Dancing in the Living Room

My five-year-old, Noah, and I had just finished lunch, when he started singing - a little "Nocturnal Animals" by Billy Jonas - as I was cleaning up the kitchen.

The singing turned into jumping and grabbing my hands, insisting that I swing him around.

"Come on, Mom! Let's dance!"

My boy, who lately just wants to rush upstairs to play video games when he gets home from school, wanted to dance with me and do a few "tricks" too. (Watch out, Dancing with the Stars, there's a new kid in town!)

We moved our dance party into the living room so I could turn on the iPod and get some music playing. We danced, laughed, twirled, bounced, and flipped - well, he flipped - through probably four or five songs. It was a lot of fun, and I got my workout for the day. Lifting and swinging a 45 pound kid around is not easy!

It wasn't planned. It only took a few minutes...and it was, honestly, the highlight of my day.

I've got the iPod plugged in and ready to go so we can "dance, dance, dance" again this afternoon. It may even keep Noah distracted from wanting to play Super Mario Brothers...at least for a little while.

A Twist on Teaching Table Manners

To curb the "yuck"s, constant interrupting, and feet…I mean, elbows on the table, I started a reward incentive called “Mind Your Marbles” to motivate my kids to mind their manners.  The kids can each earn marbles by staying in their seats, saying “please” and “thank you”, and – my personal favorite – taking their plates to the sink. The marbles are dropped into their special glasses lined with a decorated index card. Once they fill it half way, they get to choose a yummy dessert. When the glass is filled to the brim, they can choose the entire meal (plus dessert) for the family – or pick a favorite restaurant!  This incentive has worked wonders. My kids are excited to “mind their marbles” and even ask to help set the table to earn extras - gotta love that!

*What works at your dinner table? Thanks for sharing!

Laugh the Night Away!

Looking for something different to do with the kids this weekend? Here's a fun activity from Fishful Thinking  that our family did together not too long ago. We had a great time!

Laugh Night - We can teach our children to value and savor positive emotions by creating a ritual that shines the spotlight on a positive feeling (love,humor, inspiration, interest, gratitude, joy, serenity, hope, pride or awe.) Positive emotions not only feel good, but they fuel creativity,contribute to resilience, and strengthen relationships. 

We kicked things off one Saturday laugh-afternoon by watching The Slumber Party episode from the first season of The Cosby Show (my favorite!) - the one where Rudy has EIGHT kids sleep over, and Dr. Huxtable does the Bucking Bronco thing on his knee with each one of them. Hilarious. Abby and Noah thought it was really funny too. Then we made giant pancakes for dinner and used all kinds of fruit to make funny faces on them.

Decked out in silly hats, we even had a bubble blowing contest with our milk! The kids were loving it - especially since I'm usually telling them not to do that. We also read some jokes from a kids' joke book and had a couple of laughs - pretty cheesy stuff.

After we finished our pancakes, it was time for a game. I wrote some silly things on index cards - do the chicken dance, make a fish face, pat your head & rub your belly, etc...- and we had to pick a card and do what it said. That probably got the most laughs of the evening...well, that and an online episode of Wipe Out. I tell ya,  the kids and their dad can't get enough of that show. They were cracking up.

All in all, it was a cool family night - easy, fun, and free! We'll have to do it again soon, but next time maybe watch a funny movie instead...'cause this mama can only take so much of Wipe Out.

*Originally posted in August 2010