On being reminded of how to find the lighter side of life

As I mentioned in my last post, my parents are staying with us.  This is the perfect way of being reminded that stuff you think of as normal and not particularly funny is, in fact, not everybody's normal and actually, is pretty amusing.  Well, to people who don't live with small boys every day, anyway.

This evening was a case in point; we skyped with my sister, and it became clear that my parents had been in touch with her by text and email during their visit here, sharing stories they thought were funny and which I just considered everyday happenings.  The following story - which I was a part of - was told back to me, and blow me if it didn't seem a great deal funnier in the retelling than it had whilst I was in the middle of it*.

It was bathtime.  I was trying - unsuccessfully - to get my children to come into the bathroom and get undressed.  After asking them reasonably a couple of times, I yelled that they should come into the bathroom nowRightNOW, and amazingly they did.  As they walked in I wondered aloud why it was that they had ignored me the first few times and only responded when I raised my voice, to which Boy #2 answered "Because we're pooh-heads, I suppose."

Well.

I guess at least no-one's going to suggest that they heard that insult from me...


*Which is, of course, precisely why I started The Potty Diaries nearly 5 years ago - to find the funny side in stuff that would otherwise drive me crazy...

Stand clear - Rant in progress

I wouldn't say that our family routine on a school day is boring, exactly, but...

Oh, alright. If you look at it as a straightforward series of events, without the light relief of personal interaction with other members of the family, it is. It is boring.

Mainly through necessity, but it is boring. Every day we get up, get the kids out of bed, chivvy them into their clothes, breakfast them, cajole them into their snow pants (at this time of year, anyway), take them to school, and - breathe... Then, the whole process is repeated in reverse at the end of the school day with the spicy additions of unpacking uneaten sandwiches from lunchboxes, wrestling with homework, tidying up toys (excuse me whilst I glance around the room, realise that yet again the only person interested in said tidying up is sitting at this computer, heave a deep sigh and decide once more to ignore the mess), and a bath. Sometimes, if I really want to go wild, I manage to read them another few pages of Harry Potter before it's lights out for the boys at 7.50pm. (What? OK. It's a fair cop - 8.00pm. Ish...).

That's it. Day in, day out, very little changes. Look away now thrill-seekers, because there are no surprises here...

So please, tell me;

Why is it, every day, just as one or other of the Boys is about climb in the bath and I'm waiting for them with hands dripping with antibacterial lotion ready to oil them up before they get into the water* they suddenly realise they absolutely must, this instant, this very moment, go to the loo for something that more often than not will take longer than just a moment, and which invariably results in my telling them that on no account are they to do it in the bathroom where I'm undressing /supervising the undressing of their brother, and to get themselves to the downstairs toilet facility pdq.

I mean, it's not as if this is a new and exciting development in our day, this 'taking a bath before bedtime'. For the majority of their lives, they have finished their days clean for reasons that involve a tub, warm water, and plenty of splashing about. Neither are Nature's processes and the management of those news to them; this blog may be called 'The Potty Diaries', but that's for mainly sentimental reasons rather than because I still involve myself with that side of their hygiene, thankyou very much...

So why is it that they can't go to the loo when I tell them I'm going to run the bath, in the 5 - 10 minute window before I ask them to come and get into it, rather than waiting until just about the time I have cream all over my hands and no place to put it if not on them*? Why? Dear god, WHY???

* Don't ask about the cream, it's an eczema thing**

** Actually you can ask if you're struggling with the condition in your children and want to, just drop me a note. Always happy to help...

Question: how do you discipline your children?

Always assuming, that is, that you live in the real world where - shudder - sometimes children don't always do what they are told and even, sometimes, are wilfully naughty...

Do you always carry your threats through? Or do you find yourself taking the line of least resistance, bleating hopelessly from the sofa 'don't do that little Johnny - cats don't like being carried around by their tails, he'll - oh, yes, well that wasalways going to happen wasn't it?'

Probably, if you're anything like me, you'll do a little of both, and more often than not which it is will depend on how much time you have to spare. For example, the naughty chair? All very well, but first thing in the morning on a school day I don't have 4 or 7 minutes spare to put the offending Boy on it; we're usually late already, so punishing the fact that my 10th request to put shoes and coats on has been ignored again is counterproductive. So the naughty chair tends to be a measure for the weekends, or after school (although obviously my sons are such little angels I never have to use it. Well, not for Boy #1, anyway).

The naughty shelf - the indefinite removal of a favoured toy / book etc to somewhere out of reach - gets pressed into service occasionally. Especially when we're in a rush. The only problem with that one is that whatever gets put up there usually gets forgotten about, as with a magnetic fishing rod stuffed on the top of my wardrobe when I had been hit in the face with it once too often by an over-enthusiastic child using it as a light sabre. It was banished in June, and rescued in September...

Then of course, there is the with-holding of pocket money. That worked for a while, but Husband and I are so rubbish about remembering to give it out that I think my children are under the impression it comes so seldom in any case that there's no point expecting to add it to their stash. Right now I think that I owe them each about 6 weeks, and since I don't have so much cash to hand it will probably be at least 7 before I'm in a position to remedy that...

Recently, with an increasing focus on Christmas (see this post), we've been using the 'If you don't behave Santa won't bring you your favourite presents' line, but Boy #1 is - I suspect - already doubting his existence, and Boy #2 doesn't really believe we'll carry it through. Or, he bucks up his ideas for all of 5 minutes before continuing with whatever he was doing before mum or dad inconveniently intervened.

So, in the absence of the ultimate Bad Thing - corporal punishment - what do you do? And I am of course assuming you will have given me credit and assumed that I have already exhausted the 'reasonable approach' method - talking it through, explaining why whatever it is they're up to is not acceptable / a good idea etc - before reverting to other forms of discipline.

Because, I'm looking for ideas here. Especially after yesterday evening when I was faced with a 4 year old who was blatantly laughing in my face at my increasingly annoyed requests he get. Undressed. And. Get. Into. The. Bath. Now. So I decided to carry through on the threat I had made 5 minutes earlier, and simply dumped him in there fully clothed.

It did have the desired effect - to shock him into getting undressed as quickly as possible - but unless I'm prepared to do an extra load of laundry every evening, it's not really a sustainable form of discipline. And of course, not every 'disagreement' we have involves a bathtub full of warm water...

Any ideas?

(Oh yes, and sadly not giving him a bath wasn't an option...)