Progress

I notice that I've been posting about G's behavior... and that I've slanted the stories to the negative.  While the negatives make more entertaining stories, we really are experiencing a lot of positives!

At school, the children start each day with 3 stars and then lose stars as the morning wears on.  But G has come home with all 3 stars every day except twice... and then he's only lost 1 each time.  He's shining in kindergarten!

And at home things have been much smoother too.  I'm no longer living in fear that Mr. Peter is going to pull a "today was my last day" departure.

I'll keep posting the funnier stories.  You keep in mind that they don't necessarily reflect our whole reality.

p.s. One of the times that G lost a star in kindergarten, it was because he told Vince: "You lose!"  That was breaking the "Use kind words" rule.  I know that I tend a bit towards the competitive, but -really?  Is G supposed to say "Congratulations, you're the second winner!"  C'mon.

Thanksgiving Focus

I stumbled into a great idea for making Thanksgiving a day of thanksgiving!

At 8am I grabbed a sheet of paper and asked G to name 3 things he's thankful for.

Mama
House
Neighbors

I told him 3 things I'm thankful for.  Listed them.  Done.

At 9am we each added 3 more things.

We repeated it every hour.  Or - whenever I remembered.

Towards the end of the day, he was randomly approaching me:

"Kitchen, Mom - write I'm thankful about our kitchen."

"We already wrote down kitchen, G.  We sure are thankful that God gave us a kitchen, huh?"

"Then write down stove.  I'm thankful about we have a stove."

At dinnertime when we prayed, we prayed through the whole list, thanking God for everything.

Super simple idea - but it kept the point of the day in front of us all day.  And Friday he was still talking about things he's thankful for.  Loved it.

Now if I can just figure out how to keep the Christmas season about Christ...