Parenting Project Update

It's been a busy week, so it feels like a bit of a cheat. I haven't had much time to misbehave with the children. Sian says I'm definitely a lot less shouty, so that's good. In terms of defining shouting, I've realised that Harry is the best judge. Last weekend I took the boys to the skate park on Saturday morning. When it was time to go, I did need to yell to get Harry to listen to me. He said that it was turning into the worst day of his life because I was being a mean, shouting mummy. I tried to tell him that I was just "calling out" so that he could hear me, but he was totally right. I was irritated, and my voice was loud and mean. Ah well.

Correcting. I've made an effort. What I need to be better at is doing the think throughs in advance, at a neutral time. We had a couple of very early starts from Harry this week. Once he has already come into our room and bugged us, it's pretty much impossible for him to remain silent in his room. But when I remember to ask him the night before what he should do in the morning if he wakes before 6, he almost always manages to leave us alone. I need to start doing this for politeness (please & thank you). Harry is bad about this, Tom is not. I realise writing this that I am still correcting at the time. I need to wait without comment for the please, and talk to him about this repeatedly at neutral times.

As for physical health, I've had nearly no sugar since Tuesday. I miss it, but I'm coping. My diet could still do with improvement though. I'm eating a lot of crisps. Exercise - tick, and 3 good things - tick! And I do think I'm sleeping better without the headphone in my ear. Reading an actual physical book in bed feels very vintage indeed.

I bought some gold stars for my notebook, but now I can't find them. The coloured dots really aren't doing it for me.