My Kids Had a Good Day

I don't know what got into my kids today, but they had FUN! (Notice the use of "they" instead of "we." :) They pretty much got into everything it was possible to get into. Let's start with this first picture. They started out playing trains. (As a side note, you'll notice Asher is wearing underpants! We've resorted to good old bribery - we bought a Thomas the Tank Engine that goes by itself. Every day he gets it once he's gone potty in the toilet and put his underwear on. Then, if he pees anywhere except in the toilet, Thomas goes up in the closet until the next day. It's working remarkably well.) The kids were having a really good time playing trains...until Kaia decided to climb under the crib to play Snow White (and she just had to push out the diaper boxes filled with clothes they've grown out of). I'm not quite sure why the crib had to be pushed a few feet away from the wall. She also felt it necessary to remove tons of wipes from their bags in the left part of the screen; her explanation was that she had to make a wall so we wouldn't see her sleeping there. Although the kids did make quite the mess, I was really happy that they played together so nicely and independently, and they were really good at helping to clean up before bedtime. Shocking!


Here Kaia is "flying" off the bed in her space ship; today we've been Chinese cat astronauts!


This last picture is actually from yesterday. Kaia built her own house under the dining room table. Yesterday she proceeded to move all the things she holds dear to her heart into her house. I think it's telling to see what items those are - her favorite rainbow dress, her entire box of underwear and socks, her beloved "Sticky"?? But I was tired of it being there every time I sat down to a meal, so I told her that she needed to pick it up. She was really dragging her feet last night and declared: "My heart is just going to break!" I told her if it wasn't picked up by the time dinner was over, she would not get to be a part of storytime. Just as dinner was ending, she announced, "I'm so tired I could go to bed right now. No time for stories!" If she couldn't be a part of it, of course she didn't want Asher to be either. Asher got his stories and we moved into today with no sign of her house being cleaned. Kaia was informed that if she did not clean up her house, she would get to stay in her room with the door closed while Asher watched a movie. She said, "I don't want to clean." Finally I had to explain that if she chose not to clean today, I would gather all her things in bags and remove from the house to give to someone else who would put them away. Her biggest worry? "I will miss my rainbow dress so much!" That was the catalyst she needed and she picked the whole thing up (actually, she got Asher to do most of the work for her!).