More Changes

I like it when David is home. Really, I do. But somehow, even with four little munchkins, the house stays cleaner when David is gone.

No- not the house. The kitchen. If the kitchen and kitchen table are clean, I'm pretty ok with the rest of the house being a mess.

And David- how do I say this nicely- doesn't believe in the importance of a garbage can? Or putting things away? Usually, my cleaned-off kitchen counter survives until about .04 seconds after he enters the kitchen when he gets home.

But seriously, I do like having him home. The kitchen is a sacrifice.

And having a clean kitchen is my reward for putting up with him being gone so much!

He left at 3:30 this morning.

Joel got up at 7:30.

I got up at 8:00.

By 8:30, the clean dishes in the dishwasher (that had been there for two days) were put away, the dirty dishes that somehow get left on the counter, table, family room coffee table, family room floor were loaded into the dishwasher and being washed, the counters were cleared and washed down, and the kitchen table was washed off, ready for Hopester to spend the entire. freaking. day. at it doing her one hour of schoolwork.

See:








And just to prove that my house is a huge mess and I just move my piles of crap around, here's a picture of my desk, that obviously didn't receive the same attention as the kitchen:)

Changes

Joel has lost the privilege of having anything in his bedroom. He now has a hotel. No personalization, nothing he owns. Just a bed that we've allowed him to sleep in.

He has come to hate being locked in his bedroom. HATES it. Big temper tantrum, kicking, screaming, hates it.

So we changed the rules. I won't lock him in his room.

At first.

He gets one try to stay in his bed. If he gets out of bed, the door gets locked.

It usually takes until I get to the top of the stairs before I hear him get out of bed. So I go back and tell him that since he couldn't obey and stay in his bed, the door will need to be locked. Usually he's ok with that.

Friday night wasn't usually. Screaming, yelling, banging on the door. Pulled out every dresser drawer and emptied it on the floor.

Saturday night wasn't bad. I don't even think he got locked in at first.

But after I put the girls to bed, I went into his room to check on him. He had taken the almost-full bottle of baby powder and created a snowstorm in his bedroom. Everywhere. Powder on every horizontal surface he could reach. He even climbed into Daniel's crib so he could reach a stack of Rubbermaid totes with too big/too small clothes in them.

So his bedroom got cleaned out. I took out the dresser, changing table, lamp, laundry basket, chair, ottoman. He lost all stuffed animals, blankets, extra pillows, water cup, toys, books.

His room now contains a bed, 1 blanket, 1 pillow, and a crib, simply because I didn't want to take it apart to get it out of the room.

The bad part is he does still have things in his closet. His shelves of clothes will call to him to be destroyed, I'm sure. I emptied the toy box of all toys, but I left the shelves and bins there. He probably won't bother the cases of diapers, and if he leaves those alone, he won't discover that the bottom boxes in the stacks contain not diapers, but the previously mentioned removed toys:)

Last night he stayed in bed after one warning. I closed the closet door to hopefully remove the temptation to tear it apart since I'd removed all other things to destroy. I had taken his nightlight in the purge, and he got out of bed to turn his light on and cry about it. I went back in, gave him back the nightlight, put him back in bed, and locked the door. I even stayed in the next room to listen for awhile, and he didn't get back out of bed.

We'll see how long it takes before he figures out how to destroy something else in there.

The Oldest Child

I've been reading a birth order book the past few weeks. Hope has gotten more attitude-y, sullen, disobedient in sneaky ways, and I figured understanding the drawbacks and precautions for firstborns would be a good step in changing those behaviours.

I've always assumed I was a displaced firstborn, because I don't have the achiever syndrome characteristic of a firstborn, and Mandy does. So I figured she became the "firstborn" and I shifted more to a middle-born personality.

I figured wrong. No, I don't have the overachieving aspect, but I have the list-making, perfectionist, my-house-is-never-tidy-enough, compulsively organized aspects of a controlling, powerful firstborn. "The powerful firstborn needs to be in control. You hear statements from him like 'You will do what I say' and 'I guess I have to do it myself if I want it done right'. They're perfectionsistic and they expect everyone around them to toe the line exactly the way they want it toed....These firstborns don't have to be aggressive to be powerful; they can also be shy and moody...". Hmm- that sounds alot like someone I know.

So, I'm a firstborn. And I can tell Hope definitely is too. David, though, is more a middleborn, I think. Amy is close enough in age that I think she took over the oldest role. David may even be a baby, and Sara became the oldest of Linda and Jerry's family. Actually, I'm quite sure that's what happened. Amy is oldest, David is baby, Sara is oldest of the second-time-around family. If anyone thinks she isn't a perfectionist, then they haven't met her/seen her/heard anything about her. David not being a functional firstborn means we may not kill each other:)

So now to figure out about the other three munchkins. Joel should be a firstborn, being the oldest boy. I'm quite sure Daniel will be a baby- easygoing, funny, low maintenance. Naomi is going to be a typical middle child, I think. Which means I need to lighten up on Hope and spend more time with Naomi. I'll wait until I figure out if I'm going to murder Joel before I worry about the boys' birth order stuff.