Why you don't want to sit next to us in Parenting Classes...

Chowder and I are taking parenting classes that are being offered through the school. It's a fun little evening, dinner, childcare, talking with other parents. It's really nice. Now, the main area Chowder and I fall short is in the consistency arena. I may have mentioned that we are both ADD. I can't tell you the number of times that Chowder has come home and asked where Skaterboy is, only to have me tell him that he is out with his friends, and then to have him tell me that I forgot *again* that Skaterboy was grounded. Once when he got banned from the family room because he kept leaving dishes in there even after we told him he could no longer eat in there, I had to make a sign with "Skaterboy" on it and a circle with a slash through it. It was the only way I would remember.

At one point in the evening we were discussing rules and consequences and rewards. We were supposed to make a list of our rules and the rewards and consequences that go along with them. Chowder and I sat there staring at the blank sheet of paper. Neither one of us could come up with a single rule/reward/consequence that we have. Finally, I wrote down a rule I could remember.

• Pants must be worn at the dinner table.

Chowder and I collapsed into a fit of giggles. Because, that really is a rule I have made. While people around us wrote down, "Make beds before breakfast." We wrote down

• If it has come out of your body, it does not go back in.

along with

• Respect species specific food i.e. bird food is for birds and dog food is for dogs

It's not that the kids don't make their beds. They do. But, that is more of just something that we do. Every morning we get dressed, make our beds, brush our teeth, take our vitamins. I have never felt like I had to spell it out as a rule. Unlike

• Everybody wears their own underwear.