that somewhere along the way a really ugly habit has crept into my house and it must be dealt with in high gear and dealt with NOW! (Okay. maybe I'm the only one that has this problem. Feel free to skip to your next blog if you totally can't relate!)

 Those angelic smiles aren't permanent? Who Knew??

The latest episode at our house came when I found myself answering the question  (usually with a NO) "Can I watch a movie?"numerous times in a 30 minute period, sometimes before breakfast was completely swallowed. I decided to go for a week of no movie watching. I admit, I wasn't brave enough to declare my intentions out loud, just in case I recanted such a decision. After an expected increase in requests the first morning I started to see positive results. Yeah!! Of course it helped that we offered to loan the majority of our movies to friends who were taking a long road trip. What a well time "coincidence!"

 Of course saying No to one request means saying Yes to something else, right? So this week  I tripped over we set up a blanket fort in the middle of  the playroom. (Oops! forgot to take pictures of that one.) We played "puppy" with dry cereal "puppy food." (Surprise! we had to pick that up and put it back in the dish a time or two!)

 

But in the end it worked, it  really worked! He spent over an hour playing a game--with himself! =)

I asked him when he was finished if he won and he said "no, I just quit, cuz no one was running out of money." Love it!

Thursday morning we woke up to pouring rain and the question was "Mom, can I play with my umbrella?"  Embracing  a moment of insanity opportunity for adventure, I said, "sure!"

(If only this mommy had been equally excited about getting wet, the pictures would be clearer but.....these will have to do.)

After we peeled off wet & muddy boots, socks, coats, pants.......and washed the mulch and mud off of our faces, we ran a big load of laundry while we 

Watched a movie!

But amazingly enough I don't think I've heard a request for another one since. Ahh! the beauty of a little intentional parenting. If only I could remember that without the rude awakening moments!!!