When mommy’s happy… you know the rest

Today, the effect I have on my children’s behavior really hit me.  Both the positive AND the negative.

Let’s start with the bad and get that out of the way…

I went to bed too late and woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.  Wyatt’s mostly been sleeping through the night for the past few months, but the past couple of weeks he’s occasionally woken up around 4 or 5am for a quick snack or just some comfort. Though I don’t mind getting up with him, it doesn’t help my already less-than-sunny morning demeanor when Dylan wakes me up before his little green light goes off.

Wait, have I mentioned the green light, yet?

I don’t think I have.  It’s A-M-A-Z-I-N-G.  Dylan is all about doing things himself right now and not waiting for mommy, which meant he was getting up about 15 minutes earlier than the previous day, every day.  I was worried we were fast approaching 5 am wake-ups with him, and he’s not as easy to put back to bed.  Andy found this “OK to Wake! Children’s Alarm Clock and Nightlight” on Amazon and bought it for him for Christmas.  It was great until recently when he decided he didn’t need to wait for the light anymore due to some potty training confusion (ie he wore a pull-up to bed, but I wanted him to wake me if he had to potty when he woke up aaand he took the opportunity to bluff me).

Ok, back to the point.  What was the point?  I’m not a morning person, especially when I haven’t gotten a full night’s rest.  That made for two cranky, emotional kids this morning.

So, for the positive example, we’re going to fast forward through the grumpiness to lunchtime.  I realized, as we ate our healthy lunches and Dylan downed his carrots FIRST, that my #aHeartFitFriday efforts are changing Dylan’s habits.

And, I have proof:

Like the broken sippy cup?  He ripped that apart this morning, and that lid’s no longer with us…

Dylan’s been good about eating fruits and vegetables for a long time, but recently he’s been focused on cookies for treats and avoiding veggies at mealtime.  The past week or so, I’ve changed my own habits by getting rid of a lot of the high sugar temptations that were previously lying around the house and eating only fruit and veggies for snacks because they’re free points.

Guess who’s also eating a lot of fruits and veggies now?  ding ding ding!

I shouldn’t be so surprised, but I am.  It’s been 5 days since I made the major shift in my eating, and I’m already seeing a difference in him.  He requests apples and yogurt for his snacks rather than goldfish and he has yogurt covered raisins for potty treats instead of candy.  I’m not hating on goldfish, but I don’t think they did anything but fill him up so he didn’t want to eat his meals.

Speaking of potty… remember how I asked for advise?  Today was a GREAT day:

He’s sitting rather than standing and he was there for 15 minutes… that’s all I’m going to say 😉

He’s going to hate me for this one day, huh?  Oh well!

I’m so happy that taking better care of myself results in a happier, healthier family.

Now if we could all stay healthy.  I’m off to check on Wyatt, who’s slept a lot today and I think may be coming down with something.