{"id":312,"date":"2010-03-07T13:22:27","date_gmt":"2010-03-07T18:22:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.annakatedonovan.com\/?p=312"},"modified":"2010-03-07T13:22:27","modified_gmt":"2010-03-07T18:22:27","slug":"the-power-of-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/annakatedonovan.com\/?p=312","title":{"rendered":"the power of 1…"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you have young children, you’re probably familiar with the concept of counting to three to give your child the chance to do something themselves.\u00a0 For example, “Laura, it’s time to pick a story to read for nap time.”\u00a0 “I don’t want to.”\u00a0 “I’m going to count to 3.\u00a0 If you haven’t picked a story, I’ll pick it for you.”\u00a0 This usually results in a glare from the 3 year old.\u00a0 So I say, “ONE<\/span>.”\u00a0 And she’s off…running to her room to pick a book.\u00a0 Heaven forbid Mommy pick the story!\u00a0 I have yet to get past TWO<\/span> with Laura.\u00a0 She hasn’t pushed me that far….yet.\u00a0 She will eventually, that is a given.\u00a0 Truth be told, I’ve only gotten to THREE<\/span> a few times in the eight and a half years that I have been a mother.<\/p>\n

The counting tactic still works on Abigail and Hattie, much to my surprise.\u00a0 Abigail is a procrastinator.\u00a0 Especially at bed time.\u00a0 It is not her fault.\u00a0 She inherited the procrastination gene from both sides.\u00a0 When bed time rolls around, she is usually giggly and we are no longer feeling tolerant.\u00a0 She will dance around the living room…or fall on the floor and pretend that she can’t get up…or pretend that she doesn’t hear us…or act like she is “helping” her sisters do something (we know this is an act because her sisters are loud protesters of unwanted “help”).\u00a0\u00a0 It doesn’t take me long to get to “ONE<\/span>!”\u00a0 She knows that means business.\u00a0 No more shenanigans.\u00a0 Mom is done.<\/p>\n

Hattie’s crime that results in a “ONE<\/span>” is usually cleaning up.\u00a0 She detests cleaning up.\u00a0 It’s getting better but it still occasionally results in some parental encouragement.<\/p>\n

The punishment of getting to THREE<\/span> isn’t that bad.\u00a0 Usually it involves time out and losing computer time or dessert.\u00a0 Maybe it still works because I don’t use it all the time.\u00a0 Maybe because my tone in the counting game (at least with the older two) is much more serious.\u00a0 I’m not smiling.\u00a0 Like I said, when Mom starts counting, Mom is DONE.<\/p>\n

Now, I really should get off the computer and get back to de-germing the house from our battle with the cold and fever bug this weekend.\u00a0 But I don’t want to….but I need to….ONE<\/span>…TWO<\/span>…………<\/p>\n

PS – I have to give my husband credit for the idea of this blog.\u00a0 I dealt out a “ONE<\/span>” the other night at bed time and he just looked at me and said “the power of one”.\u00a0 So, thanks honey!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you have young children, you’re probably familiar with the concept of counting to three to give your child the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-children"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/annakatedonovan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/annakatedonovan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/annakatedonovan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annakatedonovan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annakatedonovan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=312"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/annakatedonovan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":314,"href":"https:\/\/annakatedonovan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312\/revisions\/314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/annakatedonovan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annakatedonovan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annakatedonovan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}