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After you clean your room...

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This evening Cassidy revealed to me a small secret to keeping her occupied. After dinner she asked me if she could watch a show. We don't have tv, but we do have netflix through the wii on our tv and we watch all the greatness that PBS and Nickelodian have to offer! Except for Caillou because I think he's kind of whiny. Anyway, she gets to watch limited amounts of Diego, Dora, Dinosaur Train, Super Why, Word World, etc and sometimes we throw in some Cosby Show for good measure. She'll pick two shows and watch one, 20 minute episode of each and then we call it good.

Well tonight when she asked for a show, I told her she could watch one episode of her favorite after she cleaned her room. She went into her room and as she started putting toys away, she started playing with them. She'd go to put books away and start "reading" them. Twenty minutes later she'd start putting crayons away, then start drawing with them. Ten minutes later she'd start putting away her dress up clothes and start dressing her stuffed animals! This phenomenon has never happened before. When Cass wants to watch a show or do anything else, and she has to clean her room first, that room gets cleaned at warp speed.

After about 45 minutes of this amazingness where Cassidy was content to play with her toys by herself she came back to me as I was cleaning the kitchen and asked for a muffin. We had made mini pumpkin chocolate chip muffins- so good! And I told her she could have one after she cleaned her room. So off she went and it's been half an hour! I can hear her as I type, having a tea party and singing while racing her cars. Usually I'm the playmate when we're at home and we are joined at the hip because she wants company and I haven't seen her all day so I oblige.

But people- we are going on 2 solid hours of solo time! I folded laundry. I edited some pictures. I organized our budget. I wrote this blog! All without Cassidy sitting in my lap or tugging at my jeans. Incredible. Now I don't know what to do with this new technique. Like anything else with a two year old, what works today might not work tomorrow. And it's possible I'm teaching her bad habits because I told her to clean her room multiple times and she hasn't finished. Or maybe the cleaning of her room is not as important as the development of imagination and ability to be independent? Could there be a problem with her attention span and memory? I could stress about this and over analyze it...or I could enjoy this random moment in time and act as if it may never happen again!

(Wait a minute...)

Cassidy just came in and asked if she could play with a different bag full of toy cars and I told her she could "after she cleaned her room"! She promptly ran to her room and started putting stuff away again, only to start playing with something else! These could be the most magical words I ever speak!

PS- the pic you see is of Cass wearing my rain boots. No blog post is ever complete without a picture of her. Even if the picture has nothing to do with the blog :-) I know that's who y'all want to see!

Comments

  1. AnonymousNovember 18, 2011 at 4:39 PM

    Hahaha, I guess that's what kids do when they find something they enjoy. Cassidy is such a cutie.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Vanessa VancourNovember 18, 2011 at 5:38 PM

    Brilliant strategy. It's better than the one I've been using, which is laced with threats and bribes. "If you don't get in the car, I'll take your piggie/blanket/cup away!"

    ReplyDelete
  3. Jeannette SmithNovember 19, 2011 at 6:48 AM

    Haydee- she's even cute when she is throwing a temper! Do you ever find yourself trying not to laugh when Katerina does something she shouldn't? Katerina is getting so big! She is adorable :-)

    V- We'll see how long it works. I've been using time out for everything! I start counting and usually she gets moving before I get to 2.

    ReplyDelete

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