parenting struggle #241

Let's see... I want to blog about something but I want to be respectful of my kids' privacy. Hmm... maybe I should stop using their names, thus giving them a bit more anonymity. Any thoughts on this, readers of mine?

Well, for the sake of this post, and perhaps future posts, I'll refer to them as One, Two and Three (birth order, in case that isn't painfully obvious). So creative I am.

We've been having a HELL of a time with One lately. He has been very challenging to our authority. "It's time to go to bed!" is responded to with "NO!" "Have you done your homework yet?" is met with "I'm not going to!!" "We are going to go to (somewhere fun and kid friendly)" gets a "I'm not going!!!! I'll stay home by myself!!!" response. It gets worse when we have to consequence him. Removing a privilege only increases his anger, and then the battle really kicks in.

I have been trying really hard to stay calm, calm, calm, and lately, I have pretty much succeeded. (not so much for Bob, but he's not home for many of these events -- sometimes it's easier to be the only parent dealing with a sticky issue) However, despite my calm response, he doesn't really change. Or, if he is, the change is s-l-o-w and hard to notice. I'm most frustrated when he's flipping out at bedtime, thus creating chaos for Two and Three. One thing that I have loved about being a parent, ever since deciding that co-sleeping is ok for us to do, is that our bedtimes have been sweet and lovely. (side note - we don't typically co-sleep anymore, athough it's not unusual for a kid to migrate in to our bed during the night, which is ok.) No screaming, no protesting going to sleep -- it's a nice, quiet transition to sleep. At least, when One isn't having a tantrum in his room.

The other morning his tantrum is so bad - like, how he would when he was 3 (laying on the floor, screaming, kicking -- all because I wouldn't itemize his breakfast options) - that I got out the camera to film him. My thought was to video him so I could show him later how he looks when he gets like that. I don't know if that would have been effective, and it turns out I couldn't do it because my camera's batteries were uncharged.

Last night, it got dicey again during dinnertime. We sent him to his room, and, after a few minutes of listening to him scream and carry on, both Bob and I went up to talk with him. We tried to get him to tell us WHY he acts like he does, which was pointless. We were able to humor him out of it, and later, Bob played some wii with him and the other boys, and the night ended on a good note.

Last night, I tried some empathy. "It must not feel good when you act like that. It doesn't feel good to me, and I can only imagine it feels worse for you." (Hey, I didn't learn nothin' in social work!) Maybe that little bit of kindness resonated with him, because later, after I got his brothers settled down in their beds, he asked for me to lay down with him when he was done reading. I agreed, and came back into his room after a few minutes. I snuggled up with him, and he quietly said, "this calms me down when we do this." Hmm. "This calms me down too," I responded. I suggested that if he needs a hug when he is angry about something, I'd love to give him one. He paused and said, "maybe. Love you, mom."

This morning, he was delightful. Got up without a struggle, got dressed and ate breakfast without incident. Scampered off to the bus happily with excited plans for his day at school. I don't know why, and I should stop asking why. I'm going to enjoy the good morning we had and hope that staying calm and giving him love IS making a difference.

monday afternoon fun

Alex to his younger brothers yesterday afternoon:

"we might get a concussion. mom doesn't care. i want mom to learn a lesson."

My boys wanted to have pillow fight yesterday. I said, firmly, no. I wasn't interested in the chaos and crying that would surely follow the pillow fight. They asked to have one in the family room (where I was). I said NO. They asked to have one on my bed (???), I said, "NO!" and followed up with "children don't play on their parents' beds" and wondered why they didn't know that already. Alex then led the crew upstairs to his room for the pillow fight with the above threat.

The good news is that

a. there was no pillow fight, and therefore no concussions, and

b. they worked together to make a fort on the bottom bunk, where they all planned to sleep together last night.

Turns out Enzo didn't sleep in the fort, but Alex and Finn did. They talked and planned and conspired together about something (I think it had to do with the football team they are forming in the neighborhood). It was so sweet hearing them chat that I let it go a little too long and they feel asleep way past bedtime.

on making mistakes

I made a mistake the other day, and I'm having a hard time shaking it. We got a babysitter for Saturday night, and we went out with our friends B and B and then they stayed overnight. When we got home, I insisted they move their car to the other side of the road so they wouldn't get a ticket. They thought they were on the correct side, and I insisted they were wrong and needed to move their car. Well, guess what. They found a $20 ticket on their windshield in the morning.

They never said anything to us, but I realized it halfway through the day. I called and left a message, profusely apologizing. These friends are incredibly sweet, and when Bob talked with them later in the day and offered to pay the ticket, they declined and said it was no big deal.

I am so bothered about this. Today, on the walk to school, I decided I would send them $20 in the mail with a note saying, if they won't accept it, they can donate it to a charity or something. I don't care and don't need to know either way. This is more to ease my guilt than anything.

Guilt is an interesting emotion and one worth pondering.

I've also been pondering why I'm beating myself up so much about this. When my kids make mistakes, I tell them to let it go, to learn and move forward. Why does something so little as a $20 parking ticket set me into such a downward spiral?

(to not end on such a bummer note, let me add that our weekend really was quite fun. On Saturday night, we went to a very fun and delicious restaurant, and afterwards we went mini golfing. We had lots of laughs. On Sunday, I took Alex and Finn to the UW men's basketball game, tickets courtesy of a friend, which was a nailbiter of a game! Badgers were down by 16 points, caught up and went into overtime, and they ended up winning. It was a blast being there with my kiddos and sharing in the excitement of the crowd.)

on assertiveness

Back in high school and college, I was a bit shy. I realized this and made a concerted effort in my senior year to become more outgoing. I improved, greatly due to my job as a cashier at a gas station, which forced me to talk to strangers, a.k.a. customers. I was also fairly passive, and, in fact, a professor recommended that I take a course in assertiveness training. Point taken -- I worked on being more assertive.

My career as a child protection social worker forced me to be assertive. You can't be a wall flower when taking someone's child away because of abuse or neglect. Nor can you be passive when dealing with family members/teachers/reporters/the general public who are angry about the fact you did OR didn't remove someone's child. And then there's juvenile court. Those attorneys will eat you up and spit you up if you let them. I learned, bath by fire, to stand my ground. Acting assertive? No problem! Knowing when to back down? hmmm, THAT I lost track of.

Now, in my current life as a SAH mom, I'm fairly conflict-free, at least, with people taller than 5 feet. I don't get a chance to manage conflicts or practice my assertiveness. However, recently I've had a couple of occasions that have raised this issue for me. Do you remember that post from December when I was hiding out in the laundry room? I'll fill you in.

So, in early December, Madison had a whopper of a snowstorm. We, along with all of our neighbors, were out for hours working on our sidewalks and driveway. We cleared as well as we could, and then a couple of days later, we had a hard freeze. This all resulted in sidewalks that were level but not cleared to the concrete. A couple of weeks after the snowstorm, I found a notice on our door that we were in violation of the ordinance to clear our sidewalks. I called the city to inquire further, and they explained that, had we put down a salt/sand mixture, we wouldn't be receiving a ticket. However, there was nothing we could do. We had a fine of $114

and until 8 am the following morning to clear the sidewalks.

Bob was out there until midnight chipping away at the sidewalk, and I went out to the store to get sand and salt. (The location where the city directed me to go to for free salt/sand had none -- or if they did, I couldn't find it under the snow cover, which was totally frustrating and swear-word worthy.) We got it cleared, and in days afterwards, I noticed the city coming with bobcats, clearing some of our neighbors' sidewalks.

I was so embarrassed by this. I pride myself that I'm a good citizen. We recycle; we help little old ladies cross the street; we feed birds in our bird feeders in the winter. And then I got angry, in addition to embarrassed. As I started talking with neighbors about this, I found out that two of my neighbors got their tickets tossed out. Another was arguing with the city about their ticket. I decided to get assertive and try to get our ticket dismissed.

I assembled my argument, left a couple of messages, and, after no response, I sent a letter to several people via email explaining why this was an unnecessary ticket (the condition of our street was very poor for several weeks, the condition of city walkways were also poor, we have never had any problems with snow removal after 14 years of home ownership in the city of Madison, etc). I was met with a stone wall. An email in response, by a manager-type person, was terse and unrelenting (and he misspelled my name - grr). Our sidewalks were a safety hazard. We deserved the ticket. I called to argue my point, and the person I got on the phone was rude and dismissive, interrupting me and talking OVER me. I had to restrain myself from really blowing my cool -- instead, I stayed calm. When it was clear I would have no mercy with this man, I paused for a moment, took a deep breath, and said, "have a nice day." May seem like a little moment to some, but that was big for me. I realized he had dug his heals in, and there would be no gains in continuing the argument. Instead of completely dismissing him as an SOB, I thought, "he is probably someone's father, someone's brother, someone's son and he is just doing his job."

This (not so) little story came to an end today, in that this morning was our court appearance for this ticket. I told Enzo we were going on a field trip to see how the legal system works. We parked downtown and talked about the police cars we saw. We went through the metal detectors and got our place in line. The deputy was very kind to all of us miscreants, and she even gave a little stuffed monkey to Enzo ("that I can keep forever ever?" he asked). I was curious about the reasons the other people were there -- who was a speeder? who maybe had a DUI? any other bad shovelers in the crowd? But I couldn't discern anything about anyone else, as the meetings with the judge were private. After briefly stating my case, the judge determined that, if we don't get another ticket for a year, he will dismiss the ticket. I thanked him and left very happy.

But, in the end, I am most pleased with how I handled the phone call with the city employee. I was certainly assertive, not too passive, not too aggressive. Like Goldilocks, I got it right in the end. And I got out of $114 ticket!

blank

We are smack dab in the middle of January, admitted not my favorite time of the year, and I'm feeling ... blank. Not an altogether bad feeling, just sort of strange. I realized the other day I'm not listening to music nearly as much as I normally do. I'm uninspired in the kitchen. I'm not taking pictures or listening to my favorite podcasts. I'm not baking bread or making soap, and my little bit of knitting is not really capturing my attention much.

I'm not really down about this winter -- actually, I secretly believe it's not going to be that bad. This little January "thaw" has given me a bit of hope, a taste of spring, and I think we're going to make it through.

I'm not blue. I'm not mad or impatient or longing for a change. I wouldn't say I'm unhappy, but I'm not sure I'm happy either. But that's ok. I feel rather passive. Letting life go by, enjoying the ride, but not really making much happen. It's sort of a nice break.

on death

On the chilly walk to school this morning (THIS is our January thaw?), Finn asked some deep questions. Seems like that is when we have the most interesting conversations - big brother is off on the bus to his school, little brother is up ahead, riding his bike, so that leaves just Finn and me, ready to ponder the world, in 10 minutes.

Today's conversation started with, "when will all of the people in the world die? what happens next?" Because I didn't want to have a whole apocalypse discussion, I said, "that will never happen because there are always new babies being born." Which brought us to what seemed to be the heart of his questions -- what happens to us when we die? I told him that we don't know for sure, and I listed the three options that popped into my head: our souls go to heaven, our souls go into other new bodies (people, animals), and nothing. Nothing happens because we are dead. He asked which one I believed, and I told him (I'm kind of an 80/20 gal on this issue). I asked him what he believed, and although he was initially excited about the thought of being a dog (he is SO in love with our doggie), he got quiet and said he'd need to think about it a little more. And then he ran ahead to push his brother out of the snowbank he got lodged into.

I love these talks. I love how spontaneous they start and how quickly they end. I am so thankful that these kids keep me on my toes.

on relationships

thoughts mulling around my head lately:

• On Saturday, I took the Alex, Finn and L, a friend, to a children's museum a couple of hours away. I unexpectedly ran into one of my favorite people in the world there (I LOVE it when that happens, which is NEVER!), and we had a lovely day inside a fun, warm building. On the drive home, the backseat successfully lobbied for a sleepover with L, which just extended the fun. As I listened to the chatter and laughter from the backseat, my heart was so light and happy. This friend is so great to both of my kids, although really more a friend to Alex. And, she's a GIRL. Alex has had a rocky relationship with a kid in the neighborhood, and, after this superlong playdate with L, he and I talked about how this friendship is different than the rocky neighborhood relationship. It felt good to process with him how we should nurture healthy relationships and leave behind the unhealthy ones. Plus, I am just tickled that my boys still play with girls, and vice versa. And, I have to add, I'm pleased that Alex and L included Finn on everything without my encouragement. I am so happy when these boys of mine get along.
  
  
• Not to be left out of the friend-fun, Enzo had two (!) playdates with a friend last week. Same friend -- one at our house and the other at his house. It was such a highlight for my little boy. When we were waiting for the friend's mom to come, I said, "Enzo, I'm SO excited for you!" He replied, "I so exited for YOU, mom, and I so excited for JR." I am really enjoying watching him develop friendships and start to figure his little way out in the world.

• Bob and I recently had a little rough patch. All is well now (which, of course, is why I can blog about it). During the 2 days of trouble between us (felt like an eternity), we just stopped talking -- probably, no certainly, because I stopped talking with him. Anyway, when we resumed communicating, we resolved it all within a half-hour. Serves as a good reminder to me that our relationship works best when we are able to talk -- about the important and the trivial. He has been busy working long hours, I've been going to bed early to read or knit (mainly because it's the only warm place in the house at night), and we haven't had much time together. We need to keep talking to stay connected.
• And lastly, Enzo and I visited my grandma today. I am so very thankful that all of my children have a relationship with her. Enzo, especially, brings a smile to her face, which I think is a rarity these days. (my poor grandma, I could post for pages about how sad I am for her.) Anyway, we had some sweet moments where she asked him how old he is ("three and a HALF" he proudly responded), and she replied, "well, what are you going to do with that half?" I don't know if he understood the question, but he threw back his head and laughed and laughed like it was the funniest thing. This made all three of us laugh. Another tender moment was when Enzo offered Grandma to take some gum that I was handing out, and then he proceeded to teach her how to chew it. I don't think she was putting him on; I think she truly didn't know what to do with the gum. She didn't like it but thanked him for "an interesting experiment". I love my grandma so much, and I'm thankful that Enzo and I have the opportunity to visit her.

on resolutions

So, I'm not a huge resolution type of gal. I know myself. Follow-thru because of an arbitrary holiday or date isn't my strong suit. Motivation has to come more from within. HOWEVER, given that, I am inspired this year to throw out a couple of goals I have been mulling over. Let's see how I do over the year...

oh, first a caveat... of course I have exercise/better body image goals, and goals about not yelling at the kiddos so much, but those are so bla bla BLA that I won't even bother talking about it here. Bla. Enough said.

Now (rubbing my hands together), let's get these documented -

1. Every morning, I want to do the cryptoquote in the paper. Just a little dementia-prevention program here. I am older than 40, after all.

2. I want to make more vegetable-heavy meals. Not necessarily meat-free, as my meat-lovin' boys will not be having that, but I'm not above sneaking in extra veggies here and there without them knowing, a la Jessica Seinfeld.

3. Also, on the meal tip, I want to get make double meals more often. You know, make a double batch and freeze half of it. Oh yeah, this is living life on the edge.

4. I want to write a letter a month. I came up with this today while listening to NPR while making meatloaf (in which I snuck in pureed sweet potatoes AND a made a double batch -- so, HA! take that! already on top of these resolutions!). Anyway, back to the letter writing idea, I'm not really sure how this will evolve. I was thinking it may be nice to write a letter to my boys each month -- a letter that I won't give to them until they grow up. Or maybe it will be a more tradition letter that I send in the mail to a friend or family member. I don't know. I DO know that when I was addressing my christmas cards, I was thinking about how this personal correspondence thing is only once/year, and that's not the way I want to be. And then this NPR show talked about it, and I'm convinced to give it a go.

And in reviewing this list, I am showing how incredibly lame I am. Wow. Though I think it may be an improvement over a few years back when my list of goals included more sex in the marital bed, wearing more make-up, and taking a shower more regularly. (which, haha, may be all related now that I think about it - and, just for the record, the marital bed thing was not happening so much because there was a baby in bed with us, so that was my funny way to get the baby into his OWN bed, and NOW I've officially reached too much information).

bla.

2009 wrap-up

Hey y'all!

I don't think I've taken a picture in about a month, so words only will have to suffice for this post. We had a very nice little break from the normal routine over the past 2 weeks. Let's recap...

• haircuts for all of us (kind of a big deal with this happens very rarely around here)
• new glasses for Alex
• late, late nights and sleepy mornings
• sledding at Elver Park
• snow tubing at Cascade Mountain (fun!!!!!!!)
• swimming at a warm (indoor, of course) pool
• Christmas Eve party here - such fun with a wonderful family group
• several other Christmas celebrations with family - all sweet in their own way
• nice visit with my bro, and a couple of short and sweet phone conversations with his wife, whom we all missed these holidays
• sleepover with cousins
• a quiet new years' eve at home, watching the ball "drop" (and all I can say is, "poor Dick Clark...")
• many games of Life and Monopoly (we graduated to the real monopoly - much more fun!)

If you were to ask the kids, their list would be as follows:

• playing with the wii that Santa brought us
• laughing hysterically about the "fanny bank" that Enzo got in a dirty Santa gift exchange -- drop some loot and hear a toot
• Finn's new fish, Franklin
• watching the Packers make it into the playoffs

Today, it's back to reality. Alex awoke early for school and was all ready to go 20 minutes before the bus got here. Finn admitted that he was happy that school was starting again. And Enzo is back in the lap of luxury -- watching Bob the Builder and drinking apple juice with not a brother around to bother him. Bob is back to work and I just did some Yoga Booty Ballet. Now off to make some bread and take a shower. Hello January!!!