Monday, January 28, 2013

A Confession. Bribery. And a Reward


I have been so behind on this blog, and I have about 12 posts waiting to be written and published, and yet I don't seem to get them done.  Hek, I haven't even posted about Christmas yet!  Yikes.  We have been adjusting to a new "normal" in our house, and it's taking longer than expected to get used to.  Carl got switched to first shift, and while we are so excited about that---it is taking some true adjusting.  With first shift is coming longer hours, Saturdays, and less time with Daddy around.  Although it is nice to have Carl around during the over night hours to help with our boys who seem to think sleep during the night is highly overrated.  Ha.

Confession.  I started working out again.  Not only working out, I started kickboxing.  It's kicking my butt, and it feels so good!  With this workout class comes an early alarm clock.  My alarm goes off at 4:15 four days a week, which is just way too early for me.  I am not a morning person.  Ask my husband for a confirmation of that statement.  Not only does my alarm go off way too early, my two little hoodlums are still up multiple times during the night---causing even less sleep than desired.  Add all that together---and it causes this Mama to be rather sleep deprived.  I really enjoy my 7-8 hours of sleep a night.  I would love 10, but let's be honest---that won't be happening for a very long time.  So I scaled back to wanting 7-8 hours a night.....and that isn't even happening these days.  While it feels good to be working out again, I feel like I am so exhausted by the time we get done with our nightly routine, that I hit the bed as soon as the boys are to sleep.  That leaves me zero time for anything extra.  So, I need to make more of an effort to figure out time to keep up with this blog---along with a few other things that are getting the short end of the stick these days.  I am learning, and will hopefully figure things out soon.

Bribery.  Carson is potty trained, when it comes to going pee on the potty.  But he struggles with pooping on the toilet.  He will do really well for 2-3 days, and then have 2-3 days that he poops in his underwear.  We were getting really frustrated with this, so we went to drastic measures.  Insert a little bribery.  Bribery never hurt nobody---right?  Ok, so the deal was, if Carson didn't poop in his underwear for a whole week he would get to go bowling.  Carl has a bowling game on his phone that Carson enjoys playing, and he has asked numerous times to go bowling.  So we decided that this would hopefully be a good incentive for him to not have any accidents all week.


Carson made it all week without any accidents, so we all got to enjoy a fun evening of bowling together!  We had my family join the fun---and I think everyone enjoyed themselves.


We entered the bowling alley, and Carson displayed the biggest shy smile.  He finally muttered words through his excitement "we get to go real bowling?!" It was so cute.  He was so used to bowling on Daddy's phone, that he thought the real deal was pretty cool.  There were neon lights, and music, and all sorts of things to be excited about.


The littlest ones were pretty entertained by the lights and action going on around them, and they didn't seem to miss a single beat.  Frannie was on baby duty, and they were content to just hang out while the others bowled.


Carson had so much fun all night bowling!  We were there for 2 hours, and he behaved so well during the entire time duration.  He sat so nicely while he waited his turn to bowl, and he wiggled in his seat in excitement when he knew it was his turn to go next.




We are so proud of how well behaved Carson was that night.  I loved to see him have so much fun, and hearing him whisper the words "I have fun bowling, Mom!" in my ear is nothing shy of amazing.



The reward.  Bowling was Carson's reward for going accident free all week long!  I think he has this pooping in the potty thing down.  Or at least I hope so.


What a fun way to spend a cold winter night indoors!  I think we will be adding bowling to our list of Carson's favorite things to do.  I didn't say we were done bribing ;)  

1 comment:

  1. Wow! Tell Carson Grandma Sally is proud of him: Good efforts bring good results. I'm happy that you, Carson, have loving and patient parents who look for a positive solution to a problem. You are a blessed little boy.

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