How the Leapster saved my sanity

We bought the boys leapsters for Christmas.
We didn't give them to them.
They were so overwhelmed that we decided to save the Leapsters for their birthdays instead (coming up in 9 and 18 weeks respectively)
Being that it is February, and although we did have an unusually mild winter thus far, Mother Nature has laughed in our faces whilst dumping down bucketloads of snow in the past week, and sending the mercury plummeting. This means that going outside is not only a big ordeal complete with snowpants, hats, mits, boots, and any other gear my kids can think of that they absolutely NEED to have - but it also means that once they are outside, they make 3 snowangels, throw a glob of snow at the fence and decide that it's much too cold to stay outside.
Total time getting ready - 18 minutes
Total time outside - 2 minutes 36 seconds.
Total time getting back in and kicking boots off, throwing coats, hats, mitts on the floor - 52 seconds
Temptation to bring out the Leapsters......overwhelming!

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Duncan's teacher is marvellous. She has set up a large blue activity board for him at school, with little picture squares of every activity they have during the day.
When he completes an activity, he is allowed to put the picture square on the board (picture squares are orange so they stand out against the blue).
this means that I can peek through the window anytime and see his progress during the day. When I come to pick him up, a board full of orange squares means he's had a very very good day, and just a few squares is a not so good day.

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Now first thing in the morning, my boys are up at the crack of.....darkness. It is getting progressively earlier and earlier, and I am biding my time until we set our clocks forward an hour, so that I am not woken up after 5 hours of sleep by a little boy asking "How many hours until daytime?" which is closely parallelled to his morning question of "How many hours until it's dark?" I guess he wants to know exactly how much time he has during the day to execute his carefully thought out plans of chaos and havoc. the early rising has led to a new household rule - NO getting up early in the morning!
No running about the house, turning on every light downstairs.
No waking up the baby
No barging into mummy and daddy's room.
this sounds like a lot of "No's", but we simplified it in a single rule:
In the morning when you wake up, you play IN YOUR ROOM, *UNTIL* Mummy or Daddy comes to get you.
The consequences of breaking this rule means NO TV of any kind for the entire day.
I made sure they understood.
We repeated the rule.
We repeated the consequences.
We made sure they understood what happens when they get up and wake the baby and run about the house.
We may as well have been talking to a marshmallow for all the good it did.

3 days of no tv and still they are up at the first hint of daylight peeking over the horizon, jumping off their beds, racing down the hallway, and generally making more noise than a herd of elephants. Somehow their combined 68lbs sounds like migrating wildebeest on the Serengeti.

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Bear with me now as I cleverly intertwine these completely seperate and seemingly unrelated blurbs:

The Leapsters that they didn't get for Christmas were looking awfully attractive at this point.
I had a plan to save my sanity, but it had to be executed just right.
First of all - bring out ONE Leapster.
Show them how cool and fun Leapster is.
Put Leapster away, and say it's for birthdays.
Watch as the wheels turn, and they try to figure out if they can trick me into giving them that Leapster early.

Duncan and I made a deal. IF he did really well in school the next day - I would let him play with the Leapster all by himself.
Motivation is a wonderful thing. We didn't speak another word about it, but I knew he would remember. He forgets NOTHING.
When I went to pick him up, his teacher actually met me at the door and pulled me inside to show me the blue board.
It had the MAXIMUM number of orange squares on it. She said he had such a terrific awesome day.
As we walked back to the car, he asked me "Can I play with Leapster when we get home?" To which I responded "Absolutely!"

I let him play with his Leapster, and Matthew looked on enviously. After about 6 minutes of Duncan 'trying' to play and Matthew crowding him out in a desperate attempt to see the screen, I broke down and brought out the other Leapster.

The TV has stayed off, and they are both fascinated.
They are not fighting, they are not absorbed in the TV
They are learning and I am amazed at the things they can do with those Leapsters.
I am especially thrilled that they are forced to hold the pen properly in order to make it work the most effectively.


The house is quiet. It's not getting messed up, and I have the Leapfrogs to thank.

Now on a side note, they are still getting up early, but all it takes now is the removal of the Leapsters to a high shelf, and they are *motivated* to earn them back by being quiet until I am ready to get up.


Added bonus - No more fighting to get them into their carseats - and no more fighting with each other after they are in carseats. Leapsters make for a nice quiet trip to Grandmas :)