Ah, the sound of...

....screaming children. I don't really know what to do with Jakey lately, his patience with his brother has worn thin. He shoves him to the ground for looking at him wrong, he screams at him constantly. I hate that they feel this way towards eachother but then I remember feeling this way towards my brothers....

When I was about Jakey's age I got this little piano thing for Christmas. It was color coded and had a little song book and you could just follow the colors and be able to make music. On my mom's birthday a few days after Christmas my brother Eric took it from me. I argued with him in the hallway about it, there were alot of people over for a party and so I wasn't getting any help from the adults. Eric and I kept arguing back and forth and finally I shoved him. He hit the corner of the wall in the hallway and split his head open. Boy did I get the adult's attention then! I got sent to my parents room and I remember feeling horrible that it had happened, and my dad's mother coming in and spanking me, and then my mom's mom coming in and spanking me, and then my mom coming in and spanking me, and then finally when he got home from the hospital with Eric, my dad coming in and spanking me. Boy did I get whooped. And Eric got quite a few stitches. Even now almost 20 years later you can still see a little mark in his hair because he keeps his hair very short.

I'm not a huge spanker, I mean I'm not anti-spanking, I don't think I was scarred permanently by a few whoopings here and there, but I don't think it's as effective as other things you could do. So in our house we have a chart that looks like this:

Super!
Great!
Good!
Think About It
BIG TROUBLE!

in little boxes in that order....every day the boys start with their magnetic star (the chart is on the fridge) in the good spot, if they do nice things, or what-have-you, they move their star up (with my permission or at my request) to Great!, if they do not-so-good things, at my request, they move their star down and have a 10 minute time out (5 for Justin). At the end of the day they get 10 extra minutes of story time if their star is above Good! (That is EXTRA mind you, we read for 15 minutes just because, the rest is extra) If they earn enough Super! days they get to buy a toy at the dollar store (it's something like 10 Super days, not all in a row, but there can't be a BIG TROUBLE day in there or it resets the Supers! Anyhow Jakey understands it, and that's the point right? LOL

So today - where are the boys stars you ask? It's 10:08 am and they are both on BIG TROUBLE. Justin for smacking me this morning and then pooping on the floor while I looked for clothes for him. Jakey for back talking and hitting Justin. Sigh, oh well, tonight I can just put them in bed and do 15 minutes of reading and then go on about my business for the rest of the night.