One of Those Days

The 3 reasons why I work hard to be the best Mom I can be.

I'm imperfect. Oh, boy do I know that.  It's only by God's grace that I am saved.  Today was one of those, "you've got to be kidding me," days.  I felt inept, overwhelmed, and completely done.  I wanted to crawl back into bed and hide under the covers and this was all before 9am.

It started off with my regular Friday morning 5:30am spin class. I've been so tired this week that it was a struggle to leave the comfort of my warm bed to make it to class. But I did, and as always, I was happy to make it to class.  I came home and showered, only to come out to find a crying Buggy who was sad that she missed Daddy before he went to work.  But she managed to tuck away the tears with the prospect of helping Mama feed the cats and helping Mama make quiches for MOPS this morning.

Buggy was a huge help, but I was already running way behind and woke up Boogie later that was good for either of us.  He woke up grumpy and started in on Buggy telling her to be quiet and to leave him alone. For the record, all she did was walk into their bedroom. sigh.

We're already running late, but all the kids are dressed and eating really, really slowly. Argh!  I get them upstairs to brush their teeth, take out the quiches and then I hear Boogie and Mr. Bananas fussing in the front hall.  And then I hear Boogie say something that makes me see red and I lost it. He was calling Bananas a "no good baby."  That was it. I lost my cool completely. I screamed, I yelled, I gesticulated, and then I broke into tears of frustration. I don't know if it's first grade or if it's growing up, or what it is, but Boogie has resorted to calling his sibling names.  Constantly. Every day. Repeatedly.  It drives me up the wall.  I won't stand for it, and I've tried various ways to get him to stop. But he goes back to it over and over again. However, I think my tears of frustration finally got to him. I told him it hurt my heart that he was so mean to his siblings.  The thing is, Boogie is really one of the sweetest kids I know...unless it comes to his siblings and then he changes and he can be really quite mean. My yelling, his consequences, and my reasoning has seemed to have fallen on deaf ears.

Boogie hugged me and promised not to do it again, he also had tears in his eyes. I think when he realized that I was being hurt by his words, he realized he was way out of line. I wish it didn't have to go to that for him to change his ways. And yes, I realize, this is not the end of it.  But I hope we have turned a corner.

As we were getting ready to walk out the door, the baby fell and smashed his face on the wood floor and gushed blood out of his nose, bit his lip, and bit somewhere in his mouth. We had a lot of blood, 10 minutes before Boogie had to be in school.  The big kids stepped up while I held Bananas and tried to comfort him.  Boogie grabbed paper towels to staunch the blood and went bag to grab wet paper towels. Buggy followed his lead and did the same thing. Both kids kissed their baby brother and tried to make him feel better. I felt utterly helpless. I'm looking at my watch and worried that Boogie would be late to school, but also unable to move because the baby was so shaken up by his fall and bleeding profusely.  We were able to stop most of the blood and I was really proud of Boogie who took the bloody paper towels from his sister and threw them away. Boogie hates anything "gross" and would not have touched them under normal circumstances, but he really stepped up.  With minutes to spare, I threw all 3 kids in the car and made it to school with one minute to spare. Boogie was able to make it to class on time and even though he was a bit distraught and overwhelmed when he got out of the car, he did just fine the rest of the day. I emailed his teacher just to check on him and she was wonderful and emailed back.

I made it to MOPS and I made it to Buggy's preschool conference.  Her conference took less than 2 minutes. I spent the rest of my time in the conference being encouraged by her teacher. It was as if she had been sitting in my front hall watching my morning unfold and said all the right words to help me forgive myself and my Boogie monster.  She was talking about how we plant the seeds of faith in our children and she went on to say that Buggy is a delight at school. But having 5 children herself she knew there must be some squabbles between the kids and then I lost it. I started crying and confessed my horrible morning to her and asked if she had actually been there because everything she was saying resonated with me.  She quoted encouraging scripture and prayed with me. One of the reasons I so love the preschool that our children have attended/attend/and will attend.

The rest of the morning went by much more smoothly and I managed to squeeze in nap to reset the day.  I spoke to Boogie when he came home from school and we hugged each other and forgave each other. I wanted to impart to him that I loved him dearly, that I did not like his attitude toward his siblings, but I love him more than he could ever imagined. I also asked him to be a good role model and to be a young man of God.  We spent the rest of the day giving each other impromptu hugs and kisses.

Bananas is fine. His nose and lips are a little tender, but he's fine.  Our next door neighbor is a nurse and she checked him out for me this morning and gave me signs to look for if we needed to go to the doctor.  But he's fine. Praise God.

Boogie is fine too. He learned some boundaries today and realized he needed to change his attitude and his heart.

I'm better and look forward to hanging out with Hubby tonight watching a DVD and letting go of the day. I look forward to tomorrow and the weekend. I look forward to the promise of a new day.

I'm still kicking myself for losing my cool. I thought about Boogie all day long while he was at school. There was nothing more that I wanted to do than run up to his school, pull him out of his class and hug him, hug him, hug him and to start our day over again.

I'm not a perfect parent. I try my hardest. There are days that I hit it out of the park and it couldn't be happier and then, there are days like today and I wonder why God thought I would be the right parent for these precious kids. Even with my failures, I feel blessed. I am grateful for a new day and for the chance to to try it all over again. Hopefully it will better tomorrow. Otherwise I'm hiding under the covers ;)

Matthew 11:28-30 “… Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Read more: http://www.whatchristianswanttoknow.com/bible-verses-about-forgiveness-20-encouraging-scripture-quotes/#ixzz2BmVUZpuG

Pet Peeve

Last Friday night Hubby and I had to drop off our minivan to the shop. Since it was so close to dinner time, we decided to hit the local mall and grab dinner there. Afterwards we did a little Back to School shopping and bought some shoes for the kids.

As we were headed towards the escalator there was a group of 3-4 people with one small child crowded around the top of the escalator. We had to move by them to get to the escalator. As we drew nearer one of the women is screaming into her cell phone and another is screaming at the young girl (maybe 3 years old?) to stay off the escalators as she tried putting one foot onto the moving steps. Fine, lets just keep trucking and we'll bypass all this. And then it happened...

As Hubby and I load the kids onto the escalator the 2nd woman who was yelling at the little girl starts yelling at the top of her lungs about the mf*in person at the bottom of the stairs (someone I presume they were meeting). She used the word several times and loudly and added to it crazya**. Hubby and I did our best not to draw our children's attention to it by ignoring it and talking to the kids instead. But we were essentially trapped until we could hurriedly exit the escalator and had to be subjected to horrible language in front of our young children. It's one thing for us to hear it, but I really don't want my children exposed to that kind of language any early than they have to be.

This brings to me to another point, it seems like we can never get away from this kind of language in front of the kids. Teens are quickly assimilating these words into their everyday conversations. For example when my kids took swim lessons, the tweens and teens who were on swim teams came in and dressed for their practice while we were finishing up and dressing to leave. Several times the young girls who came in to dress would hang out and talk with each other casually and it was nothing to them to throw all sorts of words that were really inappropriate for little ears (of which there were several because the little kids had just finished their lessons). I honestly don't think they realized it, it was such a part of their vernacular.

What happened? Why aren't we conscientious about what we say and who hears it?  Why is it so common for little ones to start using words that I would never have dreamed of using while I was in school? I expect more from adults and hope that they would think twice before swearing in front of little ones, but this is not always the case.  This is a hard one for me. I mean I can't shelter my kids forever, but at the same time, Come on!

Although I've been out of the classroom for a couple of years and I still have my teacher look that can stop a kid in his tracks. It sometimes works when I've got the kids with me, but what to do with adults?  Sigh. Another obstacle in parenthood as I try to raise children who are polite and respectful of those around them. But that's what I'll do. I can't control other people, but I can teach my children how to act and react to the world around them. That's the best I can do.

All in Solidarity

She is adorable, she is cute, she gives great hugs, she loves her family immensely and she is t-r-o-u-b-l-e! Buggy is great, she really is, but I think she is the one that I am going to have to watch out for. She's at a stage where she thinks running away when you call her is funny. When you give her a direction she does the opposite. She purposely antagonizes her brother, whom she adores. The list goes on!

Buggy truly adores her big brother. She wants to do everything he is doing. She wants to do all the big kid stuff that she is not ready to do. When he is playing by himself quietly, she'll antagonize him so that he'll pay attention to her.  When we go somewhere, she calls Boogie to make sure that he knows that we're leaving and sometimes she'll even go up to him and tug his hand to make sure he's coming along.

Last night takes the cake.  Boogie was given a time out. Time outs work for him. He cries, he's remorseful, he apologizes. When told to go to time out, Boogie has learned over time to just go. At this point I can just point to the steps and he'll go there crying (fortunately he is rarely deserving of a time-out).  Buggy saw this and immediately hit me on the leg. I told her to stop and then ignored her.  She hit me three more times and much harder.  Ummmm, did you want my attention? Why yes she did. She wanted a time out too, to show solidarity.  We used our stern voice, told her we do not hit mommy and that she would be given a time-out.  She giggled, she hit me three more times and ran to time-out. That's right, she wanted to sit next to Boogie on the steps. Hmmmmmm, this doesn't look like it's working.

She was given another time-out location and we are starting the same process with her that we did with Boogs 3 years ago.  Firm, consistency, stern voice.  We also temper this having her apologizing, us providing forgiveness, and guiding her to proper actions.

However, I don't think it's going to work for her. She thinks it's funny, she wants to be with her big brother, and consequences don't seem to work for her. Solidarity, sister. ugh!

Trust

My son is taking swim classes with our local recreation department. He loves the water and this is great bonding experience for us.  It's just the two of us, while my daughter spends a little one-on-one time with my parents, and my husband is still at work.

One of the things that we've been working is floating on his back. We've been trying to do this for years (every summer) but my son will float if I'm holding him, but if I start to slowly pull away my hands he pikes and grabs my hands.  He won't do it! Two weeks ago we tried and he allowed me to slowly pull away my hands and he floated by himself for several seconds. I am so proud of him! It was a long road, but we did it!

As we did this exercise several times during the class, and he continued to float by himself, I thought about how much he must trust me. He trusts me to be there when he feels himself floundering.  He trusts that I will pull him up and hold onto him. He trusts me to be by his side.

 I thought about what made him decide to float on his own and I came up with follow-through. Yes, follow-through. My son knows that I will follow-through with what I tell him I'm going to do...good, bad, indifferent, I will follow-through.  The last few times we tried floating, I told him that I will always catch him.  When I would pull my hands away, he would grab them to make sure I was still there, and I was. I always caught him, I always held him, I was always right next to him. I made him a promise and I followed through with it.  The last time he floated, he knew that I would be right there and I would catch him. He trusted me and I was there. Yay, us!

So many times in parenting I don't want to follow through...especially with the consequences. Taking away something, giving a time out, saying no. Because sometimes the tears come and so do the tantrums.  Sometimes I just want to say "Fine!", but having been a teacher for 8 years I learned very quickly that your students will overrun you if you don't follow-through. They have long memories and they'll remember if you did something that you said that you were going to do.  I took this skill with me into my parenting world.  A friend of mine once said, "It's so much easier to be a bad parent. Giving into your kids all the time, not setting boundaries or structure, no discipline. It's easy.  The hard part is being a good parent, finding the balance between structure and flexibility. Saying yes when it counts, and saying no when it really counts."  She's right. They don't hand you a manual when you have a baby. They send you home with a 3-day old and you hope that you don't screw it up.

My son has learned over the last 4 years that I will provide structure and balance. I will be there for him when he flounders and when he celebrates. I will rejoice in his successes and support him when he needs a little more guidance. We have developed trust and I pray that it will carry him through as he continues to grow.