About a year ago we were having one heck of a time getting the girls to go to bed without screaming, yelling or crying every night (sometimes it was me!). I decided to beef up our bedtime. Previously we had been doing separate bedtime routines with me doing one girl and hubby doing the other and trading off nights (when he was home) even though we did it at the same time. I decided to start doing a joint bedtime routine which culminated with all four of us sitting on my bed and reading 1 book and doing a journal. Journal is something only for us, babysitters don’t do it and we don’t travel with it. It is something special we do when we are at home together.
It helped with bedtime because the girls are always so excited to do Journal. Before journal the girls need to go potty (or in the past get a clean diaper), brush their teeth and put on their pajamas before we can do journal. The threat of not being able to do if they are not listening well or taking too long is usually enough to get them to get their other necessary tasks.
It’s been a learning process for all of us. The first few days I tried to have the girls dictate made up stories to me. This was too difficult for them so it became an opportunity for the girls to draw. Over time it has morphed more into a memory keeping item. We talk about what we did that day. I let the girls dictate and I try to write exactly what they say (this is still very hard for hubby to do!). Sometimes I let them draw a picture of what we did or something related and Honeybun loves to practice writing her name and other words with us dictating the spelling. We do still have some nights where I just let them draw but we do less of this since it usually results in fighting (“she colored on my picture!” “I wanted that pen!”). I have to admit we’ve also become less than consistent about doing it each night (in fact we missed the entire first 3 weeks of 2013!) We usually skip it if it’s late or any one of us is too tired, which unfortunately is usually me!
I love looking back through it and seeing what we’ve been up to and watching the girls’ progress. I’ve gotten to watch Sugarplum advance from one word, super prompted answers to being able to tell me long, elaborate recounts of our day without help. I’ve gotten to watch Honeybun write her first “H” to writing her entire name and trying to write new things. I watched Sugarplum draw her first circle (and share her excitement) and have watched Honeybun’s people go from circles with 2 eyes, a mouth, arms and legs to elaborate figures like Cinderella with ears, earrings, high heels and gloves (though I’m still waiting for her to realize her people don’t have bodies!). And I can’t wait for the first journal with the new baby when I can trace his/her tiny little hand next to the girls and begin a new chapter in our family journal (and journey). I know taking the time to make these memories together now will be irreplaceable in the future.
In writing this, I’m making it my goal is to get back to the daily family journal; it is such a nice memory for our family. I also want to give the girls more opportunity to write or draw themselves as the opportunity to express themselves is so important! There, it’s out in the universe, guess I’ll have to follow through now!
