I've always prided myself on the fact that whenever someone babysits my kids, they always tell me how great they were. I've never heard of any of them being naughty. With them being 6,5, and 2, I find that either pretty impressive or really hard to believe. I like to believe that my kids are that good and that nobody is lying to me.
But lately, whenever either Grant and I or just me bring the kids to town for shopping, it's been an absolute nightmare. We average about 2 or 3 stops each time, so it's not like it's an insane amount. It seems like they forget how to act and behave in public. The girls either fight, whine, or Kensi tries to basically climb up my body so I can hold her. She's 5 so it's not like I'm carrying her around everywhere we go. I don't hold her much anymore because she's getting too heavy for me. Isabelle, being 6, hardly ever gets held now. I mean, they're big girls, they don't need me to be holding them. But for some reason, Kensi still tries to get me to hold her because "I'm tired!". Which, ya kid, I feel you. BBUUUTTTT you have a working pair of legs....let's use them, shall we?
Isabelle either wants something and if she doesn't get her way, then she becomes belligerent and at times the attitude comes out in spades. She's normally pretty ok, but when the two get together, it's hard to keep them happy and calm. They play off of each other so much that if one starts in, the other one follows suit in short order. It's getting maddening. The ability to listen just plummets the minute we get out of the car. They're good for the walk in, but then it all goes downhill fast. I don't know how many time I say "don't touch that." or "come on, keep up with us" or "put that back!" or "quit running around!". I feel like we're totally being those parents. You know what I'm talking about. The ones you see basically fighting with the kids the entire time they're shopping and you shake your head at them while you think, "Why doesn't she do something about her kids?". Well, I do. I try. But it's hard to threaten (and not an empty one, one that we follow through with) to take away toys and such when they really just don't care. Grant and I took away all of their toys one time, and they didn't seem to care much. They made toys and babies out of things like pillows and any household item they could find. The not letting them watch their Netflix/Hulu shows seems to have had an impact so there's that.
It's now to the point where we just don't want to take them to town with us when we go. It's exhausting, frustrating, and just straight up not fun. Grant and I talked about what we could do and have come up with a few ideas. One of them being when we're all out and the girls, or if it's just one of them, start acting up and wont behave, I'll just take them to the car immediately and we can sit in silence until Grant's done. It will suck for me (and I'd be the one taking them out because Grant would have to pay) because I have to sit in the car with a pissed off kid, but it's the legwork that needs to be done. I've started to reward good behavior a little bit here and there as well. This morning, Kensi got an icee after breakfast because she ate all her toast and she had been listening really well. Isabelle did not get one because she had all of like 10 bites, and she actually counted them, of her cereal and was not listening very well. Oh, Isabelle did not like that one bit, but I think it might help get through to them that we're done with this not listening shit.
Bedtime has gotten better too. They were little terrors for a while, and Grant and I were at a loss. But I read to Kensi in her bed, and that seems to help. Before, Kensi would go to bed at 7p, and Isabelle at 7:30p. Well, Kensi kept herself awake until Isabelle went to bed, then she would instigate a play session, and they'd get all amped up again. But I found that if we kept Kensi going to bed at 7p, and pushing back Isabelle's to 8p, that seemed to help. It was a long enough time in between that Kensi couldn't stay awake. Isabelle stays up a bit longer for quiet time, which is just basically watching our show with Grant and I, or just me. Then at 7:30p, Isabelle gets her school book and she reads that, then we do a bedtime story, I go into her room with her and sing her "Izzy's song" bedtime song, and that's that. It's been working really well! So at least we've got that figured out for the most part. I'm sure things will come up, but we'll have to cross that bridge when we get to it.
We're going to have to go to town again soon, so that will give us a chance to try these new things and hope they work! We'd love to take the kids out to lunch and make it into a fun trip. We want going to town to be fun for them, and for us. Cross your fingers that we can get them to shape up!
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