Battles

You wouldn't think that something so ordinary would cause so much trouble. There's the little trouble, Elijah stealing everyone else's toothbrushes and walking around with them in his own mouth. (Gross.) Then he loses them, so no one knows what to do when it's time to brush their teeth. We just keep opening up new brushes and they just keep disappearing. Someday we'll find the stash...

Then there's the big trouble. Every single night, when bedtime is announced, we have a little routine. "Five minutes to bedtime!" a parent announces. "Yes Ma'am/Sir! Five minutes!" Time passes, "Go brush your teeth please." And then the big trouble happens. Meltdown. Sometimes both, usually just one, the same one, every night, immediately melts onto the floor, crying and completely unable to even walk because of the travesty of going to brush their teeth. I tried a bribery system, you go nicely you earn computer time. This worked for a week or two but I got tired of tracking of the minutes and the whole thing fell apart. I've now resorted to threatening. "Quit whining. If you go for a whole week with no whining then you can... (big reward). But if I hear even one complaint ONE TIME..." But honestly, I"m sick of bribing and enticing and threatening. Why can't this person just brush their teeth? It happens EVERY DAY, at the SAME TIME, and its COMPLETELY PREDICTABLE. How has it come to this? Tonight I had a meltdown of my own and as I think about it, I don't even feel sorry. Is that awful? Another list of things to count against me.

I've learned these things over the last few years as a Mom - Patience isn't something that runs out. Its not in limited supply. Its a choice, one that is made ten or twenty or a hundred times a day. The choice to put a smile on my face and talk sweetly, or get grumpy. Choice. Not commodity.

Despite knowing that, I choose to look at it as if its a commodity. Sometimes all too limited. I let it "run out," and then ugliness ensues. And despite knowing that my ugly attitude DOES NOT bring the results I want (smiles on my kids' faces), I still do it. I'm still trying to get it together.

Here's another thing I've learned - our society likes to analyze behavior and then look for one simple cause. And all too often the cause of bad habits falls to the parents' inability to raise their kids right. Don't get me wrong, I know that parents have huge influence in their kids' lives, they have to. But why is it that when kids get to be grown-ups, they're looking back and blaming their parents for every single little problem in their own lives? I'm just a person. Not a super hero. Not Jesus' wonderful mother Mary (hey, even she wasn't perfect). And so in defense of myself, before my kids start blaming me for all their flaws, I'm putting this out there - I never claimed to be great. I'm not always good at this parenting thing. But kids, I love you so much. I'm just a person, cut me a little slack, ok?

Elijah 1 - Mom 0

Last night before the kids went to bed I was laying around on the couch, being lazy and trying to have a minute of down time before I got back to work. Literally, I just wanted a minute. Well, maybe five. I vaguely heard David say to Elijah, "Go show Mom!" but completely ignored them. I should not have been so careless. Elijah walked up to me, I'm still ignoring him and BAM! Right in the face! He had the lid of a pot, and decided to show it to me up close. And hard. That got me off the couch and FAST! Oh was I mad!

Later David relayed the story from his side, Elijah took the magnet key for the cupboard and held it up to one of the doors. He was working really hard at trying to open it up, and David was impressed with E's knowledge of using the key to open the locked door. So he helped the little guy out. Elijah went straight for that lid. He knew exactly what he wanted. And then, with David's encouragement, came to find me.

It was premeditated. His little one year old mind had it all figured out. The plan. "I'll get Mom," he thought to himself. "I'll use something big. And hard..." That silly cupboard door was in his way, but he knows how it works. And then, Dad even egged him on - "Go GET MOM!" E heard, and he toddled right into the living room. Mom was looking down at her phone. Ignoring the boy once again. Not smiling at his endlessly cute antics. "I'll teach HER not to ignore me!" he thought as he got closer and closer... Nothing could distract him now!

WHAM! "Haha!" he laughs as Mom makes her retreat, she lost the battle and E had won. Payback for letting him cry in his crib. Retribution for not offering the right snack, not picking him up on demand, not carrying him endlessly around the house.

I'll win the next one, though. Cause I'm bigger. And smarter. So there!

Scared of the Dark

Shelly's been doing this thing lately, where she stays in her room for about three minutes at bedtime before coming to us and telling us she's afraid. Of course its always something different. David handles this much better than I do, because I always suspect she's trying to manipulate us and just avoid going to bed. He gives her the benefit of the doubt. I just tell her to go back to her room and go to sleep. Sadly for Shelly, Daddy's not home yet and she came to me, with no compassionate person in sight. "I'm afraid." Of what? I say, not even looking at her. (I'm BUSY reading junk on the internet, duh! No time for compassion from me!) "I'm just ah-scared. That something is going to come out of somewhere." (She now puts the "ah" sound in front of random words. Its kinda cute.) Something. Somewhere. She doesn't say monster in her closet, or ghost under her bed, just something. Somewhere. I couldn't help but laugh a little. And then I sent her back to bed.

This little drama then played out over the next half hour, where Archer and I became increasingly frustrated with the noisy little actress who was keeping the rest of the house in an uproar. He offered for her to sleep on the floor in his room, so sweet of him but then she wouldn't be quiet, she wanted to talk to him about how she's still scared. ("I'm about to blow my top," he said to me calmly. I know, I told him, me too.) I sent her back to her room to listen to stories on the CD player but she just sobbed and sobbed until Archer yelled at her to be quiet and then he came to me to confess it. I had her come into my room and lay down on the couch and within minutes she was asleep.

Another lesson learned. Just let her sleep on the couch to begin with and all the other stuff would be avoided. (Only didn't I just give in and let her get her way? What lesson did SHE just learn?) Now I just have to move her. Cause she can't stay there, that's where David sleeps. And so another night of musical beds begins.

Sibling Rivalry

This morning I heard Archer and Shelly playing nicely together and then suddenly - yelling! Some little thing had caused a flare up and they each yelled and then stomped off in different directions. Archer went to his room and Shelly came stomping into my room. My first reaction was to go lecture the two of them on being nice, not yelling, not stomping. But I tried a different approach today. I ignored her. She sat on the couch quietly for a couple of minutes then went back to the living room. Archer must have come out of his room too because I heard them talking, then laughing, then playing together as if the argument had never happened. And I realized that they did exactly what they should have done - gave themselves a few minutes to cool down before addressing the problem. Or just forgetting the problem and moving on. They had given themselves time outs. And it worked. All without me. And that's perfect, because its what we hope our kids will learn as they grow up, how to resolve issues without an outside referee. And the thing I learned is that I don't always need to be the referee, I don't have to step in. They're fine on their own. Usually.

My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.
~ James 1:19-20

Battle

Today there was a major crisis when we discovered that Miss C had forgotten her blanket at home. Tears and more tears. She told me she was cold and I told her to get a blanket off Shelly's bed and she refused. She needed HER blanket. And then nap time rolled around, and the battle began. No, not with Miss C. The battle in my own head about how to react to this crisis.

Oh my goodness its just a blanket you'll have it when you get home later just move on!

She's just a little kid, its what keeps her feeling happy and safe what can I do to make this right? Call her mom? Go to her house and break in and get it? Maybe there's a key under the doormat...

When I told Dad about this he said, "Its like you had your mom on one side of your brain and me on the other side of your brain having a conversation about it." He was right. Mom, the sensitive one, what can we do to accomodate? Dad, the rational one, get over it, you'll be fine. In the end, Mom won out. I asked Miss C if she wanted to pick out a toy to hold and Shelly told her she could pick whatever she wanted. She chose a bunny, I held her hand for a couple minutes and she drifted off to sleep.

And now hopefully Miss C's parents don't think I'm crazy because my parents' voices are in my head!

Court

Shelly and Archer had a conflict that involved accusations and a ruined... "something." Of course the argument eventually devolved into "yes you DID!" and "no I DIDN'T!" So I convened court in the kitchen, commanded the kids to get chairs and took my place as the judge. I then instructed Shelly to tell me the story of what happened.

"Once upon a time, there was a little girl." Trying not to laugh, I told her she needs to tell me what happened to her thing that Archer ruined. "He RUINED it!" Well, what did he do to ruin it? Tear it? Cut it up? Set it on fire? She looked at me in bewilderment and said, "Why would he set it on fire?" Ugh. Let's try this again.

Archer, what's your defense to her accusations? "What's accusations?" Obviously our time in court didn't resolve the issue. But it did distract them from fighting with each other. And we even had a vocabulary lesson slipped in there without anyone noticing. So I'd say it was a success!

Court was followed by a story telling period where Archer told us about a little girl who somehow ended up in Antarctica with penguins, polar bears and snakes. You'll be relieved to know that the little girl did eventually make it home safely after a scary journey down a snow tunnel and a chase by the mamma polar bear.