The Mommy Upgrade

If this is your first time reading my blog you may not know that I have two kids. My daughter is 9 and my son is 5. Since becoming a mother I have taken my job as a mother seriously - sometimes too seriously to where it consumes me, and sometimes I find myself getting too lax where child-rearing is concerned. A Mommy Upgrade is seriously overdue, but after this weekend my kids will be enlightened in a way only a Mommy can enlighten.

A Mommy Upgrade isn't something kids, mine or any other, are likely to fully enjoy initially, but because this is my JOB it is what I deem necessary to work myself out of this job. So this is is the deal: Every so often parents have to raise their level of expectation regarding the kiddies. If parents don't, kids will likely become stagnant and it is quite sad to see a healthy adult walking around with a child-like mind.

When my kids were babies I allowed them to be babies. I talked to them (a LOT!) although I didn't use that crazy baby-talk. It was my thinking that babies are people who need to grow up speaking English, not babbling, so full sentences - including some 'big' words - were the order of that baby phase. When the kids turned 2, they had to be upgraded. At 2 they were told that they were no longer babies - they were, after all, walking, talking, eating solid food, telling me "no", going potty and the like. The baby days were packed away at age 2. At age 4 they were upgraded again. It was time to get very serious about learning all-things preschool.

By age 5, it was time to start preparing for kindergarten. The kids need to know how to behave when there is another adult overseeing them. My neighbor hipped me to the idea that kids entering kindergarten need to be taught how to eat - preferably the entree before dessert - so Nas and I have talked about that while I still have him home. It's also a time the kids learn to talk to an adult, at school or anywhere else, when they need help. This "age 5" upgrade has proven to be the most intense upgrade - but it's still early!

My daughter hasn't seen an upgrade in awhile now and we are way overdue. I like to do upgrades for both of the kids at the same time because upgrades can be quite rigorous, so Nas gets the kindergarten upgrade along with the Domestic Duties upgrade.

The Domestic Duties upgrade is a full-week's schedule of age-appropriate chores. Each child has one, maybe two, chores a day that must be completed or privileges will be taken away. They will both be paid a fair amount on a weekly basis but the payment will not be based on whether chores are completed because I need my kids to learn to handle money; the sooner the better! The kids must learn to be part of the household in a way that requires effort on their part, but is fair based on their ages. I just might let some of the control-freak in me go so I can teach Jay to do laundry this summer - we'll see ;)

If I don't teach my kids to gradually become more independent I will have done them a disservice, and THAT is simply not an option. I will definitely fail them as a mother in one way or another, but when there are lessons to be taught that are staring me in the face I cannot just turn away, I owe it to them to upgrade them. And so I upgrade!