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Thursday, October 18, 2007

The $1 Peacemaker

Yesterday after dinner I tried several suggestions that I gratefully received to make bedtime more pleasant for the boys so that I...I mean they could get more sleep. I gave them a warm bath and allowed them ample time to play in it. I asked my older son (OS) to suggest good rewards for his sticker chart. I suggested that OS wear sweat pants and a t-shirt to bed since he normally hates pajamas. He was quite excited about that suggestion. After stories, I even sat in the "blue chair" in their room for 10 minutes. The Big Giraffe and I agreed that they needed to stay in the same room regardless of how they behaved, so they could not manipulate us with tantrums.

Initially it looked like these tactics had worked. However, about 15 minutes later all hell broke loose. I would like to blame it on the fact that the phone kept ringing, but honestly I don't think that the phone had that much to do with it. In the face of screaming and yelling, I abandoned he sticker chart in lieu of another, more innate parenting strategy: Bribes and Threats. Fortunately I left to go to a meeting and thus did not witness the failure of that strategy. When I came back at around 11, the Big Giraffe told me they had just fallen asleep. He had however held firm and wouldn't separate them. So the behaviors had not improved, but at least they didn't get their way.

This evening I tried my routines again. I take that back. They took a bath and then the Big Giraffe came home. He performed our standard bedtime rituals and everything seemed fine. Sure enough, the running around and laughing started. I went upstairs to calmly assess the situation. At least that was my intention, but I could feel the Bribes and Threats moving from my brain toward my lips to be delivered. I had just gotten a CD to review so I asked OS if he would like to listen to it. He immediately asked if he could hear "Ba Ba Black Sheep". A late night craving for "Mother Goose?"

Then I remembered the free CD of "Mother Goose" rhymes put to music, starting with the what is apparently OS's favorite rhyme. The CD with a book from the dollar store that OS purloined from shares with his younger brother who had gotten it as a party favor. I know that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover or a CD by it's price tag , but sometimes you do get what you pay for. The CD is awful, and that is being kind. That's actually why it was in the boys' room in the first place. I couldn't stand to listen to it in the car. After a somewhat quick search downstairs, I found it. The Big Giraffe couriered it to the boys' clock CD/radio and turned it on. The boys went right to sleep.

That's when it dawned on me that there had been a time over the summer when the dulcet tones of poorly sung "Mother Goose" tunes had reigned over 2 peaceful sleeping boys. Then came the fateful day when OS had a serious meltdown during quiet time, forcing me to confiscate the CD. Then the CD got misplaced. Shortly after that, we went to Orlando. I never considered that the time may have come to replay the CD. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this $1 peacemaker works tomorrow night.

A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: If music always soothes the savage beast, there is a chance that it may sometimes soothe a preschooler.

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Name:Alex Elliot
Home:MA, United States
About Me:Professional Mom of two cats, a dog, an ant farm, and oh yeah...two boys: a 6 year old and a 3 year old. Also found in my house is my husband who is known on this blog as The Big Giraffe.
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For those of us who didn't get an instruction manual with our babies and for whom parenting hasn't always gone as planned. On a more serious note this blog is about supporting a woman's ability to make her own choices about parenting including the choice, for whatever reason, to bottle feed her babies formula.

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