Another hot one here. Madison and the girls spent the day at Kami's house while I had piano and crochet lessons with students. They had a lot of fun. Madison was able to take a roll of toilet paper and create a "mummy" and a dress of some sort out of it. She put it on Kenzie. The pics are awesome.
Riley had another hard night going down. She's waking up so late in the morning and even though she is tired, she's fighting going to bed. So we finally got her down tonight at 9pm (a few minutes ago). Maddie is upstairs reading. She has almost finished another book. Go figure - she's such a fast reader!
I received a call from Student Services today asking for our guardianship paperwork. About gave me a heart attack. So I called them back and told them that we had signed it there and the lady looked for all of five seconds and was able to find it. She said that our transfer request would be approved so Madison will definitely be going to Ethridge. I figured that would be the case, as I was told they approve it for teacher's kids, but it's still reassuring to have everything done! Now to take care of Riley and Julia's school work and shot records...
Jeremy and I had our first "family talk" with Madison tonight. We sat on her bed and went over a few things such as allowance, computer/study time, and bedtime/our time. We made sure to be up front with her that she was not in trouble and this was not a negative talk. Just one where we wanted to make sure we were up front with her about expectations. So here is the jist of it all:
Allowance: Can earn up to $5 a week starting this week. She'll be paid every two weeks.
Three chores:
1 - Keeping her room clean (involves making her bed daily, folding her laundry after I wash/dry it, and putting it away and keeping her floors clean without laundry or things scattered on it). She's been doing awesome with this.
2 - Keeping her bathroom clean (putting her towel on the towel rod after every bath or shower and cleaning the mirror/countertop once a week) Again, doing great with it so far
3 - Attitude - not questioning our decisions, pouting, asking us repeatedly "why" or telling us when she'll do things on her time
The other chore we'll add in the fall is finishing her homework, packing her bag for school and having me check her planner.
For computer and study/reading time, starting tomorrow she'll be able to go on the computer for as long as she studies or reads during that day. So if she reads an hour, she can go on the computer for an hour. An hour is the limit per day for computer time even if she studies or reads more than that. Will change during the school year, but this will work for summer. Just want to make sure she has time for it, but don't want her to be on it all the time.
And then for bedtime/our time, we explained that a healthy marriage needs to be created by us making time for each other. So that we can talk or work through things dealing with kids, house, whatever. Told her that it's important to make each other a priority. As for bedtime, I'm going up each night and praying with her, chatting for a little while and then laying down with her for several minutes or longer depending on the night.
Hopefully all of this makes sense. We want to set firm, but positive boundaries and to allow her the chance to be responsible, but still be a kid. We told her that anytime you call (even if it's in the middle of a chore or homework or whatever), that we will not deny her the chance to talk to you. So just know that that is not an option here. And will never be used as punishment (just in case you ever wondered).
We let her know that if she ever wants to talk to us or ask us questions about things, she's more than welcome to ask us to talk with her without the girls around.
So that was today's events. This sure has been a fast week! And congrats on passing your exams!!!
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