How Sweet the Sound

In addition to the sweet melody of Connor plucking away and "playing" his new guitar every day, there are some other sweet sounds around here.

Since we had 32 hours round trip in the car with our kids on a recent road trip to California, we decided to cram in some serious parenting between naps and movies;) One of the things we discussed was how laid back the boys are getting in answering (and how lazy we have been in enforcing) us when we call them. Obviously this is a critical step to obeying your parents, actually it is the first step. We would practice saying their name and getting them to answer right away. I realized quickly how much I didn't like the "what" response so we asked them to say "yes mom?" or " yes dad?" .

Now I am sure that 1000 books have written describing how important it is and I am sure I have probably read a huge percentage of them, but it slipped my radar until now. I cannot believe the difference this has made. We are still working on it daily, but oh when they answer it is a sweet sweet sound. It not only sounds so much more respectful but it seems to have a huge impact on their attitude as well. Instead of just going about what they were doing and screaming what, they stop think and give me their attention. I am in mommy heaven.

When they have that respond down to a pat answer, I might have to change it again. I am thinking of something along the lines of....."yes, reigning queen mother of the household"?

What do you think?