Tuesday Topic: "Fun Mommy"

     I thrive on a little chaos.  Really, anyone with 4 children does.  And delivering babies for a living isn't much of a desk job.  Ask me to get on a roller coaster or ride a motorcycle and I will run the other way, but a part of my soul does indeed flourish with the unpredictable.
  That's why it pains me to have to yell things at my kids (okay, my boys).  In the past couple of days, these are true statements that have come out of my mouth:

"Stop playing with the trash."

"Get off your brother's head."

"Put down the couch." 

      When kids are toddlers, I think that most parents feel that some days, they just play the bad guy.  Saying "no" all day long is no fun.  Well, at our house, it's like one of our kiddos is perpetually stuck in that stage.  And I have seriously pondered if I was crushing his spirit (I know, cheesy, ridiculous) by constantly stopping him.  But when I don't, things like this happen.

      

     Pulled an organizational hook unit right out of the wall, despite the mother of all anchors that Ryan had installed it with.  Nuts.  I should have said no sooner on that one.

     It's a fine line being, as my hubby says, "fun mommy."  I often have ideas that in theory are good and in reality, very, very bad.  Usually there is paint and googling involved.  The guilt of stopping the boys from running, than sliding across the floor in nylon clothing with the intent of crashing into the door is about equal to cleaning up a kitchen full of water based paint and hand prints.
     I really want to be present and hands on with my kids.  Most of the time, I feel like it is there world and the rest of us are just in it.  Games and crafts and books and puzzles? Check, if you can find all the pieces or pages.  Snuggling and kisses and prayers and bonding? Absolutely, but it will probably end with a tangled pile of kids on the floor.  It's just not that Hallmark around here.  And that is okay.  I am not the mom at the playground riding the down the slide with her children.  I'm the one on the bench, catching my breath and checking my email.  That's real life here.
     So my solution is to pick my battles.  If there isn't blood or tears, I try really hard to pretend that I don't notice running, crashing and wrestling.  It's a mama of boys thing, I suppose.  We don't get too worked up about a little nudity or noise.   Truthfully, if they find new ways to get from the top of the stairs to the bottom, I want to see how it plays out.  Yet holes in the walls, dents in the wood work or extreme embarrassment of big sister aren't allowed.  Using a nylon tent to ride the stairs is okay.  Drawing or writing (even it is FINALLY a letter, praise God) on any surface of the house will always have a consequence.  Carrying your brother on your head, "Rwanda style" will not.  See how this works?  It's a fine line, a very fine line.
     Is this how it is with all girls?  What about families of only one or two kids?  I don't remember a little chaos with only two children.  Do I not have enough rules?  How do you handle constant noise and mess?  Am I the only one that has given up having furniture in descent condition?

 

 

It IS Sorta Funny

     God has replenished my sense of humor again (my husband is thankful for this) which is good because some of the stuff that has gone down lately has absolutely required us to laugh.

     Remember our beloved Dr C the piano teacher?  Unfortunately, Dr C got a glimpse of why we choose not to take our entourage very many places.  On piano lesson days, Etienne gets Dr C all to himself.  45 minutes of individual, one-on-one, undivided attention.  This kid's dream.  Well this kid loves his Dr C.  He loves him so much that he locked himself into Dr C's bathroom for 12 minutes (as reported to Ryan at the end of the lesson), followed by 4 minutes of "shoe messing around," then 5 minutes of "sweatshirt struggles."  Ryan marched Etienne into the house after hearing this report but before I could hear about it, I could smell it.  The overwhelming smell of men's department store hit me in the kitchen as soon as they walked in from the garage.  Dr C's cologne.

     Ryan was too engrossed in the description of Etienne's lesson to notice the smell (also, Dr C is a classy, well dressed, well groomed guy, so I think his house just smells handsome).  I knew without asking.  Etienne has drenched himself in cologne.

     An hour later, Etienne and I waited patiently to apologize to Dr C.  Then he and I entered the bathroom.  Good heavens.  I know exactly what went down.  E thought, "I love Dr C, so I want to smell like him."  He began investigating and before he could stop himself, an entire bottle of cologne is in the Afro as well as the bathroom floor. Not to mention some medicated cream smeared on the toilet and shaving cream decorating the woodwork.  Ah. There is that instant gratification we are always battling.  As I sat scrubbing the floor, I had to giggle (not in front of E, mind you).  The nuns at Home of Hope had laughed and laughed at Ryan and me.  At the time I thought they were a bit rude but they knew just what we were getting ourselves in to.  

     We are $70 less since purchasing the Aramis cologne to replace the bottle that permeated off E for so many days.  Ryan had him raking leaves (he sobbed, muttering how unfair we are. Again, I worry the neighbors have surely called CPS by now), I pointed out every $70 toy in the Holiday Toys R Us catalog and the big kids had fun adding up all the things that equal $70. 

This= 2 XBOX 360 games or a skateboard + an Avengers outfit

     Lying in bed, Ryan and I began composing a list after this debacle.  I call it our EXTREME PARENTING EXPERIENCES.  It includes such moments as one of the kids driving the car into the side of the house (which Blake put to a stop just in time) and patching holes in the drywall after a "dance off."  I have included scrubbing Preperation H off the side of the piano teacher's toilet to this growing list.

Little Things

Sometimes I get questions about how I get through those moments. The ones that seem to escalate and escalate.  I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing most of the time.  But here are a "moves" that seem to help both Zeke and Etienne (whether it's a sensory issue, RAD or whatever)

• Turn the music on really loud.  Etienne (and his mama) have been digging Hillsong
• Pray aloud.  This helps me stay calm.  Truthfully, I pray for myself, so my kids can hear me, partly because I want to see this kid the way God sees them and partly because I want them to know that I can't do this alone and that I'm not just giving them lip service when I tell them to pray all day long.  I also sometimes recite bible verses.  Your kid isn't going to listen to you lecture right now anyway.
• Snuggle & Swaddle. Again, your kids isn't going to listen to you lecture right now anyway. If you hold them tightly you can help sooth and resist the urge to hit/spank (I'm honest and I know that no matter what The Connected Child may say...this is sometimes almost impossibly hard)
• Blow out the birthday candles. I pull out my coping mechanisms that I use on my laboring patients.  Helping your kid (and you) focus on breathing in their nose and out slowly through the mouth can calm the screaming or snotty crying.
• Confess to someone else.  Text or call someone that loves you ALL THE TIME and gets what this really looks like.  I don't say much.  Something like "I'm not okay right now. I don't want to get too angry at this kid"
• Think about the first time you saw this child. For me, I can never ever erase watching an "Auntie" scrub my child's face with lard and a bucket of cold water on a concrete slab.  I share this image because it's painful, it's heartbreaking and it's a piece of our history.  God gave me that glimpse into my children's life before we brought them home so that in these times of trial and suffering, I can be heartbroken for them all over again.  Those tearful memories serve a purpose.  Use them.

"..we rejoice in our sufferings because suffering produces endurance & endurance, character and character hope." Romans 5:3