Mommy memo

There are a lot of things I would like to improve on with my parenting and the lifestyle I raise Nevaeh in. I’ve wanted to implement more structure, but my biggest problem is with the follow through and consistency part of it. I made a chore chart for Nevaeh, and I have to say, it’s pretty snazzy. It’s basically a chart with a header ‘Nevaeh’s chore chart’ with eight big boxes underneath. Each box has a chore listed as well as a picture. There is getting dressed, bush teeth, feeding fish, clearing plate, going potty, washing hands, picking up toys and turning off lights. Each of these things should be accomplished on any given day and when they are she gets a sticker to put over the box (some of them she’ll get more than one sticker such as potty going and hand washing). Once she has a at least one sticker on each box she can have a treat. This may be a piece of candy, a temporary tattoo or whatever I think is appropriate. Now I just need to keep up on it, and actually implement it on a daily basis.

Another thing is discipline. I do the whole counting and time out thing, but a lot of time I feel like I’m just yelling at her. I don’t want to be that kind of parent. All I’m doing is teaching her that that’s how you act when you’re mad. You yell. And I don’t want to teach her that that’s okay, because I know it’s not. I need to keep my temper in check. There are certain things that just grind my gears, such as her getting into my stuff, or me telling her to do something and her outright just telling me no, or me trying to talk to her and her just plain old acting like she can’t hear me (she does that a lot and it drives me nuts!)

I think that I should be identifying these things that really tick me off and deciding in advance the proper most effective way to handle it when it happens. That way I’m prepared. I think that I should try to be more conscientious about approaching Nevaeh face to face and coming down to her level when I speak to her. I find myself yelling across my apartment a lot of the time.

Aside from discipline, another thing I would like to improve on is the all over environment of my house. There is not a lot I can do right now because this mostly has to do with the size and set up of my apartment but I’m talking about things such as eating meals together at the table (I don’t have a table my apartment is too small). Nevaeh has her little playschool table that she eats at and then I usually eat in the livingroom. This is not ideal for me at all. I think the ‘family table’ is an important concept in a household and I can’t wait to have a place where we can start sitting down together and sharing a meal.

Her bedroom is another thing that needs improvement. She currently lives in my closet. In my defense it’s a really big closet but she shares her room with all of my clothes and zero windows. Not only that but it’s attached to my room which gives her easy access to my stuff. Her clothes and my clothes are in the same dresser so she doesn’t really have a place that’s all her own. It’s more like our rooms are both of ours, and to be perfectly honest I want my own room that’s just mine!

The moral of all this is that I need to find a better place. March is the month for some serious change, and I just hope it’s all very positive. I plan on renting a house or a duplex, but what I really want to do it buy a house. I know I’m not ready right now, but this is a short term goal that I need to start looking at, at least tentatively. I’m not getting any younger and every month I give my rent to my landlord is another month I could have been putting money to my own property. We will see how the new job goes and the rest of the winter goes and reassess in the spring.