Which came first? The chicken or the egg?

You've heard about the chicken and the egg I'm sure.

I've got a new one for ya. Except... well... I might've heard my mom say this once or twice. (grinning)

Which comes first us? Training parents or training kids?

Case in point:

Our children, who by the way are a TOTAL delight to us, have developed this thing over the past couple of years of wanting to sleep on the floor. That has been not so delightful to me. Why would anybody in their right mind want to sleep on the hard, uncomfortable and unforgiving floor instead of a soft, comfy, snugly bed?

I'll give you two clues as to who would like to do so: 1) They live in this house. 2) It's not Diamond

That - my friends would be my husband, my daughter and my son. Yes. They inherited that particular gene from my husband. Literally - he has no problem falling asleep on the floor! I can't identify.

But, I digress.

We have tried ALL sorts of things to make bed seem like a good place to be. We came up with something that worked like a charm for Jaci but not Zachary. If they sleep in their bed every night of the week, they can sleep anywhere they want on Tuesday nights. Why Tuesday nights? Dunno. It just seemed like a good night. Jaci has slept in a *tent* under the dining room table, in our bed (then was moved to hers) and under chairs. Her favorite spot? The green couch - because it's comfy.

WHAT????? (shrugs shoulders)

But alas - as all of you veteran parents know, each child is different. (insert ominous music for those who are planning on having more than one child, but as of yet do not.) I have heard it and said it until the cows came home, but it really is true.

Which brings me to our son that is filled with so much joy and laughter. Nothing - and I repeat - nothing worked. Bedtime always seemed to end with so much frustration for me and Brent and our Zachinator.

Our parenting style is might be a little different from some. We're not super-quick to spank, in fact rarely do so. The offense has to be horrible to garner that response from us. We're also too tenderhearted to leave our children sobbing themselves to sleep in their bedrooms. Only once have we tried the *cry-it-out* method with Jaci. She was six months and I'll never ever forget it. That incident is forever etched in my mind. I was sobbing in the other room and Brent was close to tears himself. Horrible. It's not for us.

So - I don't know. You might be thinking that we made this all too hard on ourselves and can come up with a bunch of easy-peasy solutions. Maybe. But it's us. And they're our children.

Usually... after what felt like f.o.r.e.v.e.r we (cough-Brent) always caved and our little guy ended up falling asleep on the floor (which is what he wanted all along), after which he got moved to his bed. The tail was definitely wagging the dog!

I heard once that you want to keep the little things little and the big things big. I have also heard that if it doesn't really matter, don't make it matter. Sleeping on the floor seems harmless... but I didn't want them to do it! For very practical reasons of course.

Drool... don't really want it on my carpet. Have ya'll looked at your pillows lately? 'nuff said.

Pee... don't want it on my carpet. Our children have never had bed-wetting problems, but there has been the occasional accident... okay, maybe it was just once. But still - it could happen again! And, the frugal mamma I am doesn't want to see her expen$ive, non-vinyl, non-crinkly waterproof mattress pad that she was so happy to find not be able to do the thing it was made to do.

Vomit... REALLY don't want it on my carpet. It's bad enough scooping the icky sheets off the bed and throwing them in the washer. I don't particularly enjoy scrubbing vomit out of the carpet. (shudders at the thought)

Good reasons, right? I think so, and therefore, to me - it matters.

Which brings me to the point of my blog and the reason for the title.

This thought kept niggling in the back of my mind that we have to have something that has a bite to it. I had this idea I thought would work, but I wasn't ready to make the idea work. Isn't that terrible? I had to gear up in my mind and get ready for the battle that was sure to come. I had to *train* myself, in other words.

My idea was to ban ALL electronics for him the next day if he didn't sleep in his bed the night before. Now Zachary is his father's son. He loves video games. They have male bonding over video games. So - this proposition was a big deal.

Floor Monday night? No electronics Tuesday!

I really don't like coming up with ultimatums like that because then you HAVE to follow through. If you don't, and you're kids figure out that you're full of hot air? You're toast! So there you have it. Ugh. The not-so-fun side of parenting.

I had to train me before I could train Zachary. I had to be ready to follow through. So, I laid out the plan to the Zachinator. I was calm on the outside but cringing on the inside. I told him earlier in the day so he would have time to process it before bed. I didn't think it would be nice to just spring it on him after he had his jammies on.

The clock ticked toward bedtime. I was dreading it. Finally it was time to ask the deceptively simple question.

"Remember what you and Mommy talked about earlier? Are you sleeping on the floor, or are you sleeping on your bed?"

And I had the shock of my life.

He said, "The bed." And hopped up into it.

And that was all there was to that!

What?

Really?

It was that simple???????????????

Brent looked at me and about freaked out! I hadn't had a chance to tell him about the earlier conversation. He was proud of me.

So tell me, which comes first? Training ourselves as parents... or training our kids? I think you can't have one without the other.

Our kids really do follow us... makes my knees tremble.

P.S. I do have to give the honor to my Jesus for giving me this creative idea. There are so many times I pray for God to give us creative ideas to train my children. He created them, and so He knows better than anyone else what will be effective for our children. He is the author of creativity. If he can figure out how to create something out of nothing, He can give us creative parenting solutions! I have seen this happen so many times. Absolute success when we follow His advice. (I'm sure that's a verse in Proverbs somewhere. )