Helps for Raising Kids

We had parent teacher conferences today at the elementary school. Sophia is Smart, Obedient, Playful, a Helper, Impressing, and Amazing!

The girls are all doing great in school. Yay.

They are going better than the high school boys. Corey went to their teacher conferences last week. Seriously, they've got every grade available - As, Bs, Cs, Ds, and Fs. Ethan has an F in Jazz band, which is not surprising, cause he's only gone like 5 times this term. He sleeps in and misses it. We don't excuse it, so his CPA is going to hurt (thus the funny yearbook ad we wrote, haha) Ethan told us not to worry, we don't need to check his grades. And yes, he's been accepted to college, but go easy on us Eth, don't not pass a class right now and possibly mess up graduation. Hyrum's grades were the best. Wes.... he's got work to do.

Melodie sent me these two videos today by the Holderness Family. These guys are so great. I loved their Maycember video from the spring, cause they felt my pain! And I haven't seen much since, but I'm so glad that Mel sent these two videos, cause they hit the spot, esp considering the current state of our house as I shared on Monday....

"I see what's happening here.... You're face to face with neatness! ...and it's strange! I even threw away a can! It's recyclable! I know there's still some shrimp under the range. ...Focus your eyes just right here - this portion of the counter top is clear. I know there's a lot that still a mess, but I did this! Aren't you impressed!?!"

It makes me want to write songs. Sharing is cathartic. So fun. Let it be known though that Corey does the dishes a lot. I think Corey does them too much though - he and I are the unpaid servants who clean up after the kids all day. We need the kids to help out more.... they should clean it up themselves!

And then I found this one below. Hey kids, get off your behinds and help us!! And she's like "Ughh!" and she's like "Ughh!"

I gotta be honest, that is how I feel most of the time! Very relateable. "We are cooking your dinner.... We are doing the dishes.... we are plunging the toilet... and you're on your butt". Sometimes they are on their butt reading -they had a day off from school, and she just read and read all day! So even if they're not being lazy, sometimes they aren't helping cause they're doing something good. But I gotta find a way to have them pause and help even when they are doing something great, like homework or watching Peter. The teenagers all related most to the mom who comes in and turns off the movie they're watching then walks away. "She tried to discipline them but their insubordinate!" Yeah, I need to learn the lyrics to that song. Good news is that I'm trying something new again (although I'm not making an announcement to the kids about it yet.) I recently bought the Smart Kids Chore System by Freedom Moms and I'm slowly working my way through the videos and I'm hoping to get a system in place by summertime. The freedom lady says to not be a cleaning martyr, and to not make it seem like housework is drugery - and that is another great thing about these Holderness videos - they are making this a fun way for us to point out some areas for improvement for our kids. I'm trusting it will work cause that lady has 10 kids (she just had a baby) so if it works for her 10 it should work for me and the 10 I have at home. Although she homeschools, and we're all pulled in four different ways by the school and music activities (as demonstrated by our busy weekend this past Friday and Saturday). I can tweak it though, I want to make it work.

A few more that the little kids loved - I might come back and add to this list of our favorites:
Where is my Phone
Making Lunch Out of Nothing At All ("a tortilla ketchup sandwich with a single slice of turkey and some cheese that had some mold on the side!"... I love the son's face on "and you throw away organic pea crisps!")
A Million Things
This was Clean
It's Such a Pain Learning Algebra (that one could have helped us Abi and I yesterday when she was doing her math! But we've got it now, so we should be good)

I also think that I could be a bit more fun, like the Holderness family seems to be. Sure, I don't know about problems that they might have behind the scene, but they really appear to be a fun and loving family. I don't know what we're going to do when we don't have Ethan around anymore to make us laugh. Here's Ethan yesterday - he grabbed this when I said it was heading to the DI. Ethan came back to let us know that this is the moment - this was the day that he decided he wants to look like this.

He felt pretty empowered just pretending, haha. So - a few takeaway goals:
  Kids: You guys need to help more. Get off your butts and do housework (or atleast stay on top of your homework!)
  Dad: keep it up breathing down their necks about their grades!
  Mom (me): Stay on top of the boys grades. And at home, have a bit more fun. Lrt's figure out how to make chores fun and not drudgery. If things are starting to drive me crazy, maybe I need to find a song and write a parody. I actually did start one years ago. I don't need it now, but when I used to struggle with my teenager Ethan (he's almost an adult now!), I would sing to One Direction: "Right now I'm looking at you and I can't believe you don't kno-o-ow... You don't know you're difficult! Everyone else in the room can see it, everyone else but you!" Now maybe if I had gotten Ethan involved in helping me with the lyrics, and maybe had we made a video with him being the hard teen driving his mom crazy, that could have been fun and turned it into some fun family bonding therapy. So I'll try to turn to music when I get frustrated. Or I'll have Corey or Ethan do something else that makes us laugh. Work and play, and hopefully by the end they'll have decent grades and be able to get into college and survive on their own.