From the hip

Good morning! Well, today marks the official last day of Christmas vacation for the twerplets. They are still off today and half of the day tomorrow. (Apparently, going back on Monday for a full day of school would have damaged their fragile psyches and left them even more unbalanced. Of course, they do this without any regard for what it does to the fragile parental psyches.) Regardless, today is their last full day of Christmas vacation. I am a bit surprised by my kiddos. Sure enough, there has been some infighting. However, the good news is that it has been no where near as bad as memory has served. On any given day, for the better part, they get along.

Who would have thought?

Just so you know, I am going to go ahead and take full credit for these successes. I have no idea whether or not their good behavior was truly a result of my excellent parenting but I am going to go ahead and accept responsibility for it anyway. For the fun of it ( I mean, in order to grow our children spiritually and intellectually), I decided to punish the kiddos every time I heard them fighting. It was not so much a punishment as a segregated cooling off period (a "time out") My punishments were quick and universal. The moment I heard an argument I brought them all in and I sat them all down against different walls in the room for 5 minutes.

I know. Mean, mean daddy.

Low and behold, it pretty much worked. The next thing I knew the kiddos were playing nicely together. Apparently, they would all prefer to be playing nicely together than sitting along in a quiet room against the wall. Furthermore, by punishing the whole lot, the twerp not involved in the argument was, all of a sudden, a lot more interested in finding an equitable resolution than choosing sides.

No more ganging up.

I solved a centuries old parenting conundrum.

I must admit, I was a little shocked. Frankly, this parenting was totally from the hip. Am I getting good at this, or what? A few more children and I bet I could get this nailed down.

Don't tell Lynley I said that.

She thinks we have enough purpose and I have enough playmates.