Taylor's sticker chart...

Okay, so the behavior with Taylor was improving as I blogged last week, but I hadn't done it for very long so I wasn't sure if it was the newness or if it was actually working. Well, I think it is actually working. We have had a couple of days where she hasn't gotten any stickers and when she wants something we are using as a reward, we explain to her why she can't have it and if her behavior is favorable, when she has enough stickers, she can reap her reward. I didn't know if she would understand all of that, but she does and she works that much harder the next day. I am really happy with her improvement in behavior. It is really cutting back on my stress and seems to be helping in time management also.

Time management is huge in our house because my husband and I both work full time and we work opposite shifts. They are at a babysitter 3 hours a day. In the morning my husband is the single parent getting them dressed, to school, lunch and to the babysitter. I am the single parent in the evening getting dinner, baths, playtime, and to bed at a decent hour. Any little thing can really throw all of this off.

A couple nights a week, we go to my mom's to visit so that helps with the stress level also, because we eat dinner there and it is an extra set of hands to help me wrangle them. It also pushes bath time back and bed time so it is a catch 22. I do enjoy going over there though. It used to be just about every night, but has been cut back to 2 nights. My kids love being around their grandparents and when I first cut back, you would have thought we moved 3000 miles away. Taylor would cry to go to her grandma's, but now she is used to it and seems to be better rested from the earlier bed time and now also better behaved.

I would encourage anybody to use the sticker chart because it does work so well. I'll have to take a picture of it and show you all the lovely chart we, together, have created.