The Clock is Ticking

The time is getting close. I'm down to single digits remaining at my second job at the world's largest retailer. Only 9 working days remain, or as the Queen prefers to think of it, three weekends. We worked out the remaining checks from there, and we can stick to the original plan of my leaving there the weekend before Memorial Day, so I can have the three day weekend to just rest and try and get back a measure of the energy I've lost over the past (almost) year. It will be so very nice to have my weekends (as well as Monday and Friday nights) back. Everyone will be better off as a result.

The only kink that may result is how the retailer handles two week notices. I plan on being perfectly honest and ethical in my dealing with them as I have since I started, and that means giving reasonable notice of my impending departure. The trouble is that with child jobs such as that one is, they occasionally don't deal well with notices of departure and may just fire me on the spot as soon as I give it. Why? Well, because if I am choosing to leave at a set date, they no longer have anything to hold over my head. I'm a wild card at that point since I hold 100% of the control. Typically, the employer has control over the employee and maintains that control via the threat of job loss. Well, if the employee has declared they no longer want the job and in two weeks will be leaving anyway, they have nothing on that person. So, they just sack them to get rid of the liability. I'm not sure which way I prefer.

Over the weekend was a little on the odd side, so the Queen tells me (I was asleep). Apparently the "horticulturalist" and former owner of our house dropped by and wanted to know if she could have some of the irises she had planted on the south side. Given that these irises multiply like rabbits every year, she had no issues letting her have at them, but of course, we had no shovel to offer her. She wanted to com back in a month and see if another of the two toned irises had come up and retrieve them as well. Naturally, she commented on what we'd done to what she could see in regards to the trees missing. We blamed the storm. Wow, what a convenient and perfect reason (yes, reason!) that ice storm made for us to not have to offer the explanation of "your planting scheme sucked" to her. Ah, but she recently finished her master's in horticulture or something. My mind wanders to a Doctor Who episode called The Seeds of Doom.

Today, one of our more favorite clients reared her head as she tends to do every day, and Optimus remarked that if he ever has a last day here, he would probably contact her daily for a good long time to relieve some frustration. He would call her up and pretend to be a middle eastern man with a billing problem. Naturally, there would be no account, but he will have received a bill with some ridiculous amount that he feels he shouldn't have to pay. This would go around and around for about a month, and then he would be calling about her having personally sent his account to collections which is ruining his credit because he is buying a house. He would go on about being oppressed due to his heritage, and this would likely go on as he needed to relieve frustration for about 6 months.

Now, he threw out some name ideas, but I think my idea would work the best: Fuqiou. When she asks how to pronounce that, he would become deeply offended and ask her how she thinks it should be pronounced. Naturally, he must always be addressed as Mr. Fuqiou, and this would make him happy since that's what he feels like he's told her daily for years now. Of course, when he considers a "last day," he honestly hopes that day never comes (within reason, of course).

On Sunday, we were at church having lunch before the praise band had a rehearsal, and someone asked about the princesses and how we got them to act so good. Our three girls were quietly sitting at the table eating (or in the case of Sassy Pants, refusing to eat), while several of the other kids there were running around the sanctuary screaming and acting generally crazy. I had to think about this a long time because my immediate thought was discipline. And while this is indeed plays into their behaviour, it struck me that it was all too simple an answer to really show what it was that we did as parents to have them behave the way they do.

I admit that I keep wanting to say "make them behave," but in reality, that's incorrect. Really, we can't "make" them do anything. They have to make the right choices, and one of those is to behave properly in a public setting. As adults, we choose to behave; why do we do it? Because we choose to. We could run around screaming just as easily as the little ones do, but we don't, and the trick is to instill that same level of choice into the children.

It boils down to several factors in the end. One is explaining to them the proper way to act in any given situation. Then, putting out some consequences for their actions if they do not follow the social rules that we expect. You see, when I say discipline, my "social norm" meter flips right to "spanking," but that isn't the sum total of discipline. Buy the same measure, neither is grounding, time outs, taking things away, or any number of other things I can't think of off hand. Different methods work differently on each child and in each situation, so it's a matter of having a veritable arsenal and choosing the correct course of action for each "infraction," as it were.

As adults, we have laws that we follow (or don't, depending on how you are), and each of these laws has different consequences based on what it is, to what degree, etc. The law lays out our boundaries, so it is important to do something similar for children, and stick to that. Can we choose to steal or even speed? Sure we can. No one is going to stop us...initially. But there are consequences for those actions that must be paid, and maybe that will make us think twice about doing them again. Same with the sitting at the table and behaving properly in a social situation. They can choose to run around acting crazy, but we just might end up at the car discussing these inappropriate actions. They might end up having an early bedtime. It all depends, and the thing is, they don't know ahead of time because we don't lay out a list of infractions and punishments. We have taught them over time how to act, and we keep them in line so they maintain it as they grow up.

One thing we do that I know isn't always done is giving them the "why's" about the rules we lay down. If we say "don't do it," and they ask why, we don't punish them for asking. We sit them down and explain it to them so they understand why we have made a request of them that they may or may not find unreasonable.

The other day, The Socialite (who could just as well be called The Daredevil), was walking on the top rail of our fence in the backyard. Below her on the other side were dogs wildly barking at her. Naturally, The Queen called her down, and she wanted to know why she couldn't do that. The reasons were quite simple; first, it is dangerous (which likely didn't phase her) and second, if she fell into the other yard, the dogs might react violently and hurt her. That works worlds better than "Because I said so."

Are we incredibly strict? Yes and no. Yes, from my perspective, we keep them walking a line that is quite narrow and ensure they don't steer from it. If they stray even a little bit, they know it. But no, because there is a great deal of freedom that they do have to explore and learn and experience new things. They are allowed to try practically anything; to learn anything; to do whatever they want to do...as long as they keep to the teachings we have given them. From their perspective, they probably don't notice how tightly we keep them in line.

Why not? Because anytime they find out what someone else is able to do, one of two things happens. The first makes me prouder than I can even say because some of the things I've learned that Rock Girl has observed that some kids yearn to do, she has been able to explain why she shouldn't do them and why whoever is doing it shouldn't either. The other is that we talk about what this other person is doing, and explain the reasons why it isn't a good idea. This involves them in the decision making process, and while yes, mommy and daddy always win this process, it gives them some meaningful dialogue, allows them to ask questions and even tell us their opinions on it.

The result is three children that garner compliment after compliment from people who have seen them act properly in public. Yes, they see even their friends run around crazy, but they don't do it because they don't find it to be the right thing to do.We even bring it down to their level through the shows they watch. On one such Strawberry Shortcake, the character of Pupcake created a lot of chaos by acting crazy, and they observed this. This created a comparison they could relate to, and now we always ask for pretty princesses and if the craziness begins, they are reminded that puppies have to stay out in the car.

So all three are very sweet (most of the time), although Sassy Pants keeps her head on better when she isn't competing for attention with her sisters after school. They continue to learn and grow, but having them well behaved at a young age will hopefully translate into better behaved teenagers. We know full well there will be some rebellion and we have our eyes on different aspects of their personalities that will likely come out the most during that period of time, but anticipating it will (again, hopefully) help to deal with that time. Since we've already established dialogues on proper behaviour, we also hope this will help when they have harder behavioural and social questions than "Should I run around screaming in the sanctuary at church?"

I ramble on when I talk about them, but watching them grow is a pleasure, and I'm really looking forward to spending more time with them once this whole second job deal is over. I'm counting the days.