Thursday, June 12, 2008

I Chose to be inconsistent


For several months now we have been trying to train Halee and Josiah that after we say good night and close the door that it's "quiet time." Josiah picked up on it fairly quickly... there are still a few nights here and there that he will talk but for the most part he's quiet after we leave... Halee -belle on the other hand must have to much that she feels she needs to say...

The nightly conversation goes like this...
(Mommy or Papa, we trade off :) "Halee, When mommy closes the door you need to be quiet. What does quiet mean?" (Halee) She puts her finger up to her mouth and says "Shhhh, no talk, no cream (scream), no oise (noise). I uiet (quiet)." (Mommy or Papa) "That's right. No talking. What happens when you talk?" (Halee) She shouts with a huge smile on her face, "POP" (that's what we call spankings around here :) (Mommy or Papa) "That's right. So no talking. Do you understand?" (Halee) "Yes Mama." (even when Papa's talking to her she says "yes mama". maybe she's overly trained to say it :)...

Then we pray together with the kids. And every night they both ask God "to help them be quiet."

Then hugs.. kisses... good night... close the door... we wait outside the door

No joke... 20 seconds later... EVERY NIGHT... Halee starts talking... usually I have no idea what she's saying... i open the door... walk over to her bed and give her a pop on her leg... She cries... I tell her again what I expect of her.. She repeats it back to me... I tell her how much I love he and that is why I want to teach her to obey my words... she stops crying, smiles at me and hugs me... I leave the room... lately one pop has been enough and she's quiet for the rest of the night. But for the most part we are quite consistent with this routine now that they share a room so that they can both have the opportunity to go to sleep with some peace and quiet :) (important to me, clearly not as important to them :)

But last night... I was standing outside the door waiting... and I heard Josiah talk first... which he rarely does... so i decided to listen before I opened the door...

He said, "Halee, you scared?" She said, "Yem" (cuz that what she says instead of "yes") He said, "Wanna pray?" She said, "Yem" He said, "Dear Jesus, help me's and Halee no be scared. In Jesus name Amen." Then it was silent.

There was NO WAY that I was going to go in there to pop them for talking!!!! What could possibly bless my heart more than to hear my son pray for his sister!!!!!!!!

So i chose to be inconsistent :) and for the first night in months my halee-belle went to sleep without a "Pop" and without a peep :)

PS... I don't think Halee was really scared... She says "Yem" to almost everything that you ask her... Last week I asked her if her ear hurt... she said "Yem'... So to see if it was really true I asked her a series of questions... "Does your arm hurt?", "Yem"... "Do you wish you had black hair", 'Yem"... "Do you know how to spell your name?" , "Yem"...

But it was cute anyway :)