Braces Day 1

Daily Life for Princess is now divided into many little segments of taking out and putting rubber bands, cutting food into little bites, brushing-flossing-rinsing and repeating, repeating, repeating.

How’s she doing? She’s doing pretty good. She misses gum. She’s already tired of cutting things into little bites and she’s already planning a “No More Braces” dinner for the day she gets her braces off chock-full of favorite foods she can’t eat right now.. nevermind that date is 15 months in the future!

Overall she’s doing well, her mouth is adjusting. She’s become a pro at getting her rubber band on and off, she’s (mostly) complying with the frequent and diligent cleaning and we can already tell that her bottom gums are reacting (remember the bottom wires are literally pushing her teeth back down into her gums/jaw because they grew up much too tall without the upper teeth in the right place to stop them.) Her lower gums are slightly red and slightly swollen and she said she can tell they’re moving because they’re a little tender when she pushes on them with her tongue. So yay! That means progress has begun!

We’re trying to taking pictures every week so we can watch the progress but we’re doing a terrible job at it. =p Oh well, they may not be every week but at least we’ll be able to watch the changes happen slowly over time, right?

BRACES.

We’ve known for a long time (pretty much always) that Princess was going to need braces.

We had no idea.

The overbite was obvious. What wasn’t so obvious was the cross bite (the right side of her teeth don’t meet right, or much at all) and the deep bite (the front teeth on her lower jaw are significantly higher/taller than her molars). Princess’ diagnosis is a Class II Division I Malocclusion. It’s the kind of thing you’d expect to see with children who were habitual thumb suckers.. except she never was. She’s always been this way. My mom swears she remembers the doctor saying she had a slightly underdeveloped jaw when she was born. All I remember is Big Daddy saying right away she looked like she was going to have an overbite, and her little lower lip always being puckered in deeply.

It was the cutest little pucker.

Eleven years later and the pucker has a pretty price tag to go along with it. Not just financially, but there’s a long road ahead of us and I fully expect Princess to tell me at least once, probably sooner than later, that she’s tired of them and has changed her mind. She’s been wanting braces, knowing they aren’t fun but knowing that it will fix her teeth. She’s talked to her friends and family members who have had them. She’s geared herself up for this. Who knows? Maybe she’ll buckle down and tough it out and surprise us all. Maybe.

As much as she’s been wanting braces, Big Daddy has been wanting to avoid them. He didn’t like the thought of his little girl in pain, and he didn’t like the idea of surgery. Finally last week he conceded to take her in for a consultation. We had no idea her teeth were so much worse than we thought. In fact, it’s one of the more worse cases of Class II Division I Malocclusions they’ve seen. Once you find out your baby girl’s teeth (she not much of a baby anymore is she?) hardly line up at all and you think about everything that means for eating and how much harder it would be to fix when she’s older,… it’s really hard not to buckle down and find a way to make it happen and get it fixed.

Fortunately, our orthodontist specializes in fixing more extreme cases without surgery. But that does mean a bit of additional hardware in her mouth. But it will all be worth it!! Princess has always struggled with biting into an apple, she couldn’t take more than a little chip out of the apple, she’d nibble it and scrape it to death with her top teeth. It’s weird AND amazing to think that when she’s all done there will be so many normal, daily things that you and I take for granted -like biting into an apple- that she’ll finally be able to do!

The price tag for this is pretty hefty. And the commitments to make monthly payments on it, for us, is pretty huge, too, because being self-employed, we pretty much try to avoid contracts and payment plans as much as possible. But as I read over the directions from the dentist and look at all the tools they sent her home with… as I think about two years of giving up certain foods, monthly appointments, brushing and flossing and scrubbing several times every day.. WOW. She’s going to be putting a lot into this, too. We just keep telling ourselves it’ll pay off in the end.

It’ll pay off in the end.

It’ll pay off in the end.

Have you had to have braces and remind yourself it would pay off in the end?

Photo Credit: Some rights reserved by Muffet

For a long time.. no, I mean, a REALLY REALLY LONG TIME.. bed time at our house has looked (how shall I say this?).. kinda like a car wreck.

It was like herding cats. Or trying to stuff an octopus in a shoe box. Or corralling a troop of kangaroos on a trampoline.

It wasn’t pretty.

Oh, I tried Routine once and I gave up on it. Reading bedtime stories to my kids was p.a.i.n.f.u.l. If I read to them all as a group, they argued/talked/played and so on. If I read to them individually, someone else was always getting into something they weren’t supposed to be getting into while I was trying to read. I would have rather pulled my hair out.

Seriously I think we’d tried just about everything in the book. There was, “everybody in bed by 9 or no story.” Didn’t work. They didn’t cooperate any better, they weren’t ever in bed on time. They never got a story and apparently they didn’t care.

Then was, “if you get up out of bed after I put you in bed there will be consequences.” Didn’t stop them from getting out of bed. Even if there were consequences.

At most we’ve had a good night here or there, maybe even a good week once in a while, but nothing ever stuck. It was out of control. Routineless. A THORN IN MY SIDE.

And I really, really, really wanted it to be a good thing. I had visions in my head of all these sweet rituals and stories and kisses and walking away and children nodding off to sleep with visions of sugar plums in their heads. Or something.

So after years and years of bedtime at our house looking a lot like a 2 hour session of the Whack-A-Mole game at the carnival.. one day I read a post by Ann Voskamp and it gave me an idea.

A really GOOD idea.

And I went for it.

So sometime mid January I put my kids in bed at 8:30. I pulled a dining chair into the hallway where I could see into both bedroom doors. I cracked open Mary Poppins. And I began reading. Everyone had already gone to the bathroom, brushed their teeth, had a drink of water and whatever else they could think of. Everyone had to stay in their beds and be quiet or Momma would close the book.

And I read.

And do you know what? IT WORKED.

Night after night (almost every single night since then) we’ve repeated this ritual. Once or twice I had to close the book and put it down because they weren’t paying attention. (But they always pay better attention the next night when that happens.) And if they’re not in bed on time (or pretty close to it, I’m not super legalistic about the minutes) then they lose reading time, which I’ve also done once or twice and the threat of that is usually enough to get them moving!

Some nights when we’re done reading, I’ll read a prayer over them. Every night when I’m done I go to each of them, tuck them in and give them a kiss. And most nights we pray together (but sometimes we forget.) I’ve seen the prayers of my children (and especially my 5 yr old!) grow in amazing ways. Also, he boy is always asleep within minutes. The girls — well, they share a room and they still talk for a little while and we’re still working on that.;)

But overall.. bedtime at our house has been entirely transformed! We’re getting the kids in bed earlier, with less fuss and a lot more cooperation, we’re spending time together, enjoying the written word, they’re relaxing and calming down while I read and getting ready for sleep, they have less excuses to get out of bed (they still come up with a few), we’re praying together, they’re getting more (and better) sleep and I’m getting a quiet moment of rest in the evenings before I have to go to bed myself.

THIS IS WONDERFUL.

I don’t really think any one of these things is the magic ingredient, I think it’s all of them — though admittedly reading to them is the biggest piece of the recipe. It’s all the other pieces that help make reading time work, and that in turn makes our bedtime routine (FINALLY) successful.

We’ve gone from herding cats to herding… almost well trained kids. ;0)

So this is what’s working for us — what’s working for you?

Linked to Works for Me Wednesday at We Are That Family

Okay – REALLY?! The March 3 in 30 has only just begun and the first check in was yesterday. WOW.

I’ve made it pretty clear that it takes several weeks for me to develop good habits so obviously I haven’t been at this NEAR long enough to have any kind of progress to report yet.

Still.

It’s been four days. I should have at least something to show for it, right? Well. Here’s what I’ve got:

1.) We’ve been turning the tv off at 9 (or close to – a couple of times breakfast was late, my fault, and we were still eating.) After there was a lot of asking about the tv during the first couple of days, I’ve been covering the tv with an afghan the last couple of days. There are a lot less questions now.

2.) No tv and school til 3? Welllllll… this has been an off school week. No, not a week that we’re off. A week that is a little off. My MIL picked the kids up on Monday and Tuesday for the afternoon while I worked on taxes. Yesterday I schooled from bed all day. We pretty much did do school-ish things until 3, for the most part. Next week, being a more normal schedule, will help bring structure and cement to that habit, though.

3.) Regular 20-Minute Clean-Ups after each meal? Um, sorta? I think we’ve gotten at least 2 out of 3 meals each day. It’s a step closer.

So that’s about it. Unimpressive. Yet promising. What about you?

And once again it’s time to make some new 3 in 30 goals. A couple of days ago I told you how happy I was with our February goals and I’m really hoping to build on that success for March! This month, as I mentioned, the girls and I chose the goals we are all going to work on together. We’re picking more daily habit/routine type goals and I need their cooperation on these. I have high hopes. =)

Without further ado, our goals for March:

1. Turn the t.v. off at 9 a.m.

That may sound really lenient.. and in a way it is. On the other hand, if they get up at 8, that gives them an hour of tv, breakfast, getting dressed and whatever before we’re supposed to start school. The problem is that if they turn the tv on… THEY DON’T LIKE TO TURN IT OFF. … I’m sure you can relate.

We all agreed that it’s important to our day to start school at nine and one of the ways that we can help make this happen is by making sure that the tv goes off at 9 am. Recently when the 5 year old was having a particularly hard time with tv addiction I would actually cover the tv with a table cloth during school hours as a visual reminder and it’s AMAZING how much that helped!!

To accomplish this goal: I have an alarm on my phone that goes off at 9 a.m. to mark the beginning of the school day. We can use this alarm to develop the habit of turning off the tv promptly at 9 a.m. We can also cover the tv with a tablecloth during the day if we need to.

Challenges: The five year old is going to be the biggest opponent to this new rule — but it will do him good. And he didn’t throw a fit the other morning when I did this so maybe that’s a good sign…. *fingers crossed*

2. School until 3pm.

This has less to do with “the action” and more to do with “the mindset.” Lately (and this will get worse when spring fever sets in) my children have been pretty bad about asking to do other things in the middle of the school day. “I’m done with my math, can I draw?” (Math is first, so, um, no –let’s keep going.) “Can we take a break and watch a movie?” (Again, um, no.) I am ALL. FOR. drawing and playing games and playing outside but there needs to be some kind of order to our day and that’s why we’re here working on these things.

So the girls and I talked about this, too.. we need to adopt the mindset that from 9 to 3 is school time. Even if we finish all our basics before lunch (and we should be able to) we can fill our afternoon with projects, art, music, games, nature walks, journaling, you name it. Things that are educational AND fun. So you see, this is less of a “we need to be working hard at books every single minute” rule and more of a “there are better things we can do with our time than turn on the tv” habit.

To accomplish this goal: There’s an alarm on my phone that goes off at 3 p.m. for snack time. This can also serve to mark the end of our school day. The snack time habit is a solid one, so we don’t need to develop that habit, too, we just need to add the habit of working on good things up until then and not wanting to turn the tv back on or do something else.

Challenges: Being prepared ahead of time to work on projects for history and science is one area I struggle in, but preparation will help make sure we get enough projects and activities in. I need to develop some kind of system. I’ll see if I can work on that too, but right now we can at least work on the habit of staying busy (with SOMETHING) until three. I bet we see some future planning and “system” 3 in 30 goals. I open for suggestions. =p

3. Tidy after lunch, breakfast and supper.

The other day I told you about our new “20 Minute Clean-Up” that we’ve been using to get chores done and how well it is working for us. I started it just to get some cleaning done when it needed to be done…and now I want to make it a regular part of our schedule three times a day. I kind of tried to do that at one point last month, but it wasn’t our main focus and it hasn’t really become habit. So it’s going to be our third habit to develop for this month.

After breakfast, lunch and supper, each of the kids will have an assigned room to tidy and clean while I do the same in the kitchen. (They’ll each take a turn in each room so that by the end of the day they’ve each had a hand in keeping the whole house picked up.) I want this to help us develop the habits of cleaning up after meals immediately AND keeping the house picked up throughout the day.

To accomplish this goal: You guessed it – alarms. On my phone. Yes, my phone has become my personal assistant. I already had a bell for breakfast time at 8 and for school at 9 (and similar for other meals.) I *thought* I could just remember to call for a 20 Minute Clean-Up “whenever” everyone was done eating. …And here’s where I take a minute to laugh at myself… Since THAT never happened I’ve added bells to go off and remind me. I think I have a dozen bells on my phone now.. but hey, it’s working.

Challenges: Only resisting the urge to not want to follow it through or ignore the bell. Or also, if a meal is late for one reason or another, it’s too tempting to want to skip the clean-up after. But seeing the benefits of getting it done makes it worth it and encourages me to press on.

SO THERE YOU GO.

Three more habits to develop to help our day run smoothly. Three more habits to work towards our 2011 “Well-Functioning” goal. Three more ways to train ourselves to be good stewards of our time and things. What will you work on in March?

Linked to the 3 in 30 March goal linky.

Photo Credit: Some rights reserved by digitpedia

Every now and then I come up with something that’s REALLY good.

Most of the time I come up with good ideas and they’re good for a little while and then our needs and abilities change and we need a new idea. (Sometimes I come up with ideas that seem good at first glance but really aren’t feasible but that’s beside the point..)

But every now and then I think up a real golden nugget of an idea.

This is one of those golden nugget ideas. I really think so. I give you our:

20 Minute Clean-Up

The basic idea is simple, really. Set the timer for 20 minutes and clean. But it’s bigger than that. The rest of the idea (the golden nugget part) is that you give your children, and yourself, a specific task or tasks to do during the 20 minutes– and then whatever time is left before the timer goes off is theirs to keep. To read or sit or whatever. I cannot assign more tasks or anything until the timer goes off.

What?!

I know. Sounds crazy. But stick with me, okay? Don’t give up on me yet.

Here’s why this is so great:

• Manageable Pieces – 20 minutes is a manageable chunk of time for children to clean without overloading their brain and inducing resistance and whining.
• Manageable Tasks - specific tasks suitable for their age and ability allows the child to focus only on the task(s) at hand, not the whole list of everything that needs to be done that day.
• Time Management – HOW MANY times a day do you find yourself saying, “If you’d just hurry up and get it done it would be over with.” ? My children are actively learning that the longer they spend on the task, the less time left over at the end of 20 minutes, the faster they get it done the more time they have to themselves.
• Work Ethic - The kids are encouraged to do their best and work hard first, then enjoy a rest after. They’re learning how to mop, vacuum, fold, etc.  They’re working together for the purpose of keeping our house picked up – just because it’s the right thing to do and not for reward of money, bribery, or threats of punishment.
• Built In Breaks – If you need to repeat back to back 20 minute clean-ups, the kids have built in “breaks” with their leftover time so they feel ready to begin the next 20 minute session — again with no whining.
• Work gets done faster – It really does. The kids and I, working in the four main living areas simultaneously, can completely tidy the house in 20 minutes. We can clean the house well in one hour (3 sessions.) The lack of whining, feet dragging and bickering that normally slows us down helps us get more work done in less time.
• Kids work independently – Before this method, the kids did not work well without my husband or I standing in the same room, micro-managing. I despise micro-managing. I ADORE knowing that they are working, really working, in one room while I’m getting work done in another.

Can you see how good this is?! We’ve been doing this for about six weeks now and IT IS BEAUTIFUL. I can’t tell you how good this has been for us! So far I’ve used this tactic at random times here and there. At least once a day most days. 2 or 3 times a day on Saturdays for work days.

I’ve been trying to add the 20 minute clean-up to our regularly daily schedule — after breakfast, lunch and supper. I haven’t been able to stick to it, so for the month of March we’re going to be working on that habit. I’ve added alarms to my cell phone to remind me. Now we’re not only training ourselves to clean quickly and efficiently but we’re setting good habits of cleaning up immediately after meals and keeping the house picked up throughout the day.

More beauty.

Here’s how we implement this plan here at our house:

• Call for 20-minute clean up (this was explained beforehand, what I expected, how it was going to go, etc.)
• Assign tasks.
  • For random clean-ups I look around to see what needs to be done and assign things to do. I give tasks that I expect to take about ten-fifteen minutes, less if they hurry, longer if they dawdle.
  • For regular after meal clean ups I have zones assigned. They rotate zones after each meal so that by the end of the day everyone has cleaned each zone. (Except me, I do the kitchen each time.)
• Set the timer.
• Work on your task while the kids work on theirs. Feel free to call out time remaining a couple of times, or call out and ask your kids how it’s going. Or you may actually need to step away from your task and teach a child how to do something. It’s fine! Teaching is good. Then get back to work. Lead by example and work hard.
• Expect, require, good effort. When they kids say they’re done with their tasks, I run and check. If it’s not good enough, I point out what’s left and ask them to finish. This prevents rushing through with sloppy jobs to earn more free time.
• Expect, require, participation. Younger children who throw a fit, older children who want to be lazy, need to be gently reminded that we all have to work together and that it’s not optional. I’ve only had this happen twice! I reminded them that the earlier they finished the more time they would earn. I also informed them that if they didn’t finish because they didn’t try, they would have to keep working until it was done, however long they made it take.
• Discipline for defiance/disobedience – ONCE. One time I had to discipline the 5yo for defiance and refusing to clean in the middle of a clean up session. I gave him a 5 minute time out right then. That means he also lost 5 minutes of cleaning time and as a result had no leftover time when he was done with his task. The next time he started to complain I reminded him and he has worked with us ever since.
• “Reward” hard work - The kids are not penalized for not finishing their tasks in 20 minutes if they really did work hard. It doesn’t happen often but it has a few times. I don’t require that they keep working once the timer is up, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised by my kids a few times when they stuck with the task until it was completed, despite the empty timer. =) When this does happen, though, I give a 5 minute break before starting another 20 minute clean-up (if we need to.)
• Encourage and praise your children. You have an opportunity here to TEACH your children (how to clean, how to have good habits, how to work hard.) Make the most of that. Wrapping that up with a “Y’all did a good job, the house looks great!” or “We got that done so fast without whining, I’m so proud!” will really help to seal the deal.

This is really the most simple idea ever, isn’t? But yet so laden with great things for my kids to learn and practice.

I’m starting to feel a bit like an infomercial: “Yes, YOU TOO can get your kids to clean! Act now and never listen to a whine again!”

Well.. at least not a whine about chores. =p There’s one more thing I want to give you. The next question to ask is:

“What kind of tasks are age appropriate? And what about littles?”

First, YES, your littles can do this, too! 2-5 year olds can help mom with her tasks, or even an older sibling. Give them something specific to do. Here are a few suggestions:

• Cleaning off light switches & doorknobs with a step, a cloth and a small spray bottle of your favorite preschooler safe cleaner–kill those germs! (We use Nature’s Source)
• Wiping down the front of stoves/dishwashers/lower cabinets.
• dusting the tv screen
• checking under furniture for ‘lost’ items
• wiping down dining chairs

My 5 year old is often assigned many of the above and also:

• cleaning off the dining room table (yes, he takes dishes to the sink and returns stray items wherever they go!)
• cleaning under couch cushions
• tidying and wiping down the bathroom sink/counter
• cleaning in his room
• he’s learning to sweep (but needs a little help)

The 7 year old is given tasks such as:

• Cleaning sinks and mirrors
• Sweeping and mopping
• Cleaning the microwave
• Vacuuming
• Starting/switching loads in the washing machine/dryer
• Folding clothes

The 10 year old is given tasks like the above for the 7 yr old and also:

• Scrubbing toilets and tubs
• Organizing and other tasks requiring more attention to detail
• Putting dishes away and other tasks requiring more height (and more care)
• Cleaning/oiling wood furniture
• Sacking up and emptying trash

How do I decide to assign tasks? For regular clean ups, as I mentioned, they have assigned zones (rooms). If a zone still looks clean and picked up since the previous clean-up (which you’ll find happens A LOT when you do this regularly throughout the day.. HUH.. IMAGINE THAT..) I can assign a couple of  ‘other’ tasks for deeper cleaning, like dusting, vacuuming and toilet scrubbing. I just pick some things that need to be done.

Our house is staying CLEANER than it ever has before!

Messes still happen. Things still get left out from time to time. I’m working on cleaning up messes right away and reminding kids to put things away but at least once a day we have a REAL,  ‘Good Effort’ clean up that makes a whirlwind of a difference in just a few minutes.

It still surprises me how much work we can get done so quickly.

Yesterday we cleaned for an hour, 3 sessions back to back (because my Dad was coming so we did yesterday instead of today.) In ONE HOUR we: tidied the living room, vacuumed (under the furniture and couch cushions, too), cleaned off & wiped down the dining room table and chairs, swept & mopped the dining room, tidied the bathroom, cleaned the mirror and sink, scrubbed the toilet and tub, swept and mopped the bathroom and hallway, unloaded/reloaded the dishwasher, washed hand dishes, cleaned the stove and counters, scrubbed the sink, swept and mopped the kitchen, emptied the trash and the kids cleaned in their bedrooms for 20 minutes.

Maybe that’s normal for your house but up until six weeks ago that could have easily taken us the majority of the day.

Gone is the whining. No more nagging, begging, threatening or bribing. For the first time ever I have what I have always wanted — chores getting done JUST BECAUSE it needs to be done, family members working simultaneously in different rooms, everybody working together.

I am thrilled!!

AND ONE MORE PERK – I no longer feel like housework is competing with school work. Which is just such a big, big relief. Twenty minutes after breakfast, or after lunch is enough to tidy up and get right back to school. Keeping the house picked up more throughout the day relieves me of the pressing feeling that I need to be working on housework while the kids are doing school. I can’t tell you how much of a weight that has taken off of my shoulders!

I hesitate to even share this with you because every time I share a golden nugget on my blog it seems to suddenly go bust in my home. But we’ve been doing this for six weeks now. It’s stuck, it’s stayed, and I really hope that it helps somebody else out there. It’s working for us. I hope it works for you, too!

Part of my 3 in 30 journey and also linked to Works for Me Wednesday and Helpful Homeschool Hints.

Image Credit: Some rights reserved by Theresa Thompson

P.S. This post contains amazon affiliate links. Every penny goes toward homeschool curriculum.