Nicely!!!!!

Somewhere between the time they first started to talk and age 5, I seem to have managed to teach my first two kids to be reasonably polite. I'm not claiming that they are perfectly polite, by any means...but they are at least more polite than average children because strangers routinely comment on their pleasantries...

Just like the hat-training, I attribute my moderate success in this arena to the tutelage of my sister, and incessant reminders and consistent reinforcement: The "Mummy sounds like a broken record" method! As I work on ingraining the politeness gene into my third child, I am quite certain that I have heard myself say the words "Oh dear, you forgot to ask nicely!" about 40 million times!

Kenzie was an early and adept talker (who continues to be a socialite and conversationalist to this day!) By the time she was 2 1/2,  my "Ask Nicely" campaign had resulted her being able to deftly string together excuse me's, pleases and thank-you's appropriately within context. She had quickly integrated the concept and skills associated with using good manners to win friends and influence people.

Cooper was a late talker who was plagued by an "antsy impatience" that I believe stemmed from the constant frustration of knowing what he wanted long before he could find the words to convey it. So Cooper was more of a "truncated blurter" when it came to making requests. "Not milk! Juice!" "No! A yellow cup!" "No lid Mummy!" The "Ask Nicely" campaign was slow to sink in for Cooper, and escalated his frustration accordingly...till one day, when he appeared to be thoroughly flummoxed by an "ask nicely" standoff, it finally occurred to him that maybe he would get what he wanted if he gave me what I wanted. He took a deep breath fueled by resignation, mustered a deliberately controlled sweet tone of voice, and a duress-inspired "pleasant" smile to match, and blurted, "NICELY!!?!!?!" I was so caught off guard by the simplicity and effort of his compliance, that my heart melted, and for almost a year afterward, a hearty, well-delivered "NICELY!!!!" became an acceptably polite form of request at our house!

Road Trip Time Saving Trick

So we are on our road trip to California, and barely an hour into it, Kenzie starts in with the: "How much longer till we get there?" questions. She is understandably excited...we are, after all, on our way to Disneyland...but -- Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaccccccccccccccccccccckkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk!!!!! We still have 12 hours to go!!!!!

Kenzie is almost eight years old, so it's not unreasonable to expect that her grasp of the concept of time include accepting that it would be MANY HOURS before we were even close to our destination. After the fifth inquiry inside of half an hour we felt justified in getting annoyed by her continued asking! Mummy suggested that she might want to try and take a nap, and explained that while she is sleeping, time will seem to move faster and it will feel like we get there sooner. Another idea we had was to show her the green mileage signs and offered to help her track the miles left to go. She opted to play the mileage sign "game". She then proceeded to patiently watch like a hawk for the mileage signs and relay the latest number of miles to go while I logged them. This did the trick and we were merrily on our way...

A week later, after all sorts of fun, we were headed home again. Mummy made an offhand comment to Daddy about how the drive home always seems longer than the drive to get there -- a short moment later, Kenzie very sweetly offered "Mummy? If you want, I will take a nap so that the trip won't seem so long for you!"

Bloggin' Birthday! Auntie Flower - October 1st

In the spirit of wanting to be an artist when she grows up (like Auntie Flower), and to celebrate Jill's birthday, Mackenzie drew a portrait of her favorite Aunt this evening... I urge you to enlarge the masterpiece (just click on it!) so that you can read her captions - They pretty much say it all!

Cooper also participated in the Jill's Fans Art-a-thon...His piece is a little more abstract!

Future Careers 2008

Cooper (almost 5): "A pilot of a Helicopter that puts out fires"
Kenzie (7 1/2): "A Vegetarian who doesn't eat animals because she makes them feel better, and an Artist"*

*Artist still inspired by Auntie Flower

Drive Thru -- Busted!

Around the time Kenzie was about 2 years old, we still had a "landline" phone and fax machine. It had a feature on it that enabled you to press a "memo" button and leave yourself a recorded message. It wasn't a feature that I used very often, but there was a day when Mackenzie found a use for it!

I was passing by the machine and noticed the red light flushing - so I stopped and pressed the play button to hear the waiting messages. The first few were your typical "Hey, looks like I missed you - please call me back" types. And then the voicemail message that lives in infamy: a  precious little girl's voice chimes:

 "Please I have a cheeseburger and french fry?"

Apparently, the fax machine resembled a drive thru speaker/order board. And Mummy was busted for visiting drive-thrus often enough that Kenzie knew exactly how to order!

Future Careers 2006

Kenzie (5 1/2): "A Dog Trainer and an Artist"*

*Artist inspired by Auntie Flower