Baby Aspen

We posted it on Facebook and have been talking about it with everyone, but haven't put it here on the blog yet...we are having a baby girl! At least that is what they tell us. After 3 boys it is hard to believe. First off, we can't imagine what having a girl will be like. Secondly, after three ultrasounds that were all boys, it is hard to feel confident without such a defining characteristic.




Those of you that have girls, how do these compare to your ultrasound? Is this supposed to be obvious?



Since day one, we planned on naming Trey, Aspen if he were a girl. We've kicked around a few others including my favorite Brighton, and Marisa's favorite Paisley. We would like to give our girl a middle name, but are not set on that yet. One we have always liked is Roxcy or Roxy, but not sure if that will stick. It comes from two sources. Roxcy is Eliza R Snow's middle name and she is one of our favorite people from LDS history. Second, Roxy has always been a part of Marisa's email name since we got married.

Motivation

If you know our boys well, you know they are very active. We try not to be a "hovering parent" if you know the book Love and Logic very well, and that probably contributes to their activeness to a small extent. Nevertheless, we try to contain it and have tried a TON of different methods to accomplish that goal. For the past few months we have had a list of 7 daily goals for each boy, specific to their individual improvement needs. We go over this every night when we do family prayer and scripture study. A few weeks ago we had an epiphany! Which ever boy gets the most checks gets to do a victory dance. OH MY WORD, that has been a great motivator. Competition among boys can be a great tool in cases like this or a terrible thing when you think of all the fights it starts between them. I came up with the idea thinking about something my high school cross country coach told me. He said, "If you want to push the boys to run harder you tell them that the first 5 in GET to run again. If you want to push the girls you tell them that the last five HAVE to run again." I put that theory to practice with our boys and the Victory Dance and come to the conclusion again that it is true.

Along those same lines we offer our boys $0.25 per a chore or set of chores that they do. For example, if they make their bed, get dressed and brush their teeth before Mom has to tell them to or they won't have enough time before they have to leave in the morning, then they get that chore checked off and receive their twenty-five cents. I know some people out there are completely against giving their kids money for doing chores. Our theory is that it works well as a motivator and they are learning well, at an early age how to handle their own money. We don't buy them any toys other than what we do for birthday or Christmas unless they earn it themselves with this chore money. BYU recently published an article on this topic in case you are interested Good Habits Start with . . . Money? .

We recently decided to change the Victory Dance rules. It really isn't always fair because sometimes the 7 goals are much harder to achieve for one boy than they are with the other. My new idea that we will start tonight is that whomever gets at least four of the seven done gets to do the Victory Dance. I probably put an inordinate amount of brainstorming, reading and effort into figuring out how to motivate and discipline our kids due to their level of activeness (if that is even a word?), but believe me...if you have boys, the Victory Dance will work wonders!

My only fear is that we're cursed to only have boys. We'll find out on the 15th!