The first things I implemented were new charts for Gavin and Dane to give them a visual of our day, our expectations of their "contributions", and a way for us all to work together in improving their skills and learning new skills. It is essentially like a chore chart that covers making beds (they help to make them), brushing their teeth (they get to do their own in the morning and I do the night to make sure they have clean teeth before bed), reading/workbook/"school" time as well as regular just reading books before bed or whenever they ask throughout the day, helping to put away clean silverware and loading dirty silverware into the dishwasher, and helping to clean up toys. Although they each have their own chart, Gavin has the added incentive of a reward chart to help work on some other behaviors that seemed to become a bit of a problem again. It serves as a reminder for me to be more patient and help him work through issues and him to remember the tips he has been given to manage frustration, helping out when asked, and being a good listener. We used this in the past in a slightly different form and it was very helpful. It really is only a temporary solution that has helped us get back on track after a few tough weeks between birthdays, holidays, illnesses, and travelling. So far Gavin has been really embracing the helping out more and he loves his new chart. Dane is mostly indifferent to it, but he already loves to be heavily involved in any cooking and cleaning that happens so he doesn't always need to be reminded to participate.
We have also been doing more consistent pre-school type work and activities together. Since Gavin has a later October birthday, I made the decision a long time ago that I wasn't going to send him to kindergarten when he was 4 turning 5. The expectations are so much different now with far less play and interaction time and far more sitting, I want to keep him home so he can enjoy being a kid longer before he gets put into the school system. Since preschools are so expensive here, it is highly unlikely he will be attending preschool outside of home so I thought it would be good to help him start working on some skills he will need in a more fun and relaxed environment. Some days we spend 5 minutes and he is clearly done and we move on to just reading or a fun project and others he spends 30-45 minutes happily practicing various skills in his workbook or asking for new mazes to complete. It is fun to sit with him while he works on it and to have that time with him. Dane is often there but is usually bored with coloring or any activity pretty quickly so he usually bails to go play independently.
As far as changes to our eating habits, it has gone pretty well. Overall, we do eat pretty healthy. Lots of fruits and vegetables throughout the day which is great but some of the snacking was getting out of hand. So I eliminated the availability of most crackers and replaced with pretzels as an occasional snack and then nuts and raisins/craisins and even more fruits and vegetables being available. We also often have yogurt and kefir which Dane loves. We replaced white bread with whole grain whole wheat (which Scott isn't happy about but Gavin and Dane don't seem to mind) and cut back on grains overall. In the summer we eat far less in the way of grains but in the winter it is much more appealing with the cold and yucky weather. Plus the variety of fruits and vegetables available at reasonable prices is so small, it is definitely harder to keep things interesting without falling back on having pasta or breads fill in the gaps. I think we were eating so much excess from how things were the last few months, that we are all really appreciating getting back to healthier eating habits. I know I feel much better when I am eating normal amounts and more healthy food choices and limiting the "junk".
It has been hard being inside more because of the really cold weather we have had, but we have managed to have lots of fun even being stick inside.Art projects, making play dough, science experiments, running around/playing hide and seek, bouncing on large balls, jumping on beds, and making tents. We have enjoyed Gavin's new tackling dummy. Lots of fun ways to burn off the extra energy that is so much easier to burn when they can spend the day outside!
So, all in all, we have had a fun start to the year and I have lots of fun things still planned to spread out over the next couple of months before it warms up enough we can start spending our days outside again.
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