Sadie, New Year's 2004
For this year’s New Year’s resolution blog, I thought I’d do things a little differently. I decided to ask my daughters how they can be better in 2012 and I figured I would tailor my resolutions to them. Why you ask? They continue to make me into the man I am. Even though kids can sometimes drive you nuts, they teach you a lot about life.
Here is what they told me. Below these, I decided to reflect on what they said. Enjoy!
Hallie
1. I want to be really good at games.
2. I want to be a great coloring girl.
3. I don’t want to get attitude, and I want to be nice to Sadie.
4. I want to help more with cooking, because I never cook for people. If I could make dinner, I would make a burrito and pizza.
5. I will try not to talk like a baby, because I want to be a big girl.
Sadie
1. Exercise, because I need to be way more flexible.
2. I would like to cook by myself and try to make something. I want to cook a recipe and practice measuring while I’m doing that.
3. Not yelling at my sister, because I don’t want to make my mom and dad upset.
4. Reading more, because pretty soon I can read a Harry Potter book.
5. Trying to sleep more, so I don’t get sick one day.
6. Doing chores, because I want to make my parents happy.
Great goals from the two of them. Based on what they said, here are mine.
Daddy
1. Instead of spending so much time holding my phone in my hand or opening my laptop for many hours of the day, I will play more games with my kiddos. My youngest says she wants to be better, so we will practice! Also, my oldest needs to learn that cheating doesn’t get her anywhere. What fun would games be if you won all the time right? (ok….for me it would be really fun).
2. Both of them mentioned cooking. I will take at least one day per week to make something with them. That could be cookies, some concoction (Sadie loves to do this) that we will attempt to eat, or burritos and pizza (in Hallie’s case). Maybe some of it can even be edible!
3. To help them “not get attitude”, and “not yell at my sister”, I will be purchasing a cattle prod, or shock collar. Ok….fine. I need to be better about consistency with my own daughters. I have my classroom pretty managed, but sometimes the stress at work carries home and I don’t have the energy to deal with my own kids.
4. To help with stress, I will be spending a lot of time playing Just Dance with my ladies. Dancing is their passion, and that exercise can actually be fun. We would meet their goals of exercising, getting flexible and getting better at games. Maybe I’ll even lose some of the hibernation chubbiness I got over this Christmas break.
5. I will be turning off the tv a lot more. We need to spend more time together doing other things when we are at home. As parents, sometimes it’s much easier just putting on a movie. Most of us are guilty of this. However, I feel a little more guilty this past year. If they are going to “read Harry Potter” this year or get better at coloring, this is the perfect time to make this happen.
6. More sleep for all of us! This means I guess I should go to bed before 11:30 every school night. I swear it doesn’t help much, but maybe I need to set an example for my daughters. My oldest has been having a terrible time getting to sleep. I’m going to start giving the girls some mantra before they go to bed. A couple of weeks before break, I started writing Sadie letters in the morning. I noticed her self-esteem improving when I did this. Being more positive in all of the craziness in the world can’t make things worse.
7. I’m excited that Sadie said she wanted to do more chores. My resolution is to give her more responsibilities….how cool is that? Growing up on a small farm made me appreciate the free time I did get. Chores help you appreciate more the hard work your parents do and teach you how to be responsible. We’ll see how this goes. Considering she has attention problems like me, this could be a challenge.
Noticing how quickly time is passing, I look forward to doing all of these things. They don’t stay young forever. Enjoy your New Year everyone!
Josiah
