Quiet time/nap time in our house is my sanity hour. I can take a breather, waste some time with e-mail and surfing the internet, or make some important phone calls where I don't have "Mommy Mommy Mommy!" or incessant screaming going on in the background. The house is peaceful. Usually. Then there are those days, like this past Monday, where it just doesn't happen.
I went with Anna to her room to begin quiet time. She no longer naps, but she can play quietly and must stay in her room. I point out to her on her clock what time she is allowed to leave the room. On Monday, Anna had been begging to have her nails painted. I told her that if she was good for quiet time then we would paint her nails afterwards. Then I went to lay Lizzie down. Lizzie is fighting a cold, so she was congested and couldn't fall asleep. That's happened before, and I let her play quietly in her room as well, and shut her door.
I started tackling dishes (the ones I don't want the kids to "help" with), but a few minutes later I heard the pitter patter of two pairs of little feet in the hall upstairs. I should note that Lizzie still hasn't figured out how to open her door, so the fact I could hear both of them either meant she had just now figured it out, or it meant that Anna had left her room and opened Lizzie's door. So I went upstairs, found them both in the hallway, and Anna confessed that she had opened Lizzie's door. I put Anna back in her room, pointed out to her that she would not get her nails painted now because she was supposed to stay in her room, and then put Lizzie back in her room. Of course, Anna was not a happy camper, and "quiet time" was no longer quiet as she fussed loudly about her punishment. I decided to just ignore her alternating grumbling and crying about it, but she kept it up for a good 15 minutes.
It was nearing the end of quiet time when I heard a very loud thunk that sounded like it came from Lizzie's room. I went upstairs and into her room, where I was confronted with disaster. A piece of the curtain was ripped and hanging by just a thread, clothes were on the floor, a dresser drawer was also on the floor (hence the thunk), and pieces of black string and hundreds of blue beads were strewn across her room. It didn't take me long to figure out that while out of her room earlier, Lizzie had gone into Anna's room and grabbed a beaded bracelet I let Anna play with, then pulled it apart. I must have missed that she had it when I put her back in her room.
The way I spoke to both girls about the situation was probably not one of my finer parenting moments. To say I was upset is definitely an understatement. However, whatever I said, or the tone of my voice, something had an impact, because they were both perfect angels playing quietly and doing as they were told for the rest of the afternoon... at least until their daddy got home. But I had sent him an e-mail immediately after cleaning up the destruction to tell him they were all his that evening, so I let him deal with that :)
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