Most days.
Okay….some days. I love my life at least as often as I don’t like it, which is fine with me. But lately, I really love my life. For one thing, William is beginning to grasp the concept of intrinsic motivation. I love it. I love being able to work and focus on what I’m responsible for longer than 10 minutes at a time. Meanwhile, he focuses on what he’s responsible for, and the amount the two of us get done in a day is phenomenal! Comparatively speaking.
He’s a funny kid. What reward system motivates him? I’ve tried “mommy bucks” and TV time and computer time, field trips, treats, real money, negative consequences…I can’t even remember all of the complicated systems I’ve come up with to try to teach him to be more independently responsible. I am the queen of complicated systems. I love complicated systems myself. I like creating them, tweaking them, and then using them until I don’t have to think about what to do next. Because when I have to think about what to do next, I usually end up talking myself out of it and doing something else instead. William has not yet caught on to the beauty of a delicately orchestrated system. But I’ve hit on a system that has the potential, with a bit more tweaking of course, of actually working for my little man. I have made him a checklist of things he needs to do each day–a morning routine, an evening routine, chores and homeschool. He has started doing it each day on his own, without any cajoling from me. I don’t even know he’s awake yet, and he’s already up and getting his morning routine done. And the fabulous carrot at the end of the stick that has my sonshine so fired up and ready to go each day? Free time. That’s it. How easy is that? I love it. So does he. And as a result of his good work, we’ve been having more together time these days because I’m getting my stuff done too. So we’ve been watching movies and reading and just hanging out
The more I get to hang out with him, the more I love my life.
