Toilets, Homework, 'Arnin' and Responsibility

Yesterday I walked into our bathroom and was a little surprised to see the toilet seat down. I know we have small boys but with Joseph liking to play in the toilet, I try hard to have the boys put the lid down. I went to put the lid down and then realized why it was up. Someone had colored all over the lid. Funny how they thought if you raise the lid, mom will never know. Then I looked around and saw the black permanent marker. Frustrated! Dealt with the culprit and then tried to clean it off. Grabbed my bottle of spray cleaner and paper towel - no luck. Grabbed the spray cleaner and scouring pad - the color lifted a little but also smeared/scratched it. Then I turned to the trusty Google. I found an easy solution for getting permanent marker off of heavy plastic. I thought close enough to porcelin, or whatever it is. The remedy was to take a dry erase marker and trace over the permanent marker. Use a dry cloth and then a wet cloth and presto it is gone. No presto. Looked even worse, like a huge cover up. I walked away for a bit, came back and tried straight bleach - nope. On a whim, grabbed my Comet - bingo. Took it right off, no scrubbing or anything. Almost as easy as wiping up water.

I have printed off some handwriting sheets for Jbird. Just one word, his name. But boy, is he ever proud of his doing 'homework'. He is almost able to trace the dotted line perfectly.

The weather is changing here. The high on Monday is suppose to be -5 (yep, a negative number for the high). This past week we were out enjoying the 'warm' weather. We have a fisher price basketball goal set up outside and it never got brought in before it froze to the driveway. Since it was warmer, I was determined to chip away at the ice so the rest of it would melt and we could move it. The boys brought out 3 pitchers of hot water and about 30 cups. They poured and poured, to no avail. At one point Jbird walked up to me and said
"we are 'arnin' God".
One more time, what was that Jbird.
We are arnin God. You know, God does not like snow and ice on the driveway so we are arnin Him.
Then it hit me, he was talking about honoring God. It was more that they were honoring me by obeying/helping me, but to honor me means to honor God too. They are catching some of what is being taught.

The thing I am really trying to focus on is responsibility. I don't know if it is the age, the fact that they are boys, the fact that I am not the most consistent or maybe they inherited some of it (probably a little of everything) but my boys are having a hard time with responsibility. A friend gave me the Love and Logic book on tape and have been listening to it some. They are right on when they say responsibility can't be taught but it has to be caught. Learning how to phrase things in such a way that gives them power to make choices and learn the responsibility instead of unintentionally tearing them down with our words. (Although I am a huge propopent of kids failing and learning from consequences).

Will see how we progress. Maybe instead of reading books in the tub, I can just move the CD player up there and listen - wonder how easily I could take notes :-)