The Wonder of Numbers

It's amazing how magical counting to three can be. I've only discovered its power in the last half year, but I certainly make the most of it whenever I can.

I think most parents will agree that parenting is a job that requires a great deal of creativity on

the part of us parents! I know I have to be constantly thinking to try and stay one step ahead of my little wonders. As far as discipline goes, I'm a big proponent of the modern day time out, although we don't call it that at our house. Usually just the threat of either my five year old or my three year old being sent to their bed for five minutes is enough to stop any undesirable behavior on the spot. I try not to throw it out there too much (a lot of parents–and even more non-parents) would probably consider me to be too lenient with my kids) so that it doesn't lose its power though. And of course, I always follow through if I do bring it up and either of them doesn't stop whatever s/he isn't supposed to be doing. So far I've kept this potential consequence useful. However, one that I discovered a few months ago had lost its former significance for them was my timer.

Yes, at my house, I use a cooking timer for everything. This basically sprung up out of necessity as a busy mom. The clangy ring of a kitchen timer gets the kids attention a lot more than me just telling them, "Time to get your pajamas on!" and it also assures them I haven't lied about five minutes really having passed already. Besides this, it makes sure I don't get distracted by some other household chore–say, making dinner–and forget to follow through on getting the pajamas on after five minutes has passed. The problem is, I've been using the timer for quite awihle now and they grew deaf to that ring. It just didn't have the same, "Oh, that's the timer! I better get my pajamas on or I'll lose out on a story tonight!" effect any more!

It was almost by accident that I turned to the counting. It was late afternoon and time to come in from outside to start the whole, supper, bath, bedtime routine, and they didn't really want to come. The timer had gone off and they were both blissfully ignoring it. Completely exasperated, I pulled out the ol', "I'm going to give you until three to get inside and if you don't go I will drag you both inside and you can sit in your beds for at least five minutes once you're in." Well, I don't think I even had to count to two and they were both running in to avoid that possibility.

I've now put the timer away most of the time. When they don't want to get out of their baths I may set it because it does work as a good way to mark a time limit, but otherwise, it's been pretty much retired. That doesn't mean retirement is permanent, though. I wouldn't be surprised if one of these days I'm still counting 2 and 99/100 and they won't be jumping to run inside, and then I'll know it's time to bring that timer back out for awhile.

*I wrote a few other parenting blurbs before finding this site, so if you want to check them out, have a look at this one. I plan to post primarily with minti in the future, though.