Most parents I know are familiar with the "witching hour" - that awful time in the evening before Dad gets home when everyone is hungry, Mom is trying to get dinner ready, no-one is getting along (of course I'm talking about the dad-at-work/mom-at-home scenario because this is my reality). So tonight I tried something different and was encouraged by the results. Obviously, it's a one night thing, so who knows what tomorrow might bring....
I established the baby somewhere safe with a large selection of entertaining toys. He tends to gravitate toward the oven and dishwasher in our open plan kitchen - living room, so this doesn't exactly make for easy meal preparation. In fact, if you want to see him speed-crawl all you have to do is open the dishwasher. He's there in a flash, body-boarding on the opened door. Then, I sent A and K upstairs. They were instructed to get their clean pajamas out for the night, pick up anything off the floor and generally get their rooms ready for the night. I also asked someone to get a nappy (diaper) and some pjs out for J. A wanted to be helpful and offered to do it, K wanted to do something that A was not doing so loudly volunteered her services. In his peace-keeping capacity A relented and they both went upstairs.
Spaghetti was drained, bowls were placed on the table, napkins located. They came back downstairs, beaming with pride at their newly prepared rooms and....everything was calm. I will be trying this experiment again!
No comments:
Post a Comment