I noticed after the Haiti earthquake last year that my kids seemed to be complaining about everything from breakfast to school clothes. I found myself lecturing “You’re lucky you have food to eat” or “You’re lucky you have clothes to wear at all.” My rants inspired this St. Patty’s Day idea:

By now my kids know that Monday night = new manner so I often get the question, “What manner are we going to learn tonight?” I like to keep them guessing and this week was no exception. So my helpful sister and I came up with this riddle:

When the kids came to dinner they found a police badge and a little hand buzzer on dad’s plate. They hovered around his plate coming up with all kinds of theories. I love when I pique their interest before dinner has even started.

I set the table with a pencil in the fork place. As you would expect, the kids noticed the missing forks and the out-of-place pencils right away and wondered what it would have to do with manners. Well, I’ll tell you:

I saw a cute Valentine idea on my friend’s blog that I wanted to share in advance of Valentine’s Day. I love this idea because it gives our children the opportunity to practice showing love and appreciation and giving sincere, truthful compliments, and it’s good manners:

My family was new in town and my sister and I were invited to our neighbor’s birthday party. We were just little tikes- barely in school. (Now I was already a little on edge because we didn’t know anyone and our neighbor seemed rich and we seemed poor in my young mind. Plus I was mortified by the tacky wrapping job on the plastic purse we had gotten Lisa for her present.) The next memory I have is being served a piece of cake and then–taking a bite.