Parenting win and loss just happened tonight. Let’s start with the win. We were watching the Thursday Night Football game and Stark, a Brown’s player laid a pretty hard hit on a Bengal’s player. One of those text book hits that makes you jump and say “Wow, nice hit!” then he got up and stood over the Bengal’s player and said something (taunting). The Girl says “Isn’t that taunting” just as I am starting to try to explain not all refs call everything, you hear the ref over the mic “Personal Foul” Wow, she was paying attention, way to call it, Girl! My husband and I looked at each other with that “Wow, that was cool. Yes, that’s our daughter watching football calling plays” then I responded with “I say that is a parenting win!” Especially after the conversation that started our evening.

The parenting loss that started our evening actually started with a call from the Boy’s teacher earlier today. It was about how The Boy got caught messing around in the bathroom with a group of boys as school was starting they were supposed to be getting ready for the day. Nothing major just 4th Grade boy stuff. The boys were told to fill out a reflection paper, take it home and have your parents sign it and then return it to the teacher so the teacher. Well, The Boy forgot to have us sign it. We went out on date night last night so some how the kids decided it was a good idea for the girl to sign it for me. I don’t really know what they were thinking. I do not think they thought the were being super malicious just trying to get it taken care of. I tried to explain to the kids that signing someone else’s name was a major deal. I also tried to explain it was lying and they know that is bad. I want my kids to learn to be responsible and take ownership of their mistakes and what The Boy wrote was not doing so.

In his reflection sheet, his 3 reasons for doing what he did (talking too long in the bathroom and not getting to class on time) was 1 They were talking 2. I played Madden yesterday and 3. I made an awesome catch in Madden yesterday. So he got caught up in the conversation because they were talking about Madden and he wanted to share with the other boys that he made an awesome catch…. Reasonable right? For a 4th grade boy maybe. But really, I want him to learn to be more responsible. To focus on going to bathroom and getting ready for school. He has to keep his room clean for the rest of the month and no video games allowed until the end of the month. If his room is not clean when he goes to bed at night that is an extra day of no videos. The Girl for forging my name has to keep the cars clean for the rest of the month and can’t do a Gymnastics Intensive this weekend. And both of them don’t get to go see the new James Bond movie “Spectra” in Imax this weekend.

I had a conversation with the Girl earlier today where she was very sorry and I could tell she now understands the gravity of what she did. She was just trying to be helpful and parenting but she missed the purpose of the signature was for me to know about what happened not just to get done. I was crying and so was she. I hate days like this. I wish I knew exactly how to handle this so they would learn what I want them to learn and not have to have those uncomfortable calls from the teacher. At least this teacher knows me well and I think he is a great fit for The Boy. He also had The Girl in 4th grade and had a talk with her about it too. So thankful for that teacher.

Today was filled with a few parenting wins and losses. One big win is that the Hubs and I handled it well together. No yelling or fighting between us and no blaming. We really are working on trying to get along better and work together. We have had our moments to blame the other for our kids bad behavior or get into fights about stupid stuff like this. When in reality our kids are normal kids and they do stupid things sometimes. That’s why we are here to teach them how to fix their stupid mistakes and not make them again. Hopefully it won’t get worse from here…Knock on Wood, Cross your fingers!

The Hubs and I are doing good. I am super happy we are getting better and less stressed and less argumentative about every little thing. We are becoming closer and happier in our lives and don’t feel the need to argue about things as much. We are on the same team and we will continue to work together at coming to solutions and correcting our kids not arguing over who is at fault for why they are how they are. Would you look at that? We are growing up too!

Discipline, Consequences and Consistency are key!

#Everyday2015