New Recycling Efforts

As soon as I thought we were in for it, there was a pleasant change. In the midst of Kate's temper tantrum state, I assumed that most of this was due to her age. I guess I should have thought a little more about the fact that moving might have something to do with it too. Thanks to some wise advice from good friends and family.

After a really bad temper tantrum, in a mall with new friends, I carried out Kate kicking and screaming. (Luckily, Robyn was there to push Stephen in his stroller and assure me that things would get better.) By the way, she was throwing a fit because I would not take her to eat pizza and get a balloon, like the girl in the shoe store. Instead of wanting to put her in time out and take away every toy in her room, we came home and had a civilized lunch. She made her own pizza and loved it! I tried to give her back some "control." I told her that from now on I would not take away her toys when she did not behave, however she would go to time-out for 4 minutes and the door would be shut. If she opens the door, she gets an additional 4 minutes and that has really helped in keeping the door shut. (It has also help with some of the "monster in my room" fears.) This has actually worked! Thank goodness! We started this on Tuesday, and we have had some time outs, but no temper tantrums and I think she feels like she has some control in her life.

We have also tried to give her more responsibility. She is in charge of the recycling, and she has taken it on with amazing excitement and new ideas on how this process should work in our household. After all, she is in charge of it now and a great way for her to exercise some control. However it was pretty funny, she insisted that we keep ALL of it in her room. In an effort to let her organize it, but also not having bugs in her room or dangerous materials, we settled on just plastic and paper. For every day she recycles she gets a "leaf" on her tree. When her tree is full we will pick out a real tree for her to plant at our new house. We also got a plant for her room. It is an aloe plant and she is responsible for providing sunlight and water when needed. So, sanity has been reinstated at our household, thank goodness!