Decisions, Decisions....

I am currently enjoying the off key sounds of  "O Canada" as I sit here to write this.  I don't think my son is going to win "American Idol" anytime soon. Every once in a while my daughter joins in with a chorus of "Daaaaaddddeeeeee!!!!"  They are in bed not sleeping because in a moment of weakness I allowed them to share a slushie at supper.  So naturally I have two hyper children who are grudgingly in their beds but are singing themselves to sleep. Sigh.

It seemed like such a good idea that the time.  Get out of the house for a while, have supper at the food court and while we are at the mall, get marbles for the new reward chart we started with the kids.  Simple right? I should have gone myself alone, but I told the kids if they earned their first marbles then we could go and get the marbles together.  They had great behavior on the weekend, so we decided to go today after school. We also picked the worst possible day weather wise, but since we only live a few blocks from the mall I didn't think it was a big deal.

Our adventure began trying to get out the door.  For my friends who have older kids, you might remember this, for my friends who have younger kids, any advice is welcome.  It takes us at least 30 min to get out the door.  There is a real science to getting out the door with kids.  The natural instinct is to get the kids ready, then get your coat on then go....But its not that easy.  By the time the last kid is ready the first kid is screaming cause she is hot (Sophie) and the second kid has stripped off the coat, hat and mittens so carefully applied and is working on her boots (Stella) and the third kid hasn't even got his coat on...I have cancelled many a trip because we can't get out the door, Although even this is easier said then done because sometimes we have to go.

We did manage to pile into the Mackie bus and we made it to the mall.  Our first stop was the dollar store. We searched the dollar store for marbles to no avail.  My son suggested we go to Canadian Tire, but I wanted to stay at the mall so we could eat.  Surely, I thought some store in the mall would sell marbles.  I thought wrong.  We ate our supper at the food court and piled back in the van to go to Canadian Tire.  Success at last.  Now that we had the marbles, we needed jars to put the marbles in.  The kids were really into it.  We picked out these little condiment jars for them to hold their marbles (The slushies were kicking in by now, so I was starting to loose my marbles ). Back home we came. What should have taken an hour actually took 3.

We skipped the baths and the kids rushed into their jammies so they could put their hard earned marbles into their new jars.  How do they earn marbles you ask?  Well, we have implemented a star chart for the kids, similar to the technique used in Jonas' class.  Every day the kids have a chance to earn a star for doing certain things like getting ready in the morning (Jonas), cleaning up and staying in bed at night (Stella) every time the kids get three stars, they earn a marble.  When they get 10 marbles they get a prize--Jonas' first prize will be a clock radio. I know what you are thinking and I have the same dilemma. I shouldn't bribe my kids to get them to behave. On the other hand, I am trying to build self esteem and reward the behavior I want to see.  Plus it beats screaming at them all the time (My throat is getting sore). So far so good, they are really into it. Also it gives me something to take away when they don't behave, like for example, they are told to go sleep and they are singing and yelling instead.....

This is the decision I am currently struggling with, whether to take away a star (and therefore a marble because then they haven't got three stars today) and risk the fights and the temper tantrums (which will keep the kids up even later) or just let them sing themselves to sleep because after all they are in bed, and staying there at least for now. We narrowly avoided a melt down when Stella's brand new marble jar broke because she was shaking it.  Then apparently the jar we bough for Jonas did not make it out of the cart and is probably still sitting at the cash register at Canadian Tire. So we are using two old mason jars I had in the cupboard.  Yeah, I know I could have save myself a lot of time and effort if I had just looked in the damn cupboard first and if I had just decided to use stickers instead of marbles (That would have been a lot quieter too).

Lucky for me I have kids who are easily amused.  They had a great time with us, and were pretty excited about their marbles, despite the broken jar, the missing jar.  Of course that could just be the slushie high talking and they will be miserable tomorrow. For now I am going to let them enjoy. At least I got out of the house and did not have to cook dinner.  If you are wondering, Jeff and I had subway salads at the food court.  I was very tempted by A&W but I am 20 lbs down now and want to keep going strong.  I did however have a couple of bites of the kid's pizza.....