February 4, 2010

The Rules

I had a very funny conversation with a mother at Nate's preschool yesterday about "the rules" in her house.
She came home to see her husband feeding their 2 year old daughter yogurt in the living room. This was of course against "the rules". All children should be fed in the kitchen....for obvious reasons unless you want to live in a fraternity house. This was after her husband let the kids watch DVD's in her car, parked in the garage, which drained the battery. Her husband called her the next day on his way to work to say, "Honey, I'm really trying to comply with the rules, but I don't really know what they are. Do you think you could post them in the house?

It got me thinking about the rules in our house, and if or how they are enforced. I have to say I do have an advantage. I of course have "Mommy's Little Sheriff". Nate enforces the rules much better than I do. In fact sometimes I just wish he would take over, feed everybody dinner, grocery shop, and make sure the house is clean. He would whip us all into shape. Here are some of our rules and how they are enforced by our local sheriff.

Rule #1 - No violent video games
Nate -"Mom do you hear what I hear?"
Me -"No, what Nate?"
Nate-"Daddy, he's upstairs playing shooting games."
Me -"Oh ok."
Nate - "I'll go take care of it".
Me - "Great thanks." (I don't have to walk up the stairs then.)

Rule #2 - No eating on the couch
Doug - "Let's have some pizza while we watch T.V."
Lori - "I think we should eat in the kitchen".
Doug - "It will be fine, we'll be careful".
Nate - "No, mommy's right! Let's take our pizza to the table. It will be too messy out here. Jack will get sauce everywhere."

Rule #3 - Bed time is at 8:00PM
Lori - "I'm just going to get under my covers for a few minutes.
Nate - "OK Mommy, I'll tuck you in."
Nate - "Let me turn out the lights for you."
Lori - "Thanks Nate, that's great."
Nate - "I'll be downstairs Mommy if you decide to wake up". Door closes behind him.
Lori - (silent....had already fallen asleep by 8:00PM - I know how to follow the rules well.)

Jack has a whole other set of rules, that's I'll go into another day. The one main rule though that made the books last year, is this: No baseball bats in the house. I don't have enough time to list all the reasons why, but I have to say it's not a popular one with the under 5 crowd.

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