I have a parenting hack for a 5 minute break. Last night one of my kids was saying "Dad, dad, can you give me a challenge?". Expecting things like hop around the house on one foot, or that sort of thing.

I said "I bet you can't sit still on a chair for 5 minutes", this being a child who regularly falls off their chair at dinner time. They thought that was a great challenge, so I set a timer and the challenge was on. The look on their face made it look like they were concentrating harder than they had ever concentrated in their life, but they were really determined and managed to do it! And I got to sit down for a 5 min break 😮

After that, the other kids wanted to have a turn too, but one of them decided that they could just pause the timer and do some thing they wanted to do. Of course that defeats the purpose, but they didn't think so, so I think the hack won't work again.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Sadly I don't think my children would fall for it.. I've tried the "Who can be quiet the longest" and it never worked!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Who can be quiet the longest works briefly on my kids, the only problem is their capability is pretty low.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I really like:

Okay kids, we're going to take a nap and then when we wake up we're going to clean the house!

They nap for ages...

[–] flambonkscious 2 points 1 month ago

Okay, you win. That's brilliant!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Oooh, I'm going to have to try that one! Though they might actually want to clean the house since I often use "we can't do until the house is clean", so there might be an expectation of doing fun things!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

On road trips my parents used to get us kinder with:

When you see a horse you can't talk until you see a dog.

I now use it on my child units.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Haha does that actually work? I would think you'd see them in quite different places, and depending on the time of day you might not see a dog very often at all!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Yup, incredibly variable.

It also tends to trigger debates about whether pictures of said animals count. Which is a good discussion rather than siblings fighting about how ugly the other one is.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Planted the vege garden over the weekend. Took in some learnings from last year, so here's hoping to a good harvest this year :)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Nice! What are you growing this year?

I converted another area of lawn to soil for planting, so now have even less grass to mow.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

We planted a bunch of lettuce, some chilli's, eggplants, cherry tomatoes, zucchinis and a few different herbs.

Oh nice. Sounds like you guys are growing quite a bit of food!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

I'm actually doing a little less now. Been focusing on putting a few more small trees and more perennial herbs and veges so I'm not having to replace them every season.

I usually try to grow too many new things each year and sometimes end up not getting a lot of food out of it. I decided to focus on just a few types this year. Also a few more perennial flowers for the pollinators. Oh and not doing any tomatoes this time around has freed a lot of space!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

Yeah we've cut down on the number of different types we've planted. Gone for the ones we actually like and the good growers from last year.

We weren't gonna do tomatoes this year either, but then decided to give the grafted ones a go. Fingers crossed 🤞

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

I did the the unthinkable this week and threw out a whole lot of the accumulated boxes from things we've bought in the last six years.

I remember thinking "Never know when I might need that again". Well, I need the space instead now!

Also you know you're getting older when you can appreciate a nice, sturdy cardboard box of quality

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

Haha. I did this a couple of times recently, but there's just a few that seem to be very sturdy and a really nice size that I can't seem to pull the trigger on