Sanity Saver Bucket....

Or, as we call it, snack bucket. Dallin drives me nuts asking (or rather begging, whining, and crying) for snacks or treats all day long. Of coarse when it is time for a meal, he hardly eats anything. We (or rather I) have decided to try a new technique. Enter snack bucket....

I used an old McDonald bucket from Halloween and with my label maker (thank you Russ), we labeled it "Snack Bucket".  In the morning, while Dallin is eating breakfast, I fill it with the daily 5 snacks. I do different snacks everyday (Anyone who knows Dallin knows that if I did the 5 same snacks and one day ran out of one of them, it would be a full on tantrum. By never having the same things, I hope to avoid this.) There is usually two sugary snacks (fruit snacks, marshmallows, granola bars, cereal, etc.) and three healthier snacks (string cheese, apple, banana, orange, peanuts, etc.) Here is the best part...I give it to him in the morning and he's not allowed to ask for anymore snacks during the day.

On the first day we tried this he ate most of them right after breakfast. All he left was half an apple and a clementine. I was nervous it wouldn't work because he would be starving around 3:00 and have no snacks left. I was wrong. After lunch he was watching his daily movie and he got the clementine and peeled it and ate it all on his own. Not even a word to me about wanting a snack. No more tears about not getting to eat the whole bag of marshmallows or that we ran out of granola bars and that is what he wanted. I love it!

On another note, Dallin loves 80s cartoons. We let him watch one movie a day or a couple of episodes of a TV show.  We got Transformers the original cartoon from the library today. Here he is totally enthralled.  (And yes, that is an Optimus Prime McDonald toy in his hands.)

He had a run with Thundercats, practically memorized Heman, and discovered his new favorite movie on Netfix Instant Queue is Rainbow Brite and the Star Stealer. (I'm sure Ashley remembers that one. We've watched it 3 times just last week.) And let's not forget the Chipmuck Adventure. We also got that one from the library today. I'm happy he likes these cartoons. I could have to be watching Sponge Bob.