Katelynn's incessant begging for television has gotten out of hand lately, and I must admit that it is all too easy to use the TV as a babysitter, particularly on days when I am trying to get a lot of chores done around the house. I read some tips in a family magazine about the topic and modified their ideas in order to help us both with discipline. This morning, I gave Katelynn a little wooden box and put 5 black rocks inside. I told her that she could decide when she wanted to watch TV, but she had to give mommy a rock each time she watched a show. I spent quite awhile attempting to explain that once the rocks were gone, there would be no more TV that entire day and she would not get more rocks until the next morning.
Katelynn chose to use all her rocks up before 11:30 am... I guess that should not be a surprise with a 3-year old. By late afternoon, she was begging for "more rocks" and there were a couple of tearful mini-meltdowns. However, I held firm and she did not have any TV once the rocks were gone. We had a very pleasant evening of reading books and playing games together. In the future I may need to help her "ration" her rocks a bit....after all she is only 3 years old. But this looks like a good long-term solution to the TV problem!
Our pre-school puts on a very nice "pancake breakfast" that is just for the kiddos and their daddies. KK attended last weekend with Gene, and brought home this very cute picture for daddy's office. I love that our pre-school is helping our family in the quest to make memories with our little one.
This year, Valentine's Day was fun because KK got to have her first "class Valentine's party" at pre-school. Also, she is finally old enough to MAKE CRAFTS - something this mommy rather enjoys doing with her kiddo. Rather than bring in the store-bought Valentines, I thought it would be fun to make our own for her classmates and teachers. I got out some of my scrapbook goodies, which are not being used these days anyway now that I have switched to digital scrapbooking. We had a lot of fun being crafty together and KK ended up with lots of cute and unique cards for all her little friends!
We have entered the era of reward charts with Katelynn. Eventually, I plan to use them for chores. That should be coming pretty soon. However, KK's first reward chart was born out of desperation - we were so tired of her showing up at our bedside at 5:30 or 6:00 am!
It has happened - the stage has arrived where Katelynn follows nearly every single statement I make with the response: "WHY?" 
Katelynn's incessant begging for television has gotten out of hand lately, and I must admit that it is all too easy to use the TV as a babysitter, particularly on days when I am trying to get a lot of chores done around the house. 
The other day, news came home from Katelynn's pre-school that she was the only child that could do the cutting project in her class. Basically they were given sheets of paper with lines and told to cut along the lines. I guess letting her go to town with the safety scissors has paid off. :-)