Firstly, thanks to all your kind comments yesterday- yes, I am still stressed to the point of nausea but I have left it in the hands of God.
Onto happier things - early this week I read so many weekend ideas and I committed to doing 3 (something amidst the stress of this morning I hugely regretted). Let's just say, we will see how it goes but I will try my bets.
Firstly
Marcia and some other bloggers do monthly goals etc. I did it once but it totally stressed me out - I need more short term stuff. So when the idea of a weekend accountability list came up, it seemed like a good idea. Also taking into account that I got so much done last weekend - I framed the family gallery and brought it up to date, I tidied the medicine storage and threw out expired stuff and other more personal less home stuff. So my goals for this weekend are:
- Take good pictures of the boys playing rugby tomorrow. It may be a challenge as the Princess' ballet course is right in the middle of their game time but maybe.
- Swim with the kids at the gym
- Have flowers in the house for Spring day tomorrow.
- Get my pictures of the week up for Marcia's link up.
- Re organize and tidy and purge my clothes cupboard
- Re organize and tidy and purge my shoe cupboard
- Start on a mosaic cross for my moms friend who knitted lovely jerseys for the kids this winter.
- Bake something
I also happened upon
Julia's Mama loves - a great idea me thinks, to inspire us all with some fresh ideas
Let's talk sweets - that thing that kids love most of all and that we as parents possibly love most of all for ourselves, but not for our kids. As little ones I kept my kids totally aways from sweets, especially the Princess when typically first time mom I believed that no sweets was a great idea. Only to be totally embarrassed by the first real party we attended when she literally sat at the party table and ate as many sweets as she possibly could while all the other kids went to play.
I had a chat about that with our nursing sister who is a specialist in kiddies nutrition and she gave me her thoughts about sweets. She said that as we crave sweetness as adults, kids have a way stronger craving as their bodies use up energy on a much faster level than ours. The balance is to feed that craving with fruit and raisins etc for most days, but to allow sweets in limited quantities because totally avoiding sweets will compact the issue. She suggested a "sweeties day" a week - say Saturday when they can eat as much as they like, or alternatively small amounts spread though the week after say a well eaten dinner. But not every day. This was a better option for me simply because I could not imagine the over sugared sweetie day in the week.
She also said that kids feel they need to own something and that they often will finish all the sweets they get in one shot because they think they may never get to eat it if they do not eat it now. They need to know that mommy will keep it for them.
So without further ado, our system that we have been using with the kids from way back then (A was about 2 at the time) - thus been running for about 5 years. It works really well for us and I have often been complimented on how little sweets the kids actually eat at a party.
Each kid get one little party bucket that I have kept from one of their own parties- in South Africa these are in common use but you can buy them at Plastic shops. All sweets that come home from parties, tuck shops, given by guests (we get a lot of that), are placed in here.
When a sweetie reward or treat is in order I let them choose something from their tubs. Sometimes I will put a limit on lollipops as these take long to eat so in the evenings I may say any sweet but a lollipop. If their tub fills up they have to go through it and donate what they do not want to me to create space for the new stuff. Recently there has also been a few lessons in economy when trading out started between the 3 kids. The idea is to add some sweets if the tubs ever empty out but I have only once ever had to do it for the boys and never for the Princess. Somehow there are always enough sweets - I guess our rate of sweets eating is not that high.
So what is your rules for sweets and do you have a system?
