Cal Did Math and Ella Made Her Bed

I meant to write and post this one the day it happened last week but clearly never got around to it.  With a full week off from work, I had expected to get in daily posts; but between dealing with the Crazies and taking on some major work around or for the house, I just didn’t.  C’est la vie.

So last Thursday morning, Dan and I were just rolling out some new tactics to inspire good (let’s face it, we’ll settle for just better) behavior out of the Leatherkids; and we found that two of those tactics had some unintended benefits.  One involved the kids’ revived reward charts, and the second involved Ella’s big-girl bed.

Cal and Ella now each have a reward chart hanging on our fridge in the kitchen.  Each chart has six goals on it, and each goal has seven squares in which stars can be placed, one for each day of the week, if the goal was achieved that day.

The charts had been hanging on the fridge, unused and barely even acknowledged, for about a week.  Ella’s goals were filled in pretty quickly (it’s very clear to us what her goals are… very clear); but we needed more time to get Cal’s goals right.  Inspired by the goings on last Tuesday evening, we finalized his goals and then took a day to put the charts into action.

I don’t recall if we announced to the kids that we’d be starting the charts that Thursday morning or if Cal just finally noticed or acknowledged their presence on the fridge.  Somehow, we got on the topic of them; and Dan presented Cal with a little word problem to solve:

“If there are six goals on your chart, Cal,” Dan started, “how many stars can you get in a week?”

Cal's Math

Cal was initially frozen, trying to figure it out but clearly needing a little direction.  We asked him things like “how many days are there in a week?” to which he’d say that there are seven.  “And how many goals are on your chart?” to which he’d say that there are six.  “Okay, so that’s six, seven times,” we said, and Dan started to write a column of 6’s on a piece of scrap paper lying on our kitchen island.  After Dan had written two 6’s, Cal took the pencil and finished the column himself so that there were seven 6’s vertically on the paper and "+" signs between each 6.

He then did the math, first adding 6 + 6, taking the result of that and adding another 6, taking the result of that and adding another 6… and so on, until he had used up all of his 6’s. 

“42!” he finally announced, and we praised the heck out of him for figuring that out.  He's not even six himself!

Earlier, Ella had gotten her own set of praise.  Wednesday night had been her first night sleeping in her big-girl bed.  Dan and I had spent the better part of Wednesday driving up and down Route 59 looking for a big-girl furniture set to replace her toddler bed and changing table-turned-drawerless dresser, under-estimating the cost of this and foolishly thinking we’d be able to walk into a store, find what we liked and then leave with it in our hands… or arms… or however we thought we’d get it home, which, I really don’t know that we were thinking that far ahead... at least, I wasn't.  Anyway, we ended our search by deciding to order a set online but finding a full-sized mattress at the same discount mattress place we had bought Cal’s a couple of years earlier.  WE NEEDED THAT BED THAT NIGHT, doctor’s orders (I'm not kidding).

While Dan set the bed up in its basic frame with no headboard, Ella and I ran to Kohl’s to pick out a bedding set for it.  To no one's surprise, though for a second I thought she might choose the "Despicable Me" minions one, she chose the "Frozen" bedding whose key feature was a purple-ish comforter with images of Elsa and Anna smack dab in the middle of it.  When we got home, we threw it on her new bed, and she actually slept in it… the whole night… without a struggle.

When she emerged in the doorway of our room that Thursday morning, we praised the heck out of her for going to bed well and staying in bed the whole night, a feat rarely achieved in recent months, possibly even a year now (I've lost track).

Dan took her to her room to help her get dressed as I got my own self dressed.  Eventually, I heard Dan calling me, “Mommy, come to Ella’s room.  She has something to show you!”

Ella's New Big-Girl Bed, Made by Ella

When I got to her room, Ella was dressed and standing next to the foot of her bed and wearing a proud smile.  I looked at her bed, and her comforter was stretched up to the pillows at the head of the bed.  Her treasured "blue blankie" was laid out across her two pillows, and on the pillows she had placed Bunny and Ducky, the two stuffed animals with whom she had slept the night before.  So sweet.
“You made your bed!” I exclaimed.  “I’m SOOO proud of you!” And we exchanged high fives.

Between Cal's math and Ella's made bed, it was a morning to remember.