Postive childcare...

As a daycare owner and someone who has a long history in childcare both as a preschool teacher, and working with special needs kids I am often asked advice on childcare issues. Recently a parent I know asked me for some advice on discipline. She wanted to know how much was too much discipline. Like many parents these days she was concerned that if she over disciplined her child that someone would call CPS on her. I think it is sad that these days CPS is called so frequently and for little things. CPS workers are also annoyed at how some people call to report things when they are clearly just ticked off at the parent for other reasons and trying to get them in trouble. They would rather help the kids and parents who truly need help.

But I digress this is not meant to a post solely on that issue. :) Instead of telling the parent how to discipline I told her how I handle things and what works for me. I will first make a disclaimer that I am certainly not a perfect parent far from it. However what I gave her was the philosophy I go by...most of the time. My little angels of course have tested me just as everyone else's children have tested them. haha.

My general philosophy is that you should teach as you go instead of only worrying about punishment. For one thing Discipline is part of teaching. The biggest mistake I have seen from parents over the years, as well as in raising my own children is that we as parents tend to get caught up and "fixing" the kids mistakes instead of teaching them the correct way to begin with. We are so worried about what we mistakenly think is discipline when really it is a punishment, that we don't realize that we wind up always punishing misbehavior but forget to spend time teaching along the way. Really it a simple thing to do and does not take much time each day but like keeping up with housework we let it go sometimes and then we are overwhelmed and feel trapped and stuck. We then find ourselves running to the nearest bookstore to buy a ton of books for ideas and they all have opposite opinions and then we really feel lost.

Here is a few ideas of sample behaviors to teach to help ward off some issues:

*self control* instead of putting the child in the inevitable timeout when he/she loses self control, instead set up a game each day for a few minutes (start as young as you can) where you have the child sit in a chair quietly while you set a timer (1 minute per year of age to start then increase as self control increases) and give them a book or something quiet to play or even just have them sit there. When the timer goes off give them a small reward such as a sticker or something and lots of praise. By the time you go to your next doc appt you will be amazed at how well they behave sitting in the waiting room. ;)

*Role Playing* this is a fantastic way to teach your child how to handle different situations they come into. Example : set it up as a game where you the parent gets to pretend to be the child and have the child give you an instruction and you the parent respond how the child has been responding temper tantrum and all...then ask the child how they think you should have responded. Trust me you will be surprised what the kids come up with. then follow through and have the child give you the instruction again and respond the correct way. Then switch roles with your child. It is a safe way for the child(ren) to come up with ideas so the next time they get into a situation they can make better choices.

*charts* Cannot say enough good things about these. they are very effective for encouraging positive behavior and the best thing is you can wean the child off them fairly easy as they get better at the problem behavior. They are ALSO great for "catching a child being good" . I use them for when I catch my children doing something nice such as helping their sibling without being asked, or when they remembered to respond correctly and respectfully to another adult.

These are just a few ideas depending on the situation I have more ideas but for the sake of keeping this post under a mile long this is what I have lol. :) Really I know everyone is busy with jobs, sports, everyday hectic life but just a few minutes each day of positive training helps make things a lot easier.

Remember to enjoy your children! They are only young for a short amount of time.

Works for me Wednesday...

It has been forever since I have written one but I do read this carnival frequently. These bloggers have the best tips. :)

My tip for the day is in order to make dinner prep easier, when I get home from grocery shopping I immediately pre cook my ground beef and ground turkey and season it, then freeze it in usable portions. It saves me so much time especially on nights when the kids have somewhere they need to be. I also in addition to that put any other meat *pork chops, steak, chicken* etc. in ziplock bags and put marinade in with it before I freeze. Then as it is thawing all day it is marinating and depending on the marinade ingredients...it is also tenderizing it for you.

On the day of cook I just take out and thaw and make the side dishes.

Works for me.

Be sure and check out "We are That Family" for more awesome ideas.

New Blog...

Welcome to my blog.

Here is a little about me. I am a busy wife and mommy first and foremost. Second I have a home daycare, and am slowly building a organizing business. This is still a work in progress. I also homeschool my children. In between all this I do laundry, housework, cook, and double as a chauffer driver. Do I do all these perfectly ....NO WAY. :) But I try.

I took up blogging again (I used to have another one) because I like the idea of writing things down as they go in my life. It is fun to look back at what I have journaled thus far thinking that I remember everything. I don't. So I thought this would be a good idea. Plus it is fun to have a blog where I can commiserate with other like minded people in this crazy busy world of parenting.

Let's go back to the business thing. I have been a daycare owner for 4.5 years and my background is in Early childhood education. I have been a preschool teacher, Sunday school teacher, daycare teacher, babysitter, and parent. I sometimes feel as though I am chasing an elusive PHD in parenting that does not exist. I am however having a great time chasing it. In any case as much as I love having a home daycare I was getting burnt out and tried to close a couple years ago. However some of the families just did not want to leave and then recommended me to their friends which is flattering. Plus Hubby's job was downsizing and we needed the money so I have kept it up. I have 3 full time kids all adorable little girls. Two of the girls are sisters and the other girl is the best friend of the oldest sister. I also have one part time little guy who is best buddies with my youngest boy so it works. But I know eventually these girls will grow up and leave daycare. So in the mean time I am building my professional organizing biz. It will take time and right now that is ok because daycare allows me to be able to stay home and homeschool the kids.

Well that is all for tonight the troops are hungry and keep staring at me as if they expect me to actually feed them. Wow demanding little things aren't they? haha.

Been awhile again...

Well to be honest I have either been too busy or just plain could not think of anything to blog about. :) One of the things that has kept us busy is Hunter has been doing wrestling since October and with two practices a week plus the tournaments and stuff on the weekends it has kept us busy. He is really enjoying it though! He won the last two weekend events he participated in. He was so cute with his medal that he got at the Turkey Tournament he wore it for 3 days. Last weekend at the event he participated in the head coach came over to hubby and told them that the coaches all liked Hunter and want him on advanced next year so he was pretty psyched to hear that.

Krista has been working hard on her bronze award for girlscouts, and also she joined the leadership team at church and this past weekend she and the leadership team went to a nursing home and sang Christmas carols. She loved that. She is also taking a literature class through our homeschool coop and a science class. All her other studies we still do at home and she is doing very well at it. She is finally liking Math a little bit since I did away with the traditional counters and replaced them with holiday M&M's to help her learn her multiplication. She is a very visual kid so it is helpful to have manipulatives. I love homeschooling for this very reason. Name a secular classroom that is going to let a child switch around curriculum and ideas to fit their individual learning styles. :) She is about 3 weeks ahead in her studies so far, and the child that was labeled as having a "reading disability" in first grade is currently in 4th grade and reading at 6th and sometimes 7th grade level and loving books.

Joey is doing awesome this year. He has worked so hard on his sensory issues. We made the tough and painful decision to allow him to go back to school part time in order for him to get extra speech and occupational therapy time. I am ok with it only because he has an IEP (individualized education plan) and everything is set up on my terms and I know I have the power to pull him out if it starts to be a bad thing. But I am happy to say he got his wonderful teacher he had in preschool who is now teaching the sails program that he is in and the two therapists he has are the same ones he has had for the last two years (he was going to the school for ot and speech only) and he has a helper when he spends time in a regular second grade classroom and he is loving it. Plus he is now the "cool kid with a dog" since his serivce dog Daisy goes with him. We are so blessed to have Daisy she really helps with Joey and even when he has meltdowns once in awhile she will help calm him down. But anyway add all this extra help plus his outside speech and OT at the wonderful therapy center in Kent and he is just making progress in spades which is good because our plan is to keep him in where he is at until he is caught up to where he should be and then I will bring him home again. He only goes half a day now 4 days a week but I still miss him. I am probably too attached but you know what? God gave me these great kids and for me having them with me is the best thing. Plus hubby has a somewhat flexible schedule so he gets home fairly early and helps with the fun curriculum like science. Oh and the best news is Joey has been seizure free since June! We are hoping that stays that way...the closer to two years we get the better chance he has of completely outgrowing them. His ears are all healed so I think this is just his year to shine and I am finally getting my happy boy back that he was when he was little. The last two years were very tough on him.

Moving on ...hubby is doing great in his job and loves it, and I am still babysitting for a sweet little girl who I have had for almost two years now and also in this spring her parents are adding a new little one and we don't know what the gender is yet they want to be surprised so I will have two extra little ones.

Well this turned out long again...guess that is what happens when I take so long to post. lol In any case if I don't get back here before Christmas then I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

hugs,
the Cheerio Queen

tip....

I have not done a works for me wednesday in FOREVER...but I was intrigued to see that Shannon at Rocks in my dryer has a christmas toy edition! Be sure to check it out!

Here is my choices:

My most favorite is actually not a toy but I always ask the grandparents for a family membership to a place like a museum, aquarium, zoo etc. The last two years we have received a membership to the local science center and I absolutely love it! The reason is there is always at least one or two new exhibits, plus the regular stuff so the kids are always interested, we go several times a year, and it does not take up space in my house! :)

Aside from that I would highly recommend if you have room for one a giant trampoline with a safety net! Now I know when we first received ours my husband and I were totally freaked out due to hearing all the scary stories about people breaking limbs on them etc. Plus the people I was hearing that from were overly paranoid weirdos anyway lol. aquaintences with opinions you know. Anyway let me tell you...my kids all learned their balance on that thing, and adults can get on it too. We love it, plus when the kids are really rowdy then we just send them to the trampoline and they jump their energy out etc. One of my boys is quite the little gymnast and he has been jumping on our trampoline since he was a year old.
Recently the kids finally wore it out and it only took a measly 5.5 years of jumping daily for literally 60 minutes at a time to do it. Poor things were devastated that it wore out. So we are looking for a new one.

I love art supplies too.

Till next time,
The cheerio queen

This is for GINA....

So I keep getting in trouble with my friends because I am not updating my blog enough so since it has been a month or so i decided to update finally. lol!! Just kidding Gina. :) I saw your tag on facebook that said you were tired of people not updating their blogs so this post is for you. :)

Seriously it has been a busy month as always. We started out the month by getting a video EEG done for Joey. He is thankfully doing very well. He has not had a seizure other then two tiny staring seizures since June. Please keep him in your prayers because the closer he gets to two years seizure free the better chance he has of growing out of them. Besides after talking more in depth with his neurologist he explained to me that the kinds he was having before for the length of time he had them was having them...4 to 5 minutes each, is like taking a sledgehammer to his brain EACH one. It takes weeks and even months to recover from that which explains some of the developmental delays he was having, however the doc also said it is amazing that he did not suffer permanent brain damage from them. So someone upstairs is watching out for us thankfully! He is learning by leaps and bounds this year and his speech is so much better and so is his communication. His ears are also completely healed so no more tubes either. YAY! This poor boy has had a rough couple years but he is starting to get back to the happy boy I once had and is healing well. He wants to join a cubscout pack so I will be looking for that next.

Hunter is awesome, he is really excited that he is learning to read now. He is a super whiz at math. He did not get that from me, he must have gotten it from his Dad. I cannot do anything without a calculator. He recently started wrestling. Anyone who knows Hunter is probably right now shaking their head saying "wow...what a perfect sport for him" and it is and he is good at it! He has always been very athletically gifted. He was so excited to start and even more excited when he took down 7 kids before he got beat. You must remember how little Hunter is. He is short and stalky. In fact my Grandma calls him "sherman" for sherman tank. He is a tank that boy. But he is still my cuddly little man. I love how he is rough and tough, wise and smart and very grown up one minute, but the next minute he is enlightening me with wise tales such as " Mom! Krista hit me hard....oh and if her says I pulled her hair and accidentally knocked over her bookshelf first....then her is lying" :)

Krista is 3 weeks ahead on her schoolwork, still working on her bronze award for girlscouts, and just joined leadership at church. She has really grown up this year. She is also pushing to be a teenager or to be allowed to act like a teenager with an attitude. lol She cannot figure out why Mom and Dad do not find that charming. lol She also cannot understand why we will not be getting her a cell phone at the ripe old age of 9 either. But aside from those few things she is doing great. She is into reading classics this year which thrills me to no end. If I hear one more junie b jones book I am going to scream. She is such a good big sister to her little brothers though and they adore her. She is looking forward to turning the big 10 in April (if you hear wailing around tax day that is me wondering how my baby girl turned that age so quickly) and is already planning her bday party and is really excited to get her own library card. A right of passage in our family.

Otherwise things are great. Halloween was really fun this year. As you can tell by the picture the older my boys get the more gross and scary their costumes get. Gone are the days of the cute costumes and cute decorations for the house, now it is a skeleton hanging by a noose kind of decor around here. yuck. At least I have Krista on my side. One of the houses had a dad who has a mini haunted house to go up and get candy from. This year he wore a scary clown mask and came out wielding a live chainsaw. The boys thought it was awesome, I am still peeling Krista off the ceiling however. She was not alone....none of the girls in our cul de sac made it to that house, and the guy with the chainsaw's own daughter refused to come out and go trick or treating she was too scared lol. poor girl.
We celebrated with some good friends of ours who live on acerage and have no place to trick or treat so they came over and we all went out together among the 65 other kids who were out with their parents. Luckily the rain stopped just as we were trick or treating..gotta love Washington on Halloween. Then we came back and fed the kids pizza, put them to bed and sorted out the goods. Boy we have some generous neighbors. lol The candy is now hidden properly until one of the kids has a bday and I can use it to fill a pinata or treat bag and get it out of the house. :)

Ok till next time!
The Cheerio Queen

HAPPY FALL!!

I know when asked most people will tell you their favorite season is Christmas and winter for the snow etc. However, not me. I LOVE Fall. It is so pretty and cozy. I cannot wait to get my first cup of carmel apple cider from Starbucks for the season.
This week will be a busy one or rather the next couple of days. Today is back to the week routine, school with the kids, then lunch, then take one of the two daycare kids to school, after that I have a meeting with our local district homeschool dept to sign up lucky charms, and Honey Nut for an extra class there. LC is taking a beginner art class where the description of the class included words such as: learn to "spin, blow, paint, squish, sculpt, create" I wanted to take that class it sounded so much fun but it is only for 1-3 graders...guess they have not seen me when I figured out that someone in the house ate the last of my chocolate lol. Honey Nut is going to be taking a science class and she is looking forward tot hat. Then tonight is girlscouts with Honey Nut. The girls are trying to earn their bronze award this year! To do that one of the things they have to do is earn their leadership pin. We leaders thought it would be helpful to them to let them each pick a patch they want to earn and then lead the meeting (with help and guidance from the leaders of course) so the girls drew numbers and Honey Nut drew number one so she gets to lead tonight and she is so excited! I will write more later on the patch she chose to earn and lead.
Because I have such a busy week I am going to do a fall meme...consider yourself tagged if your reading this. :)



A Fall Meme

When does fall begin for you? For me it starts when the kids start schoolwork again. Although I waited until we had done schoolwork for a week and then I could not resist and put up the fall decorations.

What is your favorite aspect of fall? Boy I don't have just one aspect. I love fall so here are some of the things I love most about it: The colors of the changing leaves, the clean crisp smell of the air, the cooler weathe, the shorter days, the scenet of pumpkin pie potpurri, the coziness of my house when I decorate it, Starbucks carmel apple cider, routine of the school year, planning Thanksgiving my favorite holiday, helping the kids search for the perfect Halloween costume, slowly starting to look for christmas gifts, putting the perfect comfy favorite sweater on with jeans, and the crafts that I do in the fall with the kids...the handmde "hand turkeys" etc.

What is your favorite fall memory? Taking the kids to the pumpkin patch.:)

What do you like to drink in the fall? nothing better then apple cider.

What's your favorite fall food? I love homemade pumpkin pie, apple crisp, pear or peach cobbler, a big pot of homemade stew, a big pot of vegetable beef or chicken noodle soup, mashed potatoes....the list could go on for awhile.

What is fall weather like where you live? Well the first few weeks is usually crisp and cool in the morning and then warmer in the afternoons, and then in October it changes to colder and wet. However that being said, I love the cozy rainy Northwest days. It is much easier to homeschool then it is when it is 80 degrees and sunny lol.

What color is fall? beautiful shades of orange, dark and pale greens, and a touch of brown. It is like the perfect mixed boquet.

What does fall smell like? pumpkin, apple spice, wood smoke from the newly lit fireplaces around the neighborhood, and crisp and clean.

Holiday shopping in fall: yes or no? Yes, but it is usually online stuff, or if I am able to get away for a Saturday I might do some then. However I REFUSE to decorate for the Christmas season until after Thanksgiving. I get so annoyed that the stores put out Halloween stuff before summer is over, and they completely skip over Thanksgiving, unless they are a craft store or grocery store.

If you could go anywhere in the fall, where would you go? Although I love the Northwest fall because it is what I grew up with and feel comfy and familiar with...I have always wanted to go travel through New England for fall...I hear their fall splendor is the most beautiful in the world. :)

What is your favorite fall sport? I am not much of a sport fan, except for baseball but that is spring. However hubby who grew up in Texas has watching football in his blood. :) He is now a Seahawks fan.

Do you have a favorite fall chore? I love organizing the new school supplies, going through and putting away the summer clothes and putting away the new fall clothes, getting new pajamas for the kids, and putting flannel sheets on the bed and switching to my heaver comforter. Sort of like "battening down the hatches" for a cozy winter. :)

What is your least favorite thing about fall? Well I said earlier I like the cozy rainy days, however when they become endless and I have to get out in it that stinks. lol

What is your favorite fall holiday? Thanksgiving! That is my favorite holiday of all anyway becasue it is about being together and celebrating family and friends and not so much about the commercialness of Christmas. (I like Christmas but not all the stress that goes along with it)

What's your favorite kind of pie? Pumpkin with whipped cream.

What was your favorite Halloween costume? Ironically it was not a costume I wore, in fact it was two costumes I saw other people wear lol, as for one I wore, I loved being minny mouse when I was little i remember wearing the mouse ears hat I had gotten that summer when my family adn I went to Disneyland, and I thought the white gloves were so cool. Plus i had on a black leotard, black tights, and a red polka dotted skirt and the whole costume was completely homemade.
The ones I saw on other people I will mention because they were so cool. One was a playground attended in my old gradeschool and she dressed up as a Qtip..she had a long powder blue slender gown on paired with white fuzzy boots, and a tall white fuzzy hat. very creative. The other was a couple at a party once...she was a wall socket, and he was another wall socket with a plug coming out of the front and it plugged into her socket and they had a light above their heads somehow that twirled when they danced. awesome couple costume.

What was your favorite Halloween candy? candy corn

What was your least favorite Halloween candy? babe ruth

Which do you prefer, the Farm or the Fair? both

Do you have a favorite fall book? One Little Mouse by Dori Chaconas all about "settling down" for winter. :) very cozy.

How about a favorite fall poem? not really

Well, I hope you enjoyed this meme, and if you do it at your blog, pease leave me a comment so I can start a list of links! :)

Happy Fall!

The Cheerio Queen