1-2-3 Day 2

Ok so, yesterday was testing day! :-S The kids were pretty good early morning, I only had to put them on the chair once or twice.
At 9am I packed all three kids in the van and headed out for Bible study. I was babysitting so I was curious how the kids would act. Miriam never had to sit on the chair the whole time we were out. Although she was counted to 2 a few times. She also didn't get her candy in the van because she decided to run down the church hallway while I was searching for Dylan's boots. (Other children seem to think Dylan's boots are toys. They are rarely where I put them when I took them off. :-P Moral of this little story. Just buy plain boots).
Dylan on the other hand.... I lost count how many times he sat on the chair. He LOVES sitting in the baby swings and bouncers and he is way to big for them, so every time I wasn't looking for a few seconds he would jump in one. He already knows very well he's not allowed in those so that was an automatic 3.
When we got home the kids were pretty good. They both sat on the chair a few times but not too crazy, and there was no yelling or fits :-) yay!!!
Then the worst time of the day came around..... Making supper time..... Usually when I take out any kind of food the kids will cry, whine, and hang on me until they get something to eat :-( If I ignore them (or at least try to) then they will whine, cry, and hang on me until supper time.... I did not like making supper for that reason! Yesterday was a massive improvement!!!! I took out the food, they both did the norm - whine, cry, hang - It went a little like this:
Miriam in a whining voice "Can I have something to eat?"
Me: No, we will have supper when Daddy comes home."
"I'm hungry"
"1"
Miriam runs away and plays!!!!!!!!!!! ahhhh!!!!!!!! WEIRD!!!!!!!!
Dylan was counted to 2 and then he ran away and played too :-) YAY! (We had homemade soup and homemade bread for supper :-) mmmmm)!
Since Miriam has started eating by herself, supper has been kinda chaotic some days and peaceful others. Last night was one of those chaotic suppers, in the end she finished her supper! She didn't even go to bed early. (Unfortunately for us the bad suppers are usually when she is tired and then she actually asks to go to bed "Mom can I eat this tomorrow and go to bed now, I'm tired." Seriously this is what she'd say! She wasn't kidding, she would go to bed willingly and stay there till morning)!
Bedtime for Dylan is usually a challenge... oh, he gets his pj's on willingly, hops in bed, prays with me/Matthew, pops his soother in his mouth, grabs his doggie and lays down happy. Then we shut the door. He then promptly jumps out of bed and bangs on the door. We open the door, he runs back to his bed with a smile on his face happy to be chased back to bed. We tried talking sternly to him through the door "Go Back To Bed Dylan!" and it sounded like he would go run back to bed and be out again within the next 2 mins, sometimes this would go on for an hour (NO exaggeration)! :-( So last night we ignored him, he cried at his door for about 5mins, then Matthew said through the door in a normal, non threatening voice, "go back to bed Dylan" and he went back to bed. Done. WHAT? I always thought if you put a threatening deep tone to your voice the kid will listen. Well this works better :-P When Miriam went to bed a 1/2 hour later Dylan was still awake but in his bed. After Matthew had tucked Miriam in, Dylan did climb up the ladder and tried to bug Miriam. (Miriam just continued to try to go to sleep)! Matthew went in the room, removed the ladder, put Dylan in his own bed and walked out. TADAA peace :-)
It's getting easier not to get mad or frustrated and the kids are playing nicer both independently and together :-)
Ok I have to go now. As I type Dylan is taking the potatoes out of the potato bin and whacking them around the kitchen with his hockey stick. He always thinks of new mischievous things to do! :-S......................5mins later - With only a little prompting Dylan put the 4 potatoes and one onion back in their appropriate bins (although one potato somehow made it into the onion bin :-P) He also picked up all the onion skins and put them in the garbage :-) All I had to say was "Dylan please put those potatoes back" and "Please put these in the garbage" and all he said was "I will" and did :-)

Day 2 of 123:
I still recommend reading this book :-) But don't just go by what I'm saying here in this blog and try this stuff out, read the book first, I may have missed things or forgotten to write them out. :-)