- NANNY 911, CAME TO OUR HOUSE -

well, since we're living in a little rental house, until our new home's built, we've no place for a kitchen table, so we're all eating on tv trays so to speak, in the living room - since we're all in the living room during meal times, we taped a ton of shows & we've been watching them while we eat [we'll all be so glad when this habit, we're able to break]

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one of our family favorites is nanny 911 [a reality show to help parents learn to parent better] - well, the kids really like it & seem to get upset with the children on that show & all the bad behavior that goes on

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well, we've been dealing some issues [big to our family that is], that even though they don't warrant calling nanny 911 to send someone from england to help us, we still need to work hard on curbing some of these behaviors & thought we'd use this show to help out

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spike & i were talking about it last night after the girls went to bed & he mentioned nanny 911 - he said, "what's the first thing nanny does when she goes into a home & sees what's going on?" - i said, "she gives the family a set of rules...their own family rule book" [our kids talk about the 'family rule book' during each episode too] - i said, "that's right, i'll make one for us!!"

we thought about what we deal with mostly at this time & targeted only those for now - as you can see from our rule book, there's 4 main problems & they're listed [no yelling, no hitting or kicking, no tattling & stay in bed]

in the rule book, there's also ways to obtain privileges & they're listed as well [5 tokens = stay up 30 extra minutes or listen to a CD when you lay down, 10 tokens = movie at naptime & 20 tokens = a date with a parent for ice cream, a walk, going to the playground, out to eat or something else special]

well, i wrote it up, printed it off & spike did the book binding [isn't he good!] & we put it in the mailbox - the girls woke up today & i said, "hey, guess what?" - they all looked at me dazed & confused - i said, "you know we've been working on some things around here & it's not been working out very well?" - kiara said, "about not obeying?" - i said, "yeah, but guess what? - one of the nanny's from nanny 911 emailed me & said they'd come to our house & left something for you in the mailbox" - their eyes were huge [except for ruby's, as with her being deaf, there's still that barrier we've to work through, so i signed what i could, but it still wasn't clicking for her] - we reminded the girls that every family gets these rule books & nanny had brought ours to our house

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we went downstairs & turned on one of these shows & paused it when nanny was handing the 'family rule book' to the family she was working with, so i could show ruby what i was talking about

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kiara went & got the mail & their eyes lit up!! - she read it to us as we signed for ruby - i also added pictures in the book to make it easier for ruby to understand as well - they all have a 'favorite nanny' out of the 3 that's always on there, so we put all 3 of their names on the front cover of the book so they'd all be happy [they asked which one sent it too!!]

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they've done pretty well today as we're taking the advise of the nanny's & when they do something [ie: yell], i'll say, "here's your warning about yelling, next time you'll take a time out" & then, if it happens again, they sit [karleigh = 4 minutes, ruby = 5 minutes & kiara = 6 minutes]

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they each earned 1 token today & i really felt bad, as i told spike tonight that tomorrow, i need to make sure they get a couple to show them how good they're doing [ie: one time karleigh said in a very whiny voice, "mommy, ruby [LONG pause]... oh never mind" & i said, "good job karleigh, you didn't tattle", but then just dropped it - i should've rewarded her for it...bummer] - nanny would've scolded 'mum' for sure on that one!!

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i'm looking forward to seeing how they do tomorrow & watching those tokens build - they're such good girls & i know some will say, "oh my, if that's all you've to deal with, you've got it lucky" & i know what people mean & we're so blessed, but still with 3 of them all doing this, it's VERY LOUD around here!!! -