Frittering Away the Night

I'm supposed to be working right now...but I don't want to be, so I'm facebooking, surfing, looking at mls (a favourite time waster), and now blogging. The digital age really does let you avoid work in so many ways.

I have one YW who is disabled and she ran away from youth group tonight, literally took off down the street. This is the second time in a month. So tricky. In the end one of the other youth leaders physically grabbed onto her leg and had to keep pulling her down off of the fence she was trying to scale. Sigh. I'm still working my way down off the adrenaline rush...so that's one of the reasons I don't want to work. Tomorrow I roster pre-school, I'm also taking graduation photos of the kids for their year end scrapbook, so I'm excited to do that. My friend Jolayne is watching Julie for me. What would I do without her, she is fabulous. Only three more pre-school classes left, that is hard to believe. It's been a good year. I think better for Eric than Jack. Jack has been tricky, I think he's been a bit bored at preschool the last 4 months or so, but I don't think he was ready for kindergarten in Sept. I think moving on in September will be exciting for him, lots of growing and learning to happen.

I'm looking for ideas on how to get your kids to organize and keep their room clean. J&E's room is always a disaster, and I don't want to clean it, I want them to learn how to clean it/keep it clean on their own. I think there is too much stuff in there, too much stuff that's too accessible. So one idea is to clear all of it out, organize it all and store it in the basement. I think if it lives down there we will be better at getting one thing out, playing, cleaning it up and then putting it away. Another is to get rid of a whole bunch of crap. (I'm liking both these ideas!) I read in a book about one Mom who made "Bedtime Bags" and hung them on the ends of her kids bed. Basically it was a little cloth tote and they put their pajamas in it if they didn't need to be washed and a special bed time stuffy. This encouraged them to put their pajamas away and made it easy for them to find the right pajamas every evening. (If your house is like my house, my kids are always so tired at bedtime and it turns into a fight. "I can't find my pajamas" cry whine "I need help, I CAAAAAN'T put them on by myself.") I figure if they can find the right pair of pajamas easily (and part of this is to save me work, as they like to put on a new pair every single night) that will solve one step of the struggles. There's part of me that thinks, how is this different than putting them in a dresser drawer or under their pillow. True. But I think it is different, we would make this special place, perhaps they could decorate the bedtime bag with fabric paint, so it would be exciting to use the bedtime bag.  (I'm once again reminded that really life is always a matter of perspective...boring drawer vs. exciting, special, self created/decorated bedtime bag.) Anyway, please forward your winner ideas, I need some!

Here's a few more pics from our trip home.

Eric being a dinosaur. His roar is pretty impressive. He scared the pants off a kid at the McDonalds Play Place in Hinton on the way home. sigh.

Jack and Grandpa Ray mowing the lawn. Dad had one boy or the other with him for the entire 4 hours it takes to mow that massive lawn. Little boy heaven, they even got to help turn the steering wheel.

Apparently Eric's little legs were so tired they were shaking, but he didn't want to get off the mower. That's dedication!