Tuesday, February 22, 2011
What You Do With Pee
DEAR Cookie Monster,
This lil' ditty is dedicated to you via Christine....
So we had a NO-GOOD-low-down-horrible-rotten weekend.
I know bud, it was no fun for all of us. We ate our feelings, we had a bunch a temper tantrums...we cried, and we didn't even know why.
In fact we had a weekend where worst fears were survived, and some days waking nine children up, and having nine kids to put to bed at night is about all you can ask for. We survived it.
Sooooo Presidents day came around... Daddy was home for a change (Which makes us all happy)
Soooo we decided to have a SPECIAL Family Fun Night....
We took all nine ROLLER SKATING!!! Yes our Crazy lil' family in all had 18 roller skates on at one time. HILARIOUS! Cookie you were so fun and silly and happy riding around on your roller skates. I loved that the skating rink allows strollers...so we wheeled around , getting our boogie on with the babes in the double stroller. It was epic, you all had so MUCH fun!
For the cherry on top...Dad talked the Mama into taking the kiddies out to eat. Now most the time we cook and eat at home, sometimes we do Taco Bell...and in the last 12 months of ya'll being home we have eaten out 3 times in restaurants.
Soooo DAD wanted to take you to Golden Corall. For the record (EWWWWWW)...but I knew you seeing THAT much prepared food in one place would make those baby brown eyes SPARKLE!...and boy did they. You did the Happy dance the WHOLE time you ate. How awesome it was that they NEVER RAN OUT OF FOOD! You even were able to leave a couple bites left in your Ice cream bowl...way to go BUBBA!
So just cause Dad and I dared to say "Wow TONIGHT WAS AWESOME!!! NO TANTRUMS, YOU GUYS DID GREAT!" we had the "see were not doing so bad",written all over our faces. Or maybe your little mad/sad/scared heart didn't know what to do with so much splendor...we sabotaged it, didn't we sweetie?
When Mommy found you in your room at 11 last night, with all of the summer clothes, that were clean, neatly folded in containers...in a pile in the middle of the room...with your "special" GALLON bag of Cheerios poured over the top...and the dog on top of the pile...and then you were peeing all over the pile...It was like our very own, clothes, cheerio, dog, pee, Sundae....
Months ago, this would have been a spank, months ago my anger and out rage would have justified me throwing a tizzy...I would have scared you. I would have taken ten steps back in your healing. Sooo here's the thing bubs..After I closed your room, and grabbed a towel for you to sleep on in my room... I kissed your sweet head good night. Your heart was beating 100 x a minute, your lil eyes were hyper vigilant waiting for "it" to happen.
We are having a GREAT BIG TIME IN...you are with Mama all week huh bud? You have to ask Mama to go Potty. We did a pretty good job of cleaning up. Bummer that now Mama has soooo much extra laundry to wash...that you are gonna be wearing the same clothes this whole week, don't worry , I think you are DARLING in a paper sack.
I sure love ya lil' man ..and hope, hope hope, you remember how BOR-RING it is to have to be around and with Mom all day long...and MAYBE...you'll hold off on the pee Sundae, Maybe.
I still had an AWESOME time yesterday with you!!!!
Love you Forever,
Mom
So, tell me, how did you keep from just absolutely losing it. I need to come up with some other tactics, honestly. There are moments when I’m in compete tears trying to get through to our oldest.
ReplyDeleteNoelle, I got to a scary point,a month or two ago (before Christmas) where I was just mad, grumpy, dreading getting up in the morning because that was exactly it..I was TRYING. SO. gosh, darn. HARD...and all it was doing was making it worse, daring the kids to be more stubborn.
ReplyDeleteI started reading A LOT. I can give you a list of my favorites... I had to take the applicable stuff that applied to my kids and leave the rest.
I started stalking Attachment blogs, and BAWLING seeing my self, and my kids in the words of these brave women.
The biggest thing is I had to was to get silly, loseing it was so counter productive, but the way I really felt (and still do most of the time)...but I started to see and watch my kids eyes when I would engage with them , instaed of difuse them.
That night what calmed me, was I put my hand on my lil guys chest and it was beating 900 miles a minute...he was already so stressed and scared. When I am really, REALLY FRUSTRATED with my kids, I have found if a positive touch, soft hand to hand, pressure with your hand on their chests...can calm us both.
If your oldest is anything like my 7 yr old... he pushes, pushes pushes...NON-STOP, and specifically YOU Mama.
I had to change my brain. IT. IS. HARD (but things were already sucky & hard, it's like trying a "new" hard)...and I am better at it on somedays then others.
Trevor actually found the "Pee Sundae" first and came to me and said " I'm not in a good place, your gonna have to take this one."
I love my Love and Logic Books, they work great for my bio kids, and some of the applications work for my kiddo's that struggle with attachment too.
The BIGGEST thing that I took from the Love and Logic Books is that, consquinces DON'T have to be immediate. If I am feeling too worn down, and just can't deal with the child at the moment, I will tell them "don't you worry honey, this is a hard one, hmmm I might need to talk to Dad, or my freinds about this one and see what they think, we can get back to this when Mom is ready, but don't you worry about it." That has saved me those days when I am with out words or tools that would be productive for ANYONE...and all I really want to do is run away to Mexico.
It is amazeing what nateral coniquences can arise when I have been able to back away from the situation.
Hang in there.
It is so challenging and scary, my biggest fear is that I won't be able to give my kids all of these tools, and help them enough in time for them to know how to be safe, healthy HAPPY adults.
BIG (((HUGS)) to you!
Lindsay