Picking your battles

Every parents knows you have  to pick  your battles when it comes to kids, or you will  drive yourself freaking crazy! And  the battles that  each parent chooses to pick are very different.

For our family, I consider  myself to be very laid back. I  do *not* pick battles over things that  many other people do. I have never really done schedules ....I've  tried  from time to time but it never  really sticks. I  also don't  pick  the TV battle. I watch  a lot of tv, so does  Lee, and I sort of figure it comes with  the territory that the girls do too. I feel  i was pretty successful in life and didn't suffer too much brain rot, so I'm not overly concerned about the girls either ;-) Another  battle  I  choose not to pick  is  picking up toys. Frankly, it's way easier for me to do it anyways.  I  do have them help some, but when I see them distracted and off doing something else in the middle of clean up time I just let it go.

There are probably about 1 million other battles I don't pick....these are the ones I can think of off the top of my head :-P

BUT, over  the last week  I've picked two battles....and every parent also knows that when  you decide to pick  a battle, you better win! The first battle I  picked is manners. Raya had gotten into the bad habit  of demanding things "turn on my show. I want a snack. Get my blanket." .....and then if I'd comment on being rude she'd say "pleeeeeeeeeeeease"....and thought that solved it. But it was really getting on my nerves so I picked a battle....and now she *must* say "may I please have....." or "would you please get...." etc. And then  after I  do she must say "thanks". If she doesn't do this then I ignore her or say "I don't hear you" and that cues her  to remember the magic wording ;-)

The second battle  I've decided to pick  is FOOD. Now first, everyone who knows me knows that I couldn't care less about health food. I don't do organic, I  don't subsitute weird seeds and oats in my food, I  don't make strange smoothie concoctions, etc. Frankly, I  think there are probably about 10,000 other  ways I'm going to die that  have nothing to do with artificial sweetners and corn syrups LOL....so I don't care.

But what  *does* drive me crazy is that the girls had slowly gotten to the point  that they were eating NO VARIETY! I mean, the same 4 food items over and over again. And a couple of those (yogurt and applesauce) are healthy in my book....but  still, the lack  of variety and opposition to trying new things was killing me! So I put my foot down. We now have *at least* 4 different items for every meal. One can be a "love it" item (like Raya's  beloved grilled cheese or granola bar, etc.) and then one can be a healthy item that  they  like (such as yogurt)....but then the other two+ things  must be items they normally refuse to eat. And they must eat at a least a few bites! Today for instance we did mandarin oranges and green beans for there new items (which I've offered many times before, but haven't forced them to eat haha).

Raya stuck  with  the  go-to mac n cheese lol

Brielle  stuck  with her favorite--peach yogurt!

But the new rule is, you must  eat at least 2 bites  of everything before having seconds of another item. I figure this at least gets them trying new things! And if they  want dessert they must clean their plate.

We had tantrums for about 2 days, and then  since  then Miss  Raya has been  doing great! The girl loves her dessert haha (today it was a pudding cup :-)

Cleaned her  plate!

I  don't like to encourage overeating by  making them clean their plates, so I'm fine if they are done after just  trying everything---but  I figure that if they are still hungry enough for dessert then they better clean their plate.

This system has been  harder for Brielle to learn because she can't understand the idea of bribery (getting seconds/dessert) so I'm walking a fine line with her because I have to give the illusion of enforcing the rules with Brielle or Raya will cry foul haha. So Brielle didn't  get dessert today because she turned her nose up at green beans and oranges!

Hopefully Brielle catches  on soon :-)

So, which battles do you guys  choose to pick, and which do you let slide?!