Teaching Moments: Part Deux

Every night before we go to bed, we take Son and Daughter on one last bathroom run. I've read that in order to teach the kids to wake themselves, you have to make them do all the work (walk to the bathroom, pull up their pants, etc), so that's what we do. Son is actually pretty good with the night training; he would wake up dry regardless, but Daughter is having a more difficult time.
Last night, I came in to take her for the last run, and she had already wet the bed. It's a little frustrating to have to deal with when you're tired and worked a ten hour day and just want to go to bed, so I sternly told her to get out of bed and go to the bathroom and undress herself. As I'm stripping the bed, I hear her standing and crying right outside the bedroom door, so again, I yell to her to get undressed. She proceeds to wail and wail, and I'm thinking, this is a great teachable moment here. She will now realize that it's no fun to have to get up and get undressed in the middle of the night. This will probably prompt her to start trying to pay more attention to the need-to-pee feelings at night. She finally gets undressed (with moderate assistance from me) and I help her into her new pajamas, and I tuck her into bed. I snuggle up to her and kiss her soft cheek because I don't want to end this night with her still upset. In the morning, Daughter comes into our bedroom and asks - Mama, почему я одета в другой пижаме?! (Mama, why am I wearing a different pajama?) Doh!!! Looks like another fail in the Teachable Moment department!

Teaching Moments

For the last few months, we've had issues with Daughter eating lunch at school. Well...she just has eating issues. She is a snacker, and never wants a meal. And by snacker, I mean any unhealthy candy-like snack available. It's really a hassle, and, honestly, it's getting old. But I digress...
So lunch at school. Very often, Daughter comes home with a barely eaten sandwich. The other day, her sandwich was untouched. Husband asked her why she didn't eat her sandwich, and Daughter answered that today there was no time to eat lunch. It was recess right away. Obviously, the school is not going to start recess without allowing time for lunch, but Husband chose to let it go. A little while after, Daughter said she was hungry, so Husband sat her down with the sandwich and told her to eat it.
That night, as I was tucking Daughter into bed, I said to her, Маня, я слышала что сегодня не было времени в школе обевать, и что сразу был recess? (I heard that today there wasn't time to eat lunch and it was recess right away?) She looked at me with her big, blue eyes, and she slowly answered, "Да.......я наврала" (Yes.....I lied.)
I took this moment as a great opportunity for explaining how to apologize. I looked at Daughter very seriously, and it wasn't hard to make my voice sound sad. I told her how sad I was to hear that she lied to her father. I told her how upsetting it was to me to know that she would do such a thing. And then I said, I know this is a very hard thing to do, but you have to get out of bed right now and you have go tell Papa you are sorry that you lied to him. I said that I was sure that if she apologized, Papa would kiss her and hug her. As I was talking, Manya opened her mouth wide, stuck her little thumb in, and started to suck. (I should have taken that as my warning sign, but I missed it.) All the while, she watched me with her big, blue eyes and listened. I opened her blanket and I took her by the hand. I really thought it was going well! Then it started. "Я не хочу сказать прости!" To make a long story short, I ended up dragging her into the room where Husband was, and forcing her to stand in front of him. She kept crying that she didn't want to say anything, but finally, and I have no idea how I got her to do it, she wailed - Прости что я тебе наврала (I'm sorry I lied to you).  Over her wails and behind her, I'm signaling and mouthing to Husband - {Hug her and Kiss her} - because obviously with that kind of delivery, who would think that a hug and kiss is warranted? I decided to stick with my teaching moment, as I walked her back to bed, though, and I said - Saying sorry is one of the hardest things to do, but it's one of the nicest and best things that we can do, especially when we know that we've done something wrong. I walked out of the room, and caught eyes with Husband, who said - looks like I'm not the only one who has trouble with saying sorry. I guess it runs in the family! ....Perhaps my teaching moment wasn't a total failure with at least one audience....