Not my best parenting moments-

Although these unique parenting skills are not exactly my best, they worked and while talking with a co worker the other day, I thought maybe I should write them down.
Grounding: Who suffers more, the kids or me when they were sent to their room? Surely it was me, I had to keep working and cleaning while they laid in their rooms with all their stuff. It was not fair so I decided when things got bad that I would ground myself-- off to my room I would go, Lock the door and it was heaven. I still remember the kids trying to talk to me through the small crack at the bottom of the door. Some times I could see their lips, " Mom, come out! mom unlock the door!, mom let us in!. And even better was when Rob came home, "where is your mom", " in her room", " why" then all you could hear was the vacuum, doors opening and shutting, dishes being washed. It became a family joke and often I would tell Cameron I was being bad and he would send me to my room. Yes, I love being grounded.
The kitchen is closed: This saying belongs to Alex and me. Alex lived next door but he spent a lot of time at our house. He would never eat when we were eating and after dinner was finished, Jeri ( his other mom) would sit at the kitchen table to talk to me while I would clean the floor on my hands and knees. ( those were the days) As soon as the floor was clean, Alex would become famished and started dragging out the food and the mess. So we had to start closing the kitchen and if he did not eat when the kitchen was open he did not eat at all. Once Jeri tried to tell him her kitchen was closed and he said" no mom, that is my mom's ( debbi's) saying, not yours"
Only three questions: I loved being part of Mickelle and Baby Cameron's life. But we went through a rough stage where they asked so many questions I was pulling my hair out. To survive, I had to come up with the three question rule. When they came over they got three questions and then they could not ask any more. They could use them up in seconds, I would say there is one, two , three----- the silence was golden. Some time they went home and came back to start over. It took a while but they learned how to form sentences and to talk to me. Finally we emerged out of the endless question mode. I know many times they were frustrated when I said" that's a question" and did not have to talk to them but it was worth it to get them to talk to me. Do you think having 2 parents as lawyers that maybe the question thing was a learned behavior?
Changing my name: I think the saying goes, necessity is the mother of invention. Andrew was like a broken record, debbi, debbi, debbi, debbi, debbi, debbi, debbi. I finally told him that debbi was not my name and I had changed it. He asked what I had changed my name to but I would not tell him my new name either. He did not know what to call me and I told him that was the point, he used up my name and so I had a new one and I did not want him to use the new name up too. It stopped it.