New Rules

Children aren't always trying to be mischievous, sometimes they're just having fun.   It is during some of these fun times that adults will tell them their master plan of, say, putting piles of sand from the sandbox onto the trampoline was not a good idea and was from this point going forward, not allowed. 

We had a set of rules for the trampoline, which have worked out well with children respecting them.   What we need now is a list of rules for the backyard.   One of the main ones is the leaving of belongings in the yard, on the ground, not in the cubbies I got specifically for jackets, hats, socks, and shoes.   

I wouldn't mind if it was overnight and then the child would come running back for the things they forgot. Instead, they come with new items on and never take the prior ones home.   It can get to be a rather large collection left out in the rain for weeks. 

Weeks, because we wanted to see if they would ever take things home.  They don't.  So now I'm working om a new list that also includes food and beverages because some children (and mine aren't innocent here either) are leaving food containers and wrappers all around. 

I want to change the rules such that they police each other.   If things are left and litter happens or if they put sand all over the place, then we're closing the backyard for a week.   

The Big Boy Tiny Girl Audiobook Agreement:  The children like to listen to the same book sometimes and when this happens, the other one doesn't want to hear ahead in the book.   This causes arguments and fights with the Amazon Alexa's in the house.  In order to quell the arguments, today on the way to school I asked them to come up with a plan.   They had a good one: the audiobook goes off unless they both want to hear what's on or agree on something else together.