Hurry!

Take a picture before she rips her bow out!

Time bow in: two minutes.

It looks like I'm walking in a rainforest, but I am not.

This is the back of my neighborhood. I love my neighborhood

When I practice what the Dog Whisperer preaches, these puppies are easier to take care of.

1. Exercise
2. Discipline
3. Affection.

In that order.

I just realized: gone are the days when they would pee and poo in the middle of the floor five times by 9:00 am!

Their wrestling and squealing because it's too aggressive has decreased.

They follow commands 90% of the time rather than the 50% they used to.

Barking in the night at normal sounds is almost nonexistent.

The days of thousands of little irritations and constant corrections are gone.

Now we just have hundreds of little irritations and corrections a day.

The biggest improvement is that I am better at correcting without frustration.

They are teaching me to remain calm so that they will be calm.

We're not perfect. But we're better.

The cilantro was in a bag in the fridge for a month while the cilantro on the left sat on the windowsill in water for a month.

I saw on Pinterest that cilantro lasts longer if it is in water like a bouquet. I wanted to know if that is true.

I experimented. I was impressed with the results.

The cilantro on my windowsill turned yellow and old way before the fridge cilantro did.

Maybe the cilantro in the window was not supposed to get direct sunlight.

I guess to be a better experiment, I needed a third bunch of cilantro, in water, with indirect light.

Maybe sometime I'll try it.

I love science.

We found this running across the floor. Ewww!

We captured and saved it to show our best friend who loves bugs. It lived for a couple days in a plastic tub.

After boldly tapping it on the back a few times, our son picked it up! Eww! Eww! Eww!

Although I reminded him of the risks of touching an unknown bug, I did appreciate his courage.

Boys are fun!

Copied from 'Primal Leadership' by Daniel Goleman
"Emotions may spread like viruses, but not all emotions spread with the same ease." A Yale study of working groups found that cheerfulness and warmth spread most easily, while irritability is less contagious and depression spreads hardly at all.

"This greater diffusion rate for good moods has direct implications for business results [and home front results, I add.] Moods, the Yale study found, influence how effectively people work; upbeat moods boost cooperation, fairness, and business performance."

What does this mean to me as a mom and wife? My moods can influence how effectively my family works together. It's as simple as that.

I am committed to practising 'emotion coaching.' It works to manage my own emotions and my family's.

John Gottman [Raising An Emotionally Intelligent Child] teaches science-based emotion coaching. He and Daniel Goleman quote each other when it comes to promoting the importance of emotional intelligence. I love them both!!

They have taught me so much about how to deal with my emotions and my family's too.

We have more peace because of their wonderful research.

Because I believe this with all my heart, I try just a little harder to create and maintain an upbeat mood.

Because I practice emotion coaching, I am aware of and try to accurately label my moods. I allow moods to just be and look for the teaching opportunities in them. Because I forgive myself for my moods, they pass more quickly. An upbeat feeling returns as I triumph and learn from situations.

This is a visual of the twelve roadblocks of communication.  They block the natural flow of conversation.  Thomas Gordon teaches about these roadblocks in his book Parent Effectiveness Training, which I love!  PET is like my parenting bible.  He was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for this stuff; it is that great!

Anyway, he teaches that anytime we start communicating in these ways, we tend to shut off communication with the other person.  A spouse, a child  even a friend sometimes is put off by these methods of communicating.  The stones we lay down in our communication can send them off on an easier path away from our conversation.   

I am proud to say that I have pretty much eliminated ordering, criticizing and labeling.  But I consistently do all the others!  No wonder I can turn off my son and my husband!   Luckily, my husband feels competent on his own so he doesn't take my advising, analyzing or using logic personally.  He views it as part of my quirkiness.  

But my son will think that I think he is not competent enough to figure out stuff on his own, he just shuts down sometimes when I try to solve his problems in these ways.   

I am going to read that chapter again.  I can't remember why moralizing and praising are roadblocks.  To understand how some of these seemingly harmless methods of communication are roadblocks, it helps to read his logic.  I believe it!  

I will print out this picture and hang it on my wall where I can remember to not use these roadblocks in communication.   When I am aware of it, it really works!

I decided that they should not go in the kitchen anymore. I almost squashed them too many times. Now they wear bells so I know where they are.  But still, if they are under my feet while I am working in the kitchen, I could easily hurt them.

I 'claimed the space' in the kitchen as the dog whisperer says to do. But we kept getting confused as to how far they could walk into the kitchen.

So I made a line of demarcation. Lines of demarcation are helpful for my son, too. For example, I make imaginary lines he is not to cross as he rides his scooter near the end if the driveway. It helps him to know where the limits of safety are.

This is the blue masking tape line the dogs are not supposed to cross. They were good about it at first.

Now they cross the line every time I turn my back! Dang! Back to the books; what does the dog whisperer say when they don't follow the boundaries?

He would probably say to stop treating them like they are babies and letting their cuteness bend the rules.  He would probably say that they need more exercise and that 'mastering the walk' will help.   

Needless to say, we have not mastered the walk.  Yet.  

New mini-me shoes