Brev’s post sticks his list of goals to get Muki↓

Everybody and their mother has told me that I must be insane to get a puppy when I already have so much chaos in my life but I disagree. I really can’t imagine raising three boys without ever giving them the opportunity to learn what it is like to take care of something that they can call their own.

The boys have no doubt that their daddy absolutely, unequivocally does not want a furry beast in our house to add to the mayhem and so I have enlisted their help to create a motivational chart of chores where they can record all of their hard earned work with the ultimate goal of raising 250 points, all for the love of Muki.

In providing this opportunity for them to succeed I have discovered the golden key to success. The points can only be obtained if they work collaboratively with each one helping the other to complete their task. They can get as many points as they want in a day and it does not matter what chores they choose and all of the points are based on an honor system. We also came up with a list of bad behavior that will work against them if they get an X.

Already, the boys have completely changed their attitudes and have been working their tails off, so to speak, to convince us that they will work hard once Muki arrives. “Yes mommy,” Axel says whenever I ask him to do something. “Did I just get an X?” Tucker asks after he has a little melt down over getting his shoes on.

The other night Brevitt was up late with me cleaning the kitchen and he said, “I feel so weird that I am helping you so much.” I agreed that it felt strange but wonderful that I had him as a companion to help me around the house.

I’m thinking that if we all whipped our children into shape the future will be filled with conscientious and capable adults who understand the importance of teamwork and helping others.

If a dog is not what you had in mind,  find something else that the kids will consider worth working for; a trip somewhere different, a massive sleepover, ice cream for breakfast for a week.

It is true that they are driving us crazy with their complete obsession with the chart but the benefits make up for all of the annoyances.

It was the other night, when I was like the walking dead after only five hours of sleep, that I truly realized that I had tapped into an incredible solution to my daily frustrations.

I told the boys that I needed to go to bed and watched as they bustled around me cleaning up the house before they retired with me. Tucker emerged from the bathroom with his pants down on his ankles and asked, “Which brudder wants to wipe my bottom?” and both Brevitt and Axel ran over to help him and get a point.

Now the most common question is what happens when Muki actually arrives on the scene in the spring? I guess the answer is that I will have to come up with more goals, as giving them an allowance causes fierce competitiveness and more fighting.

We’ll take each step as it comes but for now the house is a whole lot tidier and my workload has decreased significantly, making me a much happier mommy.

I stared down the exceptionally long Christmas aisle in the market wondering where the hell the Jewish section was amongst the yard art, plastic santa’s, candy canes and reindeer.

“Excuse me,” I asked one of the clerks. “Where is your Jewish section?” “Huh?” she asked blankly staring into thin air. “Your Jewish section,” I signed, raising my voice while performing a little Yiddish dance.

A friend of mine who was in the next aisle heard my voice and peaked over to see what was going on, why I always have witnesses at times like these I do not know. “I hate to give Jews a bad rap by making a scene in a place that seems in denial that Jews actually exist, ” I said “but this is ridiculous.”

The Jew section turned out to be a sorry two foot square area in an obscure section of the store offering strange items like salted soft fishlike crackers but no Gelt,  candles or anything else that had to do with Chanukah. I couldn’t imagine that they weren’t getting hell from all the other Jews in the Valley because one thing was for certain, none of my fellow Jewish friends would put up with this.

As I put the groceries on the belt the check out girl admired and commented on my grocery selection. I met her  years back when her mother volunteered for an organization that I was the Volunteer Coordinator for.  I have never learned which disease she has but she moves slower than most and her face is physically marred. I have seen her at different stages of her life, as a child and than pregnant with her own child. Who the father is, I do not know.

She told me that her daughter would not be with her over Christmas for the first time in eleven years because she was in an all girl’s boarding school in Oregon and I asked her if she was okay with that. She said she was.

As she checked out my items she studied each one, “Ohhh”, she exclaimed, “I’ve never seen this natural kind of ice cream before,” and “ooohhh, I just love Swiss chocolate but ohhhh look at the price.”

The fact is, I buy Swiss chocolate for Wade and the children because it is the only chocolate bar in the Market that doesn’t have high fructose corn syrup in it, but I didn’t have the energy to explain the psychology behind my grocery selections.

I was growing more irritated by the second but I smiled because that is my new thing, to smile when I feel like shredding something or someone to pieces, and not just present a fake smile, as there is nothing worse than a fake smile, but to really smile so that I actually can feel the warmth of the smile radiate within me and change my attitude.

I ran my debit card through and, as usual, the magnetic strip was not working. “It never works. You have to punch it in yourself,” I said apologetically.  Not accepting this she came around to try it herself with her own special touch. She slid it slowly a few times, going slower with each try and then wrapped it in plastic to slide it a few times more.

She shook her head and said, “Your card doesn’t work.” “No! Get out, really?” She got on the phone all in a huff to call for help. So now we both were irritated and I realized that  I had started it by giving her back half of the groceries from my cart when I  saw that I had overdone the shopping again with grandiose ideas for holiday meals.

“I can give you a check,” I pleaded. “No, no, its ok,” she sighed. By the time she decided that she could punch in the numbers without the help of her superiors, my smile was bringing tears to my eyes. When  I read, “NOT APPROVED,” I forced back the real tears from flowing. At times like these I can’t help but step outside myself  and feel as though I am watching my own Woody Allen film.

“Your card isn’t working,” she said again holding the card out for me to take it back but when I tried to grab it she wouldn’t let it go. Finally, after a staring match and a small tug of war, I asked her in a sugar coated bitter tone, “Are you going to give me the card back or what?” She broke out laughing at her inability to let go, and so did I. It was a real hysterical, nervous breakdown sort of laughter but nevertheless it felt good and when I glanced back at the people who were patiently waiting in line behind me I saw that they too were laughing.

When I left, still winding down with my uncontrollable giggles, I should have felt sad for her but I  didn’t. I felt  happy, and thankful, that I wasn’t too absorbed in myself to appreciate this woman and her struggles, happy that I had been given the gift of laughter and happy that I didn’t make a scene, for once in my life.

I was on the phone with my friend Gretchen when I heard screaming in the background. Her daughter had gotten pushed into a door knob by her feisty brother. Gretchen multi-tasked well, soothing her child without missing a step in our conversation. The second time her daughter came in screaming I heard thumping and dead silence. Gretchen saw her daughter coming and ran out the door escaping into the yard so that we could finish our conversation. We shared stories of having to shut ourselves in the bathroom to enjoy an adult conversation with a friend and agreed that it was time for the kids to go back to school.

The boys change so much from one summer to the next and I am enjoying that my role as a mother is changing. I am able to play with them more and cater to them less. The only caveat is the closer we become the more they begin to take ownership over me. My time becomes less my own and time with Wade gets more and more monopolized. To share intimate moments together is almost impossible. If we do manage to slip away we will often hear little gremlins trying to pick the lock on the bedroom door to steal their mommy back.

As Americans we tend to over indulge our children. After a summer playing Camp Director, I have decided that next summer will be different. I have done my boys a disservice by mapping out their days. Next summer I will encourage them to explore our neighborhood more and find the frogs and other treasures in the surrounding countryside, just as I did with my sister’s when I was their age. No longer will I take the responsibility of entertaining them every day and no longer will I be following them around the house cleaning up after them. I will establish a routine now that will hopefully help them with the transition back to school.

We will resort back to our chore list, which I never should have let go over the summer. The list helps the children to better understand their responsibilities as members of the family.

Good habits are not easy to establish, but without them children can feel lost. According to Dr. Laura Markham, a clinical psychologist, specializing in relationship-based parenting, routines help children feel safe and ready to take on new challenges and developmental tasks.

Dr. Markham says that kids who come from chaotic homes, where belongings are not put away, never learn that life can run more smoothly if things are organized a little.  In homes where there is no set time or space to do homework, kids never learn how to sit themselves down to accomplish an unpleasant task.  Kids who don’t develop basic self-care routines, from grooming to food, may find it hard to take care of themselves as young adults.  Structure allows us to internalize constructive habits. Structure and routines teach kids how to constructively control themselves and their environments. http://parentstoolkit.squarespace.com/structure-routines-kids/

I heard on NPR that the routine of sitting down to dinner every night as a family is more important than reading books to your children. It gives children a sense of security and belonging to know that they will have a time every day where they can be listened to by their parents and where their stories can be shared.

According to the Raising Children Network, research has shown that routines have health benefits: children living in families who maintain regular family routines have fewer respiratory infections, and those they have tend to be shorter. There is still some conjecture about why. It might be that the routines contribute to healthy habits like washing hands which prevent transmission of germs that can cause illness, or that they help protect children against the kind of stress that suppress the immune system.

For those of you who are having a difficult time adjusting to the change, try not to lament that the endless days of summer are coming to an end. Embrace the new school year with open arms knowing that the children are getting the education and structure they need to help guide them through life.  Enjoy your new free time and indulge yourself! I know that I will.

About This Post

It’s back-to-school time, and this year Sprite and TwitterMoms have partnered with bloggers like me to share back-to-school tips and tricks, advice, stories and more! Visit Sprite’s back-to-school channel on TwitterMoms to get helpful ideas, learn how to survive the back to school rush, seek out advice from other TwitterMoms and join the conversation. You can learn more about donating your My Coke Rewards Points to support your local school, how to enter for a chance to win some Back to School cash, check out recipes, or even play some fun games. Here’s to a successful and stress-free back to school season from Sprite and TwitterMoms!