Teaching Your Kids Responsibility is Not Fun: The Spatula

St. Patrick's Day shirts from Miga

Dear KK,

Sometimes I envy you in your stage of Motherhood.  You get to baby a sweet little girl and not worry about teaching her responsibility - YET.

T Bear is almost six.  We are entrenched in the efforts to teach him responsibility but it is not fun.  It is more like war and I hope the winner will allow peace in the home.

Last Sunday, at dinner time everyone was a little hungry and grumpy.  T Bear was asked to go find Grizzly's beloved spatula.  After a few minutes, T Bear returned from the garage with a beat up and broken spatula.  After asking what had happened, T Bear confessed to whacking to the spatula against the concrete until it broke.  T Bear was immediately sent to his room while anger boiled in our already hungry and agitated bodies. After our bellies were full, and our minds a little cooled, we decided that T Bear would need to replace the beloved spatula.

I knew this was the responsible thing to do as a parent, but I was not happy about it.  This week was Spring Break and I wanted to play with my boys all week.  Instead I knew that I was being sentenced to making ("helping") T Bear earn enough money and then taking him to the store to buy a spatula.  

KK, I hope that Jane is different than other kids and likes to work and earn money.  T Bear does not.  He likes money, but doesn't like to work for it.  Let's just say there were many painful hours on Monday and Tuesday of trying to get T Bear to work.  I even used a job app on my iPad to entice him to choose jobs, stop whining and work quickly.  

Finally I was able to text Big D: "T Bear has to 1 more dollar..."

Big D texted back: "Nice...I bet that hasn't been enjoyable for you."

Oh no, it was definitely not.  Tuesday evening we went to Fred Meyer.  T Bear had exactly $5.99 for their cheapest spatula.  The cashier was not amused as T Bear dumped out his pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters to pay only for a spatula that his baby brother was already sucking on in the shopping cart.  I thought it was a pretty entertaining scene.  

That night at dinner we talked about the "spatula experience."  We think T Bear learned from it all, but we are not 100% sure.  Regardless, I wish we could say we are done teaching him responsibility, but we are far from it.  It would have been so much easier for me to just buy another spatula.  But life is not easy, we all need to learn (even me as a parent). 

Right now I am happy that Grizzly will have a spatula to pacify himself during the dinner hour tonight!

-Miss T

Dancing to Celtic music

PS - Right now T Bear is building a racing car with Duplos.  He came up to me and said, " Do you like my virgin?  My virgin rocks!"  I tried to corrected him - VERSION.  But he keeps says "virgin."  Just giggling about it......

I {heart} Spatulas

Hey!

I'm Little Grizzly and I LOVE spatulas.

No matter where I am, I will always hear the dishwasher door open and will come running.  I need a spatula in my hand.  If I can't have a spatula then a serving spoon, potato masher, measuring cup or even a kid-kitchen spatula will work.

Last week I carried my spatula while swimming in the pool.  I heard my mom tell someone something about how I was her third child, and so she didn't care if I carried a spatula around if it kept me from screaming.  

I have carried my spatula to church, and I have even taken it to bed with me.  My mom is so easy.  If she doesn't listen, then I just give her a little whack with my spatula and I get what I want.   I guess being the youngest is pretty awesome.

I think my mom should take me to Bed Bath & Beyond instead of Toys R Us.  It sounds right up my alley.

-Little Grizzly

Crafty

Dear Miss T,

Just LOOK at what I made today:

Can you believe this little hairpiece? What about this one?

Our cousin C helped me make these bow clips for my little ballet girls. Their recital is next week and they are just wearing their class leotards. So I thought we would jazz it up a little with a cute headpiece. I am CRAFTY!!! Hot glue and fabric. That's all it took. Now I need to make some for Baby J.

And speaking of Baby J, here is a picture, just because she is adorable. :)

This is Baby J in the morning. She is such a smiley baby in the mornings. Now which parent does she get that from?

Love, KK

Baby Monster Lives On

Dear Rebecca,

Let me start off by telling you that I miss you so much.  I am sorry that I don't keep in touch better because you were like a sister to me at times in Seattle.  I loved that we met every week to exercise around Green Lake.  You are such a example to me and you helped me so many times.  Ok, I'll stop with the mushy stuff before I start crying and get to the point.

Do you remember our playdate exchanges with T Bear and your Lil' G?  Every week we took turns having a playdate with our boys.  Well, once Cub started walking, the boys started calling him Baby Monster.  They would see Cub and yell "Oh no, it's the Baby Monster!" Then they would run aways screaming.  Sweet little Cub would smile and start to follow them, which encouraged more yelling and running away.  Cub always kept following because he loved that they were "playing" with him. 

T Bear & Lil' G

Cub as the Baby Monster

 Sweet memories with those best friend boys.

Here we are now living in another city and state.  Now Cub is the three year old boy.  He now has a weekly playdate exchange with another boy, also Lil' G.  Recently Little Grizzly has started walking.  I heard Cub call him "Baby Monster" and then teach his friend how to run away from the Baby Monster while screaming.  Without a word, Little Grizzly smiled and followed the boys around the house, thrilled that he was part of their game.  

And so Baby Monster lives on.

Cub & Lil' G

Little Grizzly as Baby Monster

So say hello to your boys from us.  Remind them of the game "Baby Monster" that they used to play with us.  We send our love and hope we will get to reunite sooner rather than later.

Much love,

-Miss T