Kid Instructions

Morning:

Wake Shaylee up by 7:15am.   Do not send her to school in any pants that have buttons or zippers… she will leave them undone and have her butt hanging out all day.   Make sure she brushes her teeth.. if you don’t tell her to do it, put the paste on the brush and hand it to her—she won’t do it.  School starts at 8:15am…. I try to have her there by 8 so that she has plenty of time to get to class, hang up her coat and backpack, and do her “attendance work”… and the earlier you are, the smaller the line to drop off is.

Make Will go POTTY as soon as he wakes up… if he wakes up in the night… make him go potty… then he should still be dry when he wakes up… he might say he doesn’t have to go.. but he does.

After School:

School lets out at 3:40pm.  I leave the house at 3:30… so that I can get a parking spot.  The teacher must see you in order for Shaylee to be released.  Shaylee’s class comes out the middle doors… not the main doors… so I try to park in the East Parking lot…but it’s sometimes hard to find a spot… so parking on Elm street is a good idea too.   I usually wait for Shaylee in the grassy area by the big tree… be aware when leaving that the parking lot and pick up/drop off lane is VERY HECTIC for about 5 to 10 minutes.

The first thing Shaylee has to do when she gets home is her homework.  Homework is very important; If she doesn’t turn it in it will affect her grade.  Make sure her completed work gets put back into her binder and backpack.  Monday’s homework is the most important, it’s spelling.  We do it as a pretest… you will have to cut off the list of words from the page, and then read them to her…after she is finished with the pretest, she has to write them an additional time, make sure she spells things correctly on the second part.  Keep the typed list of words on the fridge… she must turn in the handwritten lists.

MONDAY— Shaylee has dance class from 7:00 to 7:50pm… make sure she has her dance bag with both sets of dance shoes… she can wear basically anything.. we usually do some kind of stretchy pant and a tee shirt.

***also the trash truck comes early Tuesday morning, so put it on the curb Monday night… the bins are on the East side of the house.  The recycling bin doesn’t need to be put out, because it only comes every other week.

Bedtime:

Our goal for bedtime is 8pm… to ensure Shaylee is asleep by 9pm. She can watch a movie on her TV. If she is in bed by 8:30

Shaylee needs a bath or shower before bedtime… and she still needs some help especially with hair washing… she doesn’t need her hair washed every night… but if she gets it wet… it gets washed.  Don’t let Will and Shaylee take a bath together unattended… they are too interested in each other’s privates.

Make Sure Will goes Potty right before he goes to bed, and he needs to wear a pull up to bed (make sure his pee pee is pointing down.. if its pointing up—if he pees it will come out)   He will ask you for Chocolate Syrup (chocolate milk) in bed, Don’t let him have it…or he will most likely wet the bed… even if he has a pull up on, it sometimes leaks out.

Will and the Potty:

Will is doing excellent with his big boy pants!  When he wakes up put underwear on him right away (his underwear are in one of the canvas bins in his cubby, the other bins have pj’s and shoes)   If he keeps a pull up on for too long even if it is dry it irritates his skin.  ALWAYS MAKE HIM GO POTTY BEFORE YOU GO ANYWHERE.  That is the number one rule.  If you go somewhere, make him potty about once every hour…  At home he is good at going himself, but he usually needs help pulling up his pants… but when out he forgets.  Even if he says he doesn’t have to, make him try if its been an hour.     I don’t recommend letting him have sippy cup of juice when going out… because the more he drinks the more he pees.

Will, my little man, is a spitfire and gives new meaning to the phrase “all boy!”  I have never seen another two year old boy filled with as much testosterone as this kid.  He is an alpha puppy!  He likes to hit, kick, jump, throw balls, run, and do all things dangerous.

Will turned 2 years old at the end of January.  Turning two means my baby boy is transforming from a toddler to a preschooler, and that means this year we will be diving into the oh so fun world of potty training.   Potty training my little man’s man should be pretty interesting.  Today we made our first huge stride.

Will has been waking up with dry diapers for about a week, this morning I put him on his little Winnie the Pooh potty chair and after a few chants of singing “let’s go pee, let’s go pee, let’s go pee in the potty!” He actually did it! I was proud, he was prouder!  Bodily functions are sooo exciting during the potty training phase!

Training a boy is a little trickier than training a girl ( I have experienced girl-training with my daughter.)  I don’t know if one sex is the easier or not.. but the mechanics of  getting the boy parts pointing the right direction is a bit complicated!   This morning as Will and I were taking the leap into the no-diaper future we  had a little conversation on what exactly we should call his man parts. He was confused when I said  “go pee pee in the potty,”  he called his thing pee pee, and didn’t understand that two different things could be called the same.     I read in a parenting book recently that parents should teach their children at an early age the proper terms for their privates.  So I said to Will,  “you can call that your penis!”

He replied to me, ” Penish?”

I said, ” Yup!”

He thought for a while and said,   ” I call it Big Truck!!! VROOM VROOM!”

I  laughed so hard! That little boy is the funniest kid!  So I  told him, ” point your big truck in the potty and go pee!”  and he did!   I should have known that my little alpha puppy would come up with a creative nickname for his manhood,  I just never thought he would at age 2!   Times like these really make me love being a stay at home mommy!

This afternoon I went up to the elementary school to pick Shaylee up, like I do every day.  Today however, her first grade teacher, Mrs. “B,”  had to inform me of how terrible my daughter has been acting the past few days.  Apparently Shaylee is,  “whiney, sassy, disrespectful, and unwilling to follow directions.”  Wow!! That is sooo fun to hear!   I said a sincere, “sorry,” and took my little diva home.

First grade has been a huge pain in my rear!!!  I  had reservations about Shaylee’s assigned teacher at the beginning of the school year, but I looked past them.   I wish I would have put her in a different  class.  Shaylee has butted heads alllll year with Mrs. B.    I know my diva daughter can be a huge sass-a-frass,  but sometimes I think a kid deserves a break.   She gets in trouble for everything from not sitting in her chair correctly to not grabbing her back pack fast enough.  She is rearely rewarded for good behavior or work, but  always  told when she is messing up.  Poor Mrs. B has has choose to fight so many little battles that now she has lost all control over the diva,  and the diva has unleashed her full arsenal for war.

I took away Shaylee’s Wii privileges and even discussed what Jesus would want her to do versus the devil.  Ahhhh!!!!  What can I do?  How can I control how my kid acts when I’M NOT THERE.    I can’t.    I feel like telling Mrs. B, “sorry, you got yourself into this!”   Shaylee had no problems getting along with her preK teacher or her kindergarten teacher.. but for some reason she likes to do everything Mrs. B doesn’t want her to do.    But hey, its March, we only have to endure first grade for another 2 months!

When second grade comes, if I have reservations abouth the teacher… I am listening to my gut!