Reward Stickers

The girls had their visit yesterday.  It was a surprise to all of us.  Just when we feel like the bioparents are going to fail us they start succeeding... then when we feel like they will succeed, they fail.  So, needless to say, the successful visit yesterday was a surprise.

We never know after a visit if the girls will have an appetite or not.  I definitely did. Somehow shuffling everyone out the door I never pack my own lunches.  My coffee and two packs of crackers for morning snacks for the girls are all I can manage.  When you roll in and have no idea of what the appetite will be it is difficult to plan what to make.  Last night I went with the easy route.  Leftover ham (which we have so much of), eggs and toast.  Even without an appetite the girls always will eat eggs.  I guess that is important so they get some protein after their sugar high at the visit.  

After dinner I needed a few minutes before becoming the evening's entertainment so I pulled out some single serve instant puddings and milk.  It kept them at the table and busy for another half hour.  By the time they were done "cooking" and eating I had dishes done and we were ready to move to the next thing... Thank you "notes"

Last week we received some amazing gifts from Operation Christmas Child (I think that is the name of it).  I thought we would get a few little things... They hooked the girls up!  The gifts are overly generous.  We were lucky we took the truck to that meeting as the gifts would not have fit in the car.  Our thank you notes were colored pictures.  We still have to finish them, but it was a good time for all four of us to sit down together.  There are so many things that Bug will sit down for that she gets some good one on one attention that Sissy just doesn't have the patience for.  Coloring has flipped it around.  Sissy sat so well (or as well as she will) and Bug went off and did her own thing.  Nearly every day Bug will sit for a book or three so her wondering off during coloring gave us some good calm time with Sissy.  While it won't be every night, we may have to put some coloring time in more often to see what it can do for her.

After coloring the chaos started for Sissy.  Her little body just can't be controlled.  The spinning the flopping around just all around manic movement.  Luckily for us it was only a half hour before bed (they go down at 7:30) so we sat back and watched and let it happen.  Oh, how I hope that we can keep working with her to help her cope with her random behaviors.  It seems so strange to us that the 2 year old has such better management over herself than the 4 year old.

Earlier this month we visited the Art Museum.

Have I told you about the fact that our clock "dings" we love it as the girls can't tell time so we can always say "next bell is bedtime" and they listen fairly well.  Bedtime was smooth.  We just returned to a reward system.  This time around it is stickers.  We tried fuzzys before, but they wanted to play with them too much.  Now with stickers they have their own book, the sticker(s) go in it and they can look at them and we don't have to have larger rewards later.  

This morning was a great one and proof that the stickers work.  Yesterday we had no teeth brushing and we had a lot of prompting to get ready for school and thus when we did rewards last night we focused on that.  Today Sissy was dressed before me and thus no prompting at all.  Shoes were on the right feet (she knows, she just likes the attention that the wrong feet get her) and we brushed our teeth like champs!  Brushing hair had no arguments either.

With all the chaos that is happening we have also started to grab that bit of time right when the girls go to bed and we still have a little energy.  I gave squirrel the option of shopping or cleaning at 7:30.  That one hour without kids we can get so much done even if it is just running out for more baby-wipes and vacuuming without competing without a helper.  I won the rock-paper-scissors so I got to go out.  The toy section was wonderful without extra hands and we did finally get the perfect Christmas gift for our little neighbor.

This afternoon is Sissy's parent teacher conference.  I hope she is a good kid for them, but I also hope that they see some of the issues we see so that we can keep pushing forward to help this kid get the services she will need as she grows.