In response to: The power of routine

Remember that thing I said a few days ago?  It went something like this:

Now, before I tell the rest of this story, let me give a brief history on Caroline's bedtime habits: She never gets up out of bed at night after I put her down.  Never.  Never has once.

Well, little did I know, but that was about to become one of the biggest, fattest lies I've ever told.

Ever since that night, if she isn't sleepy, Caroline does indeed get back up out of bed.  Because now, she can work the doorknob to leave her room and join us in the family room.  Now she knows our secret.  We hang out in the family room after she goes to bed and do fun stuff like work on the laptop, read a book, or watch a movie.  Now she knows and she wants in.

Not that I blame her.  And not like she isn't completely precious and a darling when she comes back out here.  She sits quietly and reads books of her own.  And she's so very snuggly in her footy pajamas.

This is simply making us reevaluate her napping habits and make the cutoff earlier and shorter.  It's just another gradual transition as she continues to become a big girl (no matter how much I beg her to please stop growing older for a little while).  Life is full of these little transition points, and it keeps us on our toes.

The power of routine

I put our daughter to bed every single night.  It's really nice quiet time, and I honestly couldn't tell you which one of us enjoys it more.  Along with this bedtime goes a very specific nightly routine:

1. Rock in the rocking chair while reading a book
2. I read the book to her three or four times
3. She "reads" the book herself after that (which ends up meaning that she opens the book and lays it on her face, because she's typically exhausted by this point)
4. After a few minutes, I ask her if she's ready to go nigh-night, and she hands me the book and I put her in bed

Now, before I tell the rest of this story, let me give a brief history on Caroline's bedtime habits:

She never gets up out of bed at night after I put her down.  Never.  Never has once.

Two nights ago, I decided to skip steps 3 and 4 above because she was so tired.  She didn't seem to have any interest in reading the book herself after I was done, so once I read the book three times, I put it on her bookshelf and put her in bed.

Not two minutes later, she was back up out of bed and calling for me.  I was really quite confused why she was up out of bed, since she never does that, but we walked back into her room and began rocking in the rocking chair again.  We sat there for a little while, rocking, and she was fidgeting, and I was starting to wonder what it was going to take to get her back into bed.  She just didn't seem ready.

Then she asked for a book.  I handed it to her to let her read it herself; she held it open for barely a minute, then closed it and asked to go nigh-night.  That's when it dawned on me: She just finished steps 3 and 4 of our routine.  I almost laughed out loud, looking at the creature of habit I had sitting in my lap.  I put her back in bed and she didn't budge for the rest of the night.

Once #2 comes around, I'm going to have to make sure her and I keep our nightly quiet time, because she obviously takes it very seriously.

The downside to regional bonuses

The annual bonus was announced at work today.

This is always a big day.  The day that rumors prepare for weeks.  What's going to be the bonus percentage this year?  The doom-and-gloomers always swear up and down it's going to be zero, while others tend to make things more interesting: "I bet it's 125% this year!  Maybe 150%!"

But the downside is always the fact that the bonus percentage varies based on the country one's business unit serves.  There's a general corporate percentage (for those of us who work globally) and then country-specific percentages around the world.

I'm part of "corporate," so I always get the middle-of-the-road corporate percentage, which is fine and dandy with me.  It stays fairly stable around the 100% mark, so there are rarely any surprises.

The tough part is that my father works for the same company, but his business unit supports the U.S., which for the last several years has gotten a crappy bonus percentage.  This year was no different.  The economy, and the fact that the U.S. appliance market is fairly saturated, has made it very hard for the company to do very well in the U.S. for the past few years.

But that's not my dad's fault, for goodness sakes.  He works his ass off for the company.  Reward him as well as you reward all us corporate cronies, because he doesn't spend any less time or any less blood, sweat, or tears than the rest of us.

A regional bonus takes all the fun out of it.  Except if you're in Brazil and raking in a whopping 195%.  Dad, I think both our families should just move to Joinville...

Detaching from work

I'm a big fan of Harvard Business Review.  Not only is the magazine great, they have a fantastic online offering, a lot of which is free.  I particularly enjoy the bloggers.

Gill Corkindale wrote a post recently about work-life balance that included a Top 6 list on how to maintain that balance.  The fifth point particularly resonated with me:

5. Treat time outside work as sacrosanct and refresh yourself. Protect your time outside work as much as you can. You need to be able to switch off from work for your own health and sanity and that of your friends and family.

True that.  It can be difficult at times, particularly when I'm absolutely swamped with work and could use a couple quiet hours at home to try to catch up, but then I remind myself: The work will never end.  No matter how hard I try to catch up... no matter how many hours I devote to work every single day... I'll never be caught up.  There will always be a mountain waiting.  So why sacrifice both family time and "refresh" time to a lost cause?  Not worth it.

Anyway, for those interested in the work-life balance topic, enjoy Corkindale's post:
http://blogs.hbr.org/corkindale/2011/01/detach_yourself_from_your_work.html

"Teaching" manners

It struck me this past week or so how well Caroline is doing with basic good manners: Please, Thank you, and You're welcome.  With a cheery disposition and completely unprompted, she will say "Thank you" after being given something she wants, or even after receiving a verbal compliment.  If Pete or I thank her for giving us something, she says "You're welcome," and she is now finally saying "Yes, please" on a more regular basis.

Watching Caroline grow up and begin demonstrating traits of a well-mannered little girl made me wonder about how she even got there.  Pete or I never said to her "Say thank you" or "Say please."  We never made a conscious effort at teaching these manners, the way we typically think about teaching or instructing someone to do something.

But, as I thought about it, I realized we've always said please, thank you, and you're welcome to her whenever the occasion arose.  We speak to Caroline the way we want her to speak back to us, and I guess it's actually working.

That's kinda fun.

Caroline the Builder

Can she fix it?  Yes, she can!

Due to the massive snowstorm that hit the midwest last night, I had a snow day of sorts today and worked from home.  I used to work from home one day every week, but ever since I began my newest role at work, I just haven't had the opportunity to do that as much.  It was definitely a con of the job, but there were just too many pros, so I couldn't pass it up.

Anyway, during my lunch break today, I noticed Caroline building with blocks.  She's had several sets of blocks for over a year now, but the most fun she's typically had with them is dumping them out on the floor and spreading them around.  But today, I noticed her really focusing -- and longer than five minutes -- on building towers with the blocks.

Boy, did I ever scoop up that golden opportunity!  Since I was due for a break, I sat down with her and we built with blocks for quite some time.  Caroline was really concentrating hard on these blocks and how she was arranging them as the tower grew higher and higher.  Then we'd have fun knocking them down and starting over again.

It was definitely the most fun lunch break I've had in a long time.