That is it!! I want off this ride! Or at least a magic potion that makes my babies stay babies! This is absolutely ridiculous and terrifying!! (Excuse all the exclamation marks but I'm slightly freaked out...obviously.) In three days I won't have one but two...preteens! I know, right?! I'll let the horror subside a moment.
So Monday Madison turns ten. And let me tell you her age is just catching up with her attitude. There are some days I look at the the sassy britches giving me attitude and wonder where my sickly, quiet baby went. Don't get me wrong I'm ecstatic on one hand that she has finally found her voice. The girl barely spoke, even to us, till she was five or so. On the other....it's hard not to shove a pop tart in her mouth just so she stops speaking for five seconds.
Boys way older than her give her attention that is totally unwarranted. (There was a clothlining incident when Martin's little buddy made a remark when she bent over. His buddy being thirteen and Martin being eleven didn't stop him from taking great exception to the fact that the posterior in question was his nine year old sister's. In truth the little delinquent is lucky it wasn't heard by her father and I, I'd marched his little hiney home and presented him to his parents then he'd be really sorry.)
Thankfully Madison finds physical contact repulsive. Whenever kissing comes on TV or the teenagers around her decide they need to broadcast their budding hormones the response is always the same. "Ewwwwwwww! They're eating each other's faces and getting germs! That is so disgusting!" What mother doesn't want to hear that from her child? It's like music to my ears.
The only downfall is the girl definitely appreciates beauty. She's been known to remark he sure is pretty, to bad he opens his mouth and that goes out the window. The first time she referred that way to a different boy that was showing off for her I about fell off the porch swing.
On one hand I'm quite positive the girl will be as selective as I was on who can take her on a date. On the other I'm fairly certain she'll find the one and like us there will be nothing anyone can do to tell her differently. I can only hope she holds to this wisdom that she has now cause when full blown hormones come into play she might just become the typical teenager trying to give her parents a heart attack.
Maybe we can just wrap the house in electrified barbwire. Wish me luck folks.
Friday, July 18, 2014
Tuesday, June 17, 2014
Metaphorically Speaking
My tears are salting the deli pretzel I am eating to hide my
feelings. It would be better if it was raining, but I am sitting in the
bathroom with the shower going to hide. I'm torn between being thrilled
and being terrified. No one informed me this ride called motherhood was
this emotionally exhausting. I want a refund.
Today is a huge day in the life of the Waltons...we left Martin home alone. As we were shepherding the flock to the vehicle to run to the store, Martin mentioned casually that he didn't want to go really. A simple statement. Nothing but a general statement that he was disinterested in going to town period.
Enter mama logic 101. Well as good a time as any to try this out. We'll only be gone for forty five minutes. Will he be scared? Oh well I'll ask him and see. What are the chances he actually wants to? Zero to slim. So no harm no foul. I'll look like benevolent mommy, and he won't have to admit he still needs me. Perfect plan, right? Since I've already stated he stayed home alone you know it wasn't.
As he walked out of his room, and Honeybear walked out of our room, I met them in the middle and smiling asked if he wanted to stay at home. Honeybear gave me a look of disbelief but looked at our firstborn too. At first Martin thought I was kidding but then he realized I was serious. There was a clear twinkle in his eyes when he confirmed that would be epic.
We went over the rules that every child needs and told him to lock the door behind us. A block from the house I called my mom. Check on Martin in thirty minutes he's home alone. "Are you freaking out?" What? Why would I be freaking out? I just left my first born to be kidnapped, burned alived, or attacked by a minotaur. Who knows what happens when you leave a child home alone? Oh wait, my parents did it and I survived. Still the idea of highway men or a serial killer ran through my head. Maybe even a rampaging tyrannosaurs rex. (You never know when a time traveling worm hole will appear.)
When we hit about five miles away I called him....no answer. TURN THE CAR AROUND HE'S BEING MURDERED!!!! Five seconds later he calls back. Sorry fumbled the phone. DON'T EVER DO THAT AGAIN!!! Now are you okay? Yes, bye. We can come back? No, bye? So everything is okay? Yes mom. So good bye. Alright goodbye.
After we rush through the store and forget the hamburger buns. (Really Honeybear, you act like you're on fire.) As we head out to the car mom calls... laughing. She called him and he was very proud he was home alone. Oh great, he's going to be packing his bags and moving out by the time we get home. On the way back, I start to breath its been less than thirty minutes. How much could go wrong? That's when Honeybear tells me I need to let go of the phone before I crush it.
We got home and the house was still standing. Martin was thrilled and I am still breathing so I guess no one died and it was the first of the boxes packed ,metaphorically speaking, before they all fly the nest. In the mean time I hope they don't make me pull out my feathers to much....
Today is a huge day in the life of the Waltons...we left Martin home alone. As we were shepherding the flock to the vehicle to run to the store, Martin mentioned casually that he didn't want to go really. A simple statement. Nothing but a general statement that he was disinterested in going to town period.
Enter mama logic 101. Well as good a time as any to try this out. We'll only be gone for forty five minutes. Will he be scared? Oh well I'll ask him and see. What are the chances he actually wants to? Zero to slim. So no harm no foul. I'll look like benevolent mommy, and he won't have to admit he still needs me. Perfect plan, right? Since I've already stated he stayed home alone you know it wasn't.
As he walked out of his room, and Honeybear walked out of our room, I met them in the middle and smiling asked if he wanted to stay at home. Honeybear gave me a look of disbelief but looked at our firstborn too. At first Martin thought I was kidding but then he realized I was serious. There was a clear twinkle in his eyes when he confirmed that would be epic.
We went over the rules that every child needs and told him to lock the door behind us. A block from the house I called my mom. Check on Martin in thirty minutes he's home alone. "Are you freaking out?" What? Why would I be freaking out? I just left my first born to be kidnapped, burned alived, or attacked by a minotaur. Who knows what happens when you leave a child home alone? Oh wait, my parents did it and I survived. Still the idea of highway men or a serial killer ran through my head. Maybe even a rampaging tyrannosaurs rex. (You never know when a time traveling worm hole will appear.)
When we hit about five miles away I called him....no answer. TURN THE CAR AROUND HE'S BEING MURDERED!!!! Five seconds later he calls back. Sorry fumbled the phone. DON'T EVER DO THAT AGAIN!!! Now are you okay? Yes, bye. We can come back? No, bye? So everything is okay? Yes mom. So good bye. Alright goodbye.
After we rush through the store and forget the hamburger buns. (Really Honeybear, you act like you're on fire.) As we head out to the car mom calls... laughing. She called him and he was very proud he was home alone. Oh great, he's going to be packing his bags and moving out by the time we get home. On the way back, I start to breath its been less than thirty minutes. How much could go wrong? That's when Honeybear tells me I need to let go of the phone before I crush it.
We got home and the house was still standing. Martin was thrilled and I am still breathing so I guess no one died and it was the first of the boxes packed ,metaphorically speaking, before they all fly the nest. In the mean time I hope they don't make me pull out my feathers to much....
Thursday, June 12, 2014
Naps
Some days it just doesn't pay to get
out of bed. Cliche that that is- being the mother of four kids makes
it almost always true. As I day dream of burrowing back into my cozy
nest, covering my head with my extra pillow, I think about nap time
fights. The sweet ease into dreamland... where you can be anything and
everything without paying the cost of reality, is rarely there for
anyone under the age of six. They'd rather stubbornly cling to their
door posts, nails digging in and leaving gouges to measure their
growth by.
Why drift off to Never Never Land with
Peter Pan when you can cry and scream and face the injustices of
mommy refusing to refill your sippy cup. Who wants to fly through the
stars, scuba dive in the frothy depths where amazing creatures play,
when you can sit on your bed gasping for breath to rattle your
windows.
ME! ME! ME! I DO! I DO!
But no, every young child knows the most
magical moments happen after mommy tries to lay them down. We must be
finger painting the frosting on world record cookies from their
reactions. Either that or we're swimming in melted ice cream with
unicorns. That is the only explanation for their absolute refusal to
do the magical restorative thing called a nap.
Why am I reminiscing of those days? Two
of mine declared loudly that they were tired from staying up late
chatting and went and took a nap. Now I'm the one throwing the
tantrum, cause it's just not fair. They're probably mermaids right now. While I'm sitting here drinking my second pot of coffee just trying to
stay awake long enough to make it to bedtime! I wanna nap too!
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
Parallels
There's a few of my friends who keep putting up these memes. Jokingly I think a war has started. They always seem to be either stay at home mom problems or working mom problems. Now don't get me wrong I'm against the whole "mommy wars" thing (seriously can't we all just get along.) But as I watch them post and comment back forth I see the parallels that they don't. I see the exact same problems unfolding in different locations. But I think they're seriously missing a perspective. You guessed it....homeschooling mom.
For example one exchange went something like this.
"Yes, I'm a stay at home mom. Go ahead ask me what I do all day...I dare you."
Response of, "I do the laundry, cook dinner, nuture the children all while be preoccupied by this little thing called a full time job."
And the whole time I'm thinking...I do all of that and create magical lesson plans for four different grades and don't even get the summer months off.
Another exchange went a little like this.
"Hardest part of my day was dropping my kids of at daycare...I forgot my coffee cup there."
Response this time, "I've seen the village and I don't want them raising my child."
My thoughts were along the lines of...coffee where's my coffee. Did you get your reading done yet? No I don't know where your book is probably where ever my coffee went to... they're eloping. Locating both book and coffee in guinea pig cage. o_O Don't ask, I don't have the answer.
This one wasn't in meme form but rather entertaining.
"My boss keeps nagging me to finish this project. I still have to finish last weeks reports. And just got a call from daycare that little bit has a rash."
"You think you got it rough. Baby won't quit screaming. Hubby wants dinner. And my little one keeps telling me her tummy hurts only to find out she's getting the chicken pox."
Mutual commiseration aside (see working or staying at home your lives run parallel.) I'm sitting here going we haven't finished our volcanos! Did the reading circle go around twice? Is that the time do I feed them a full lunch and hope they eat dinner. What's the dog eating? I still haven't got all the materials measured out for lab tomorrow. We have volleyball practice tonight? What do you mean you don't have any clean shorts? Did we get in that many hours for sure? I need to do objectives for next weeks lessons. And check yesterday and today's journal entries. Did I kiss Honeybear goodbye? Oh no part of his lunch is sitting here. Gotta run that to him after practice. Is there enough hours left after the kids go to bed to research the five different topics the kids asked about today? Did the trash bill get paid? What's today? Or since it's after midnight does it count as tomorrow?
Does everyone see the parallels to our universes? If not I can't put it any other way, we're all moms. All balancing a million things, praying our brains keep our lists prioritized and organized and just trying to drink enough coffee to keep us going on nothing else but a half eaten chicken nugget and a questionable yogurt.
For example one exchange went something like this.
"Yes, I'm a stay at home mom. Go ahead ask me what I do all day...I dare you."
Response of, "I do the laundry, cook dinner, nuture the children all while be preoccupied by this little thing called a full time job."
And the whole time I'm thinking...I do all of that and create magical lesson plans for four different grades and don't even get the summer months off.
Another exchange went a little like this.
"Hardest part of my day was dropping my kids of at daycare...I forgot my coffee cup there."
Response this time, "I've seen the village and I don't want them raising my child."
My thoughts were along the lines of...coffee where's my coffee. Did you get your reading done yet? No I don't know where your book is probably where ever my coffee went to... they're eloping. Locating both book and coffee in guinea pig cage. o_O Don't ask, I don't have the answer.
This one wasn't in meme form but rather entertaining.
"My boss keeps nagging me to finish this project. I still have to finish last weeks reports. And just got a call from daycare that little bit has a rash."
"You think you got it rough. Baby won't quit screaming. Hubby wants dinner. And my little one keeps telling me her tummy hurts only to find out she's getting the chicken pox."
Mutual commiseration aside (see working or staying at home your lives run parallel.) I'm sitting here going we haven't finished our volcanos! Did the reading circle go around twice? Is that the time do I feed them a full lunch and hope they eat dinner. What's the dog eating? I still haven't got all the materials measured out for lab tomorrow. We have volleyball practice tonight? What do you mean you don't have any clean shorts? Did we get in that many hours for sure? I need to do objectives for next weeks lessons. And check yesterday and today's journal entries. Did I kiss Honeybear goodbye? Oh no part of his lunch is sitting here. Gotta run that to him after practice. Is there enough hours left after the kids go to bed to research the five different topics the kids asked about today? Did the trash bill get paid? What's today? Or since it's after midnight does it count as tomorrow?
Does everyone see the parallels to our universes? If not I can't put it any other way, we're all moms. All balancing a million things, praying our brains keep our lists prioritized and organized and just trying to drink enough coffee to keep us going on nothing else but a half eaten chicken nugget and a questionable yogurt.
Friday, June 6, 2014
Homeschooling, Hillbillying, Family Oriented Humor.....Sounds about right
You might have noticed the nice, bright, yet simplistic background change. If anyone just thought, "Nah, I just come here to read, didn't really notice." Well bless your little heart. Anyone whose read my blog posts more than once knows that the thread that holds them all together is colorful and distinct: homeschooling, hillbillying, family oriented humor. I hope that thread stays woven deeply into this blog.
But some of the background elements have changed drastically from whence we originated. Namely the children can now all pronounce assassination....and we live "in town" with very little room to homestead. *sad face* (I can't help but giggle to think of any of my true city slickers who came to see our "town"- all six blocks of it.)
The minions are no longer sweet little children that adorable and appalling truths spill out of unchecked. (Still truthful just not as cute coming from an eleven year old as a six year old.) I still have moments when I want to look at them with an incredulous look and proclaim loudly, "Who are you calling Mom?" Sometimes I smugly grin and say, "Yeah, they're all mine."
I have learned to not just say, "Oh yeah, they're homeschooled." Usually that's the last fact I give people. It skips a lot of hassle. But alas, my proud manner of exclamation of this information in their younger years has led them by example and now most often it's out of my hands. (Since I am still very proud of homeschooling I haven't flat out told them not to tell people that.)
Honeybear is over thirty (with a better beard than most the guys on Duck Dynasty) and in a few weeks time I will hit that particular milestone myself. *happy dance* Weird, I know, but I am so thrilled to not be a twenty something with four kids. I hope to not see the people doing rapid appraisal of our family and start asking ridiculously rude and personal questions. (No, I gathered the neighbors kids up before I left....or No I don't know how that happens. Please tell me so I can prevent it next time. My two favorite responses to the stupidest question I hear repeatedly.)
So here we sit years later, hopefully you still enjoy my writing. (I'd like to think I'm pretty witty on occasion.) I hope to be entertaining and enthralling y'all for a long time to come...all three of you.
But some of the background elements have changed drastically from whence we originated. Namely the children can now all pronounce assassination....and we live "in town" with very little room to homestead. *sad face* (I can't help but giggle to think of any of my true city slickers who came to see our "town"- all six blocks of it.)
The minions are no longer sweet little children that adorable and appalling truths spill out of unchecked. (Still truthful just not as cute coming from an eleven year old as a six year old.) I still have moments when I want to look at them with an incredulous look and proclaim loudly, "Who are you calling Mom?" Sometimes I smugly grin and say, "Yeah, they're all mine."
I have learned to not just say, "Oh yeah, they're homeschooled." Usually that's the last fact I give people. It skips a lot of hassle. But alas, my proud manner of exclamation of this information in their younger years has led them by example and now most often it's out of my hands. (Since I am still very proud of homeschooling I haven't flat out told them not to tell people that.)
Honeybear is over thirty (with a better beard than most the guys on Duck Dynasty) and in a few weeks time I will hit that particular milestone myself. *happy dance* Weird, I know, but I am so thrilled to not be a twenty something with four kids. I hope to not see the people doing rapid appraisal of our family and start asking ridiculously rude and personal questions. (No, I gathered the neighbors kids up before I left....or No I don't know how that happens. Please tell me so I can prevent it next time. My two favorite responses to the stupidest question I hear repeatedly.)
So here we sit years later, hopefully you still enjoy my writing. (I'd like to think I'm pretty witty on occasion.) I hope to be entertaining and enthralling y'all for a long time to come...all three of you.
Monday, June 2, 2014
Mother's Guilt
It's summer vacation!!! FREEEEEDDDOOM! Yeah, no, not really. I never escape. I've only left once and not felt extreme mother's guilt. You know mother's guilt surely? That is where you leave your precocious children with their father or some other safe person that isn't you. As you close the door you take a deep breath and relax for a millisecond....then the guilt hits.
At first I always believed it to be because I could hear a child saying bye bye mama and felt I was shirking my motherly duty of being their everything. (chauffeur, cook, nurse, teacher, maid, slave, etc) Now I know the truth...the guilt is because I'm happy to have a moment to myself. Now don't get me wrong. I cherish my children. I just want to hug them, and squeeze them, and call them George. Sometimes I want to squeeze the orneriness out of them but hey who doesn't.
The point is in over eleven years I've nurtured them to be these amazing and independent individuals and still feel like I'm doing something wrong by not being there when they need to come running to me. For goodness sakes I might be picking out a cantaloupe when they have an epiphany on dark matter. Their attention spans being equivalent to a guppy's the whole world could blame me for years to come when they find out it took them years to grasp the concept again. Our time machines will be twenty years later than they should have been. And it will be all my fault for leaving to go grocery shopping in peace.
As the years have gone by the guilt has eased. When Degan came along was the first time I was so selfish as to dare leave them behind to go grocery shopping. I managed to do two weeks of shopping in twenty minutes. Elbows flying, cart wheels screeching around corners, I probably looked like a crazy woman putting my arm out and just shoving a whole row of cans into the basket as I zoomed down the aisle veering out of the path of some coupon queen. (The air horn was probably a little much but it was effective for getting people out of the way.) I sped back to the house and ran inside the words of "Mommy's back." died on my lips as I saw they were all exactly where I had left them. Honeybear came and kissed me asking if I'd forgotten something. I just shook my head as I watched him deftly change a diaper and grab the next one as she crawled past.The next time I left the air horn at home.
Last week the glory that is guiltless happened. I had been up to my eyeballs in kids for a few days. Friends of the kids were in and out. I had not been able to even go to the bathroom without someone rattling the knob needing a bandaid, more koolaid, an argument settled. (Trust me I kept trying to escape from the mob and that door at least has a lock.) So finally I walked out looked at Honeybear and said, "Honey I'm going to run over to Britty Bacon's for a bit." He spared me a glance, "Okay."
I stopped in the middle of my hunt for my other shoe and looked at him. "No really. I might not even come back."
Not even looking at me, "See ya in an hour tops. But if you do make it to her house, have fun."
I stopped searching completely at this. "You don't want me to go, do you?"
He sighed and looked at me then, "I wish you would go. And stay away for a bit. They're old enough and I'm here. Go have fun...if you remember what that is without kids."
Right then I spotted my elusive shoe and gingerly wiggled into it without looking at him. Grabbed my keys, walked over to him, kissed him while searching his face. "I'm leaving now."
"Yep."
I walked out to the car, looked back at the house waiting for the mob to come throw themselves at my feet pleading with me to not leave them...nothing but shrieks of laughter from the backyard and treehouse. I pulled out took a breath....nothing. So I cranked the music and joyfully and blissfully spent the next couple of hours in quiet enjoyment with an adult who doesn't have children therefore even the conversation was mostly missing of children. Took eleven years but it did happen.
I have looked at this as the beginning of the end. My children don't need me the way they use to, this was just a small slice of what is to come. Sooner than I realize I will have an empty nest. So I guess the guilt will eventually leave me entirely. By then I'll probably miss the guilt cause then my children will be so busy I'll be the one trying to get a little of their attention. Till then I'll just breath and wait.
At first I always believed it to be because I could hear a child saying bye bye mama and felt I was shirking my motherly duty of being their everything. (chauffeur, cook, nurse, teacher, maid, slave, etc) Now I know the truth...the guilt is because I'm happy to have a moment to myself. Now don't get me wrong. I cherish my children. I just want to hug them, and squeeze them, and call them George. Sometimes I want to squeeze the orneriness out of them but hey who doesn't.
The point is in over eleven years I've nurtured them to be these amazing and independent individuals and still feel like I'm doing something wrong by not being there when they need to come running to me. For goodness sakes I might be picking out a cantaloupe when they have an epiphany on dark matter. Their attention spans being equivalent to a guppy's the whole world could blame me for years to come when they find out it took them years to grasp the concept again. Our time machines will be twenty years later than they should have been. And it will be all my fault for leaving to go grocery shopping in peace.
As the years have gone by the guilt has eased. When Degan came along was the first time I was so selfish as to dare leave them behind to go grocery shopping. I managed to do two weeks of shopping in twenty minutes. Elbows flying, cart wheels screeching around corners, I probably looked like a crazy woman putting my arm out and just shoving a whole row of cans into the basket as I zoomed down the aisle veering out of the path of some coupon queen. (The air horn was probably a little much but it was effective for getting people out of the way.) I sped back to the house and ran inside the words of "Mommy's back." died on my lips as I saw they were all exactly where I had left them. Honeybear came and kissed me asking if I'd forgotten something. I just shook my head as I watched him deftly change a diaper and grab the next one as she crawled past.The next time I left the air horn at home.
Last week the glory that is guiltless happened. I had been up to my eyeballs in kids for a few days. Friends of the kids were in and out. I had not been able to even go to the bathroom without someone rattling the knob needing a bandaid, more koolaid, an argument settled. (Trust me I kept trying to escape from the mob and that door at least has a lock.) So finally I walked out looked at Honeybear and said, "Honey I'm going to run over to Britty Bacon's for a bit." He spared me a glance, "Okay."
I stopped in the middle of my hunt for my other shoe and looked at him. "No really. I might not even come back."
Not even looking at me, "See ya in an hour tops. But if you do make it to her house, have fun."
I stopped searching completely at this. "You don't want me to go, do you?"
He sighed and looked at me then, "I wish you would go. And stay away for a bit. They're old enough and I'm here. Go have fun...if you remember what that is without kids."
Right then I spotted my elusive shoe and gingerly wiggled into it without looking at him. Grabbed my keys, walked over to him, kissed him while searching his face. "I'm leaving now."
"Yep."
I walked out to the car, looked back at the house waiting for the mob to come throw themselves at my feet pleading with me to not leave them...nothing but shrieks of laughter from the backyard and treehouse. I pulled out took a breath....nothing. So I cranked the music and joyfully and blissfully spent the next couple of hours in quiet enjoyment with an adult who doesn't have children therefore even the conversation was mostly missing of children. Took eleven years but it did happen.
I have looked at this as the beginning of the end. My children don't need me the way they use to, this was just a small slice of what is to come. Sooner than I realize I will have an empty nest. So I guess the guilt will eventually leave me entirely. By then I'll probably miss the guilt cause then my children will be so busy I'll be the one trying to get a little of their attention. Till then I'll just breath and wait.
Friday, May 23, 2014
motherhood
When I started this blog a couple of years ago I was in a bubble on our homestead with young, precocious children without a care in the world. Things have changed so much since then. I find having a couple of preteens and all four actively homeschooled leaves me very little time for things like writing, painting, being carefree...not to mention more important things like bathing in peace or making the bed. I can't even keep a straight face on that line, I don't remember the last time either of those happened.
But one thing I have noticed is parenting has gotten a lot harder. Just since Bella has been born parenting has become so trendsetting theories are everywhere. Things have gotten so out of hand people compete to see who can be the most zen and creative best friend their kids have ever seen. (I'm sorry but I'm not even going to consider baby bird feeding my kids.) I've tried to show the light hearted side of motherhood but now realize my bubble made me see my children's childhood in rose colored glasses (or maybe rainbow colored ones on more exciting days.)
Because of those glasses being so rudely broken (four kids is it really that surprising they're broken?) I thought maybe I'd just tear it down to brass tacks. By that I'm going to do the very thing that drives me crazy, I'm going to tell you exactly how to fail as a parent. No, you didn't read that last sentence wrong I said FAIL!
Your probably all shaking your head thinking that's it she's finally lost it. My response....finally? I lost it the moment I found out I was going to be a mom. I devoured every book I could find. Thought I had all the answers, smirked when Martin slept through the night the first night home from the hospital. And then the second day home came......
I have tried every method of discipline known, looked at every psycho babble that came along, promised not to yell, find myself yelling, promised a million different times I was going to not screw up this gig. Guess what I fail every time I make that promise. I am not my kids' best friend, they don't always like me, and sometimes I'm not sure if they'll all survive till dinner without mommy hiding in the corner rocking and babbling to herself. (I find a great deal of relief in knowing I'm not the only parent that fails to keep it perfectly together everyday.)
Guess what else...my kids are individuals. They know right from wrong. They have different tastes in everything from clothes to music to activities they enjoy. They get punished differently. They are very afraid when they get caught. (As they should be.) But are they afraid of me? Not on your life. They're afraid of the punishment. Do they think if I don't explain every decision their father and I make they feel like they're not members of this family? lol That one is just utterly ridiculous. Do they understand life isn't fair and sometimes things just don't go your way? What kind of parent would I be if I led them to believe that the world would bend to their every whim while under our roof, then threw them out in the real world to find out the truth. I let them fail. And their failures are their own.
Once again you're probably rereading that last sentence going what? That's right. They fail and it's their fault. I don't fix it for them. But Honeybear and I are right there to help them up and give them the tools to fix it themselves. And hopefully I fail to step in enough that they learn to fix their problems themselves and not rely on others while they sit in the middle of their mess going but it's not my fault. (Remember the age old adage "Your raising the next generation." I'd like them not to be boomerang babies.)
Notice I've refrained from mentioning one concrete piece of advice or disciplinary tactics? Because children and families aren't cookie cutters! What works for Martin doesn't work for Degan or Madison. The only two things that in general terms holds for every child and parent is...1) know your child and 2) there has yet to be a perfect parent in the history of humanity the only thing you can hope for is you don't screw up to badly. So how do you fail at being a parent? You get pregnant.
But one thing I have noticed is parenting has gotten a lot harder. Just since Bella has been born parenting has become so trendsetting theories are everywhere. Things have gotten so out of hand people compete to see who can be the most zen and creative best friend their kids have ever seen. (I'm sorry but I'm not even going to consider baby bird feeding my kids.) I've tried to show the light hearted side of motherhood but now realize my bubble made me see my children's childhood in rose colored glasses (or maybe rainbow colored ones on more exciting days.)
Because of those glasses being so rudely broken (four kids is it really that surprising they're broken?) I thought maybe I'd just tear it down to brass tacks. By that I'm going to do the very thing that drives me crazy, I'm going to tell you exactly how to fail as a parent. No, you didn't read that last sentence wrong I said FAIL!
Your probably all shaking your head thinking that's it she's finally lost it. My response....finally? I lost it the moment I found out I was going to be a mom. I devoured every book I could find. Thought I had all the answers, smirked when Martin slept through the night the first night home from the hospital. And then the second day home came......
I have tried every method of discipline known, looked at every psycho babble that came along, promised not to yell, find myself yelling, promised a million different times I was going to not screw up this gig. Guess what I fail every time I make that promise. I am not my kids' best friend, they don't always like me, and sometimes I'm not sure if they'll all survive till dinner without mommy hiding in the corner rocking and babbling to herself. (I find a great deal of relief in knowing I'm not the only parent that fails to keep it perfectly together everyday.)
Guess what else...my kids are individuals. They know right from wrong. They have different tastes in everything from clothes to music to activities they enjoy. They get punished differently. They are very afraid when they get caught. (As they should be.) But are they afraid of me? Not on your life. They're afraid of the punishment. Do they think if I don't explain every decision their father and I make they feel like they're not members of this family? lol That one is just utterly ridiculous. Do they understand life isn't fair and sometimes things just don't go your way? What kind of parent would I be if I led them to believe that the world would bend to their every whim while under our roof, then threw them out in the real world to find out the truth. I let them fail. And their failures are their own.
Once again you're probably rereading that last sentence going what? That's right. They fail and it's their fault. I don't fix it for them. But Honeybear and I are right there to help them up and give them the tools to fix it themselves. And hopefully I fail to step in enough that they learn to fix their problems themselves and not rely on others while they sit in the middle of their mess going but it's not my fault. (Remember the age old adage "Your raising the next generation." I'd like them not to be boomerang babies.)
Notice I've refrained from mentioning one concrete piece of advice or disciplinary tactics? Because children and families aren't cookie cutters! What works for Martin doesn't work for Degan or Madison. The only two things that in general terms holds for every child and parent is...1) know your child and 2) there has yet to be a perfect parent in the history of humanity the only thing you can hope for is you don't screw up to badly. So how do you fail at being a parent? You get pregnant.
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