Motherhood

This is not an easy job.  I try.  I really do.  But there is so much working against me.  The other day we were watching a sitcom with a teenager who they were trying to control.  I immediately got a sick feeling of anxiety about having a teenager and having no control over all their choices!  It's terrifying!  What if they laugh in my face at the rules I try to set?  What if we are just constantly fighting their whole teenage years?  Please, no.  I don't want to do it.  I don't want teenagers.  I'm going to get an ulcer...

As a mother, I identify problems, come up with possible solutions, and follow-through with those plans.  At least I try.  Unfortunately, as much as I would like to, I don’t have total control over every circumstance.

Start with Sadie and her eating habits.  She prefers not to eat dinners.  Sometimes she doesn’t want lunch either.  Of course she wants snacks.  She could live off snacks.  This is not abnormal for children her age.  The only difference between her and the older two (whom I’ve already gone through this with) is that she can get by on very little food.  And she doesn’t mind going hungry.  She’s never been a big eater, whereas Dylan and Kylee both loved food from the moment they started solids.

We don’t fight over dinner that much anymore, but that’s mostly because I set up some rules for Sadie.  She can’t have snacks other than a fruit or veggie.  And not too close to dinner time.  This works well.  She has had a lot of times where she just eats her food without us having to hound her.  It’s so nice!  But then there are times when she’s out playing with friends.  I know immediately when she’s eaten something because she won’t touch her food and says she doesn’t want anything.  It doesn’t matter what she’s eaten, a pack of fruit snacks, a string cheese, I swear a tiny piece of chocolate would be enough.  She just doesn’t want to eat if she’s had ANYTHING.  And for some reason people always want to feed kids.  Little preschoolers are playing together and they want to eat.  Sadie is not really one who asks for food much.  Occasionally she will say she’s hungry and she will eat an orange or a banana.  But when she’s out playing, she’s not thinking about food.  Not unless it’s right in front of her.  Especially when it’s sugar.  I will never understand how people can hand out fruit snacks or chips or cupcakes to a small kid who obviously doesn’t need much food to function, at 4:30 PM.  That is not snack time.  That is dinner time.  Okay, we usually eat dinner between 5:30-6:30 depending on the activities we have going on.  And maybe I wouldn’t care as much if I didn’t put so much work into meals and meal planning and trying to make everyone happy and get us fed in time to take off for whatever else we have planned.  But I get frustrated because I came up with the plan that was working- no snacks but fruit.  And it works, until she goes and eats other places and I can’t control that.  I have had to set rules about her eating friend’s food.  I don’t think it’s unreasonable to require your child to ask before eating two cupcakes at the neighbor’s house.  I haven’t gotten too mad at Sadie about eating treats elsewhere (I get mad about her not eating her real food afterwards) I don’t blame her for accepting treats.  She’s four.  But I’ve been telling her anytime she leaves to go try and find a friend after 3:00 that she’s not allowed to eat anything.  I know it makes me sound like a food nazi, but I need her to eat normal dinners.  I just do.  I have this thing with my kids getting actual real nutrients into their bodies.  Every day.  I know, I’m weird.

She’s been doing well.  She hasn’t lied.  She’s been asking lately and though she still fights eating sometimes, at least I feel like it’s somewhat under control.  I have also texted friend’s parents to let them know not to feed her.  And I feel like I need to tie a sign on her that says, “please don’t feed the adorable preschooler, no matter how cute her smile is”.

Speaking of her cute smile and winning personality, have you ever considered the dangers of having a social child?  One that has no stranger-danger.  Not shy around adults. Trusting.  You see where I’m going?  Ryan and I kind of stress out about it.  The other morning she was outside playing with Raine across the street.  I saw her out the window when I was getting out of the shower.  I saw a lady walking down the sidewalk purposefully and I watched for a minute to see if she was going to Raine’s house and trying to figure out who she was.  I didn’t know her.  She kept walking but I saw her say something to the girls.  I went to get dressed and Ryan saw out the front window that Raine and Sadie were walking down the street with the lady.  He didn’t know her either.  He watched for a minute to see how far they would go.  It’s not like the four-year-old has permission to just wander the whole neighborhood.  So when they got to the end of the street and were about to round the corner with this stranger, Ryan stepped outside and called them back.

Her story was that the woman was looking for her cat so they were helping.  Seriously?  I can imagine the unmarked van parked just down the street waiting to snatch them up.  Okay, I don’t actually think this woman was a predator, but who knows?  Ryan got really mad at Sadie.  We had just barely seen this video circulating Facebook about a guy testing children at a park with a cute dog and telling them to come with him to see his other puppies.  And all the kids gladly went.  We showed Sadie that video and talked to her about strangers.  And like a week later she takes off with one.  It’s scary.  She’s just so talkative and sweet.  And she’s independent and thinks she’s older than she is because she hangs out with older kids, so she thinks she’s fine to ride her bike too far away from home.  She hasn’t quite grasped it yet.  I do a lot of praying for that one.  Talk to her and pray for her, I don’t know what else to do.  Other than lock her in the house all the time.  I don’t know.

So the other control struggle I had was with Dylan.  He had done something really dumb ( I don’t remember what exactly but it probably had to do with hurting Sadie.  Seems like that’s usually the case.) and he had lost electronic privileges for the week.  He took the punishment quite well.  He was actually having a fun time coming up with experiments and finding things to do outside.  I was loving it.  He was playing with a friend and they went off exploring.  It was back when the weather was surprisingly nice in the early Spring so I was happy to have him enjoying the outdoors.  He came home for dinner and I let him go back out to play afterwards.  Only to find out that he went inside his friend’s house and played video games there.  I had made it very clear that I wanted him playing outside and no electronics.  I was so disappointed!  He had been doing so well.  And then he goes to someone else’s house where I have no control.  It’s not that big of a deal, I get that.  But he knew I didn’t want him to and he knew he was in trouble as soon as I asked him.  At least he didn’t try and lie.  I was double frustrated because he was really late coming home. I had texted the friend’s mom asking her to send him home quite awhile before.  So not only did he break his punishment rules, he was late getting to bed which is a whole other beast I deal with.

I know things don’t turn out well when the kids don’t get enough sleep.  Besides the extra emotion and crankiness, Dylan makes much worse choices when he’s tired.  He doesn’t listen and he does what he wants regardless if you ask him to stop or to do a chore or whatever.  His teacher let me know that he had been doing really well but was having a few problems again and I knew it was because the weather was warmer and they were playing outside and staying up too late.  So I tried, and tried, and TRIED to get them to get ready for bed on time.  I did everything I could short of picking them up and throwing them in bed myself (without pajamas, teeth brushed, or family prayers).  But mostly it ended up being everyone else goofing off while Mom begs and pleads for everyone to say prayers and then go to BED!  You see?  I know the problem.  I see the only solution is to go to bed on time, but I just can’t force it to happen that way.  So frustrating!

And that was our struggle for the last month of school, maybe more.  I thought it would be better once school was out because they could sleep in.  Silly me, thinking they actually would sleep in.  Of course they don’t.  Today was an emotional day.

I’m determined to have joy in our family and the kids playing together as siblings.  One morning the last week of school, Dylan went into Kylee’s room in the morning to give her a note (they play games where they pass notes and other things downstairs) in response to her note the previous day.   Well, Kylee is a bit of a bear in the morning.  Even though she had to be up anyway for school, she bit his head off and tried to kick him out of her room.  Dylan doesn’t respond well to that kind of thing.  From anyone.  I’ve watched with my own eyes.  Even when he has a lot on the line, he can’t NOT respond when someone shoves him (or hits, or slams doors, etc).  So that morning started out majorly cranky and I had had enough.  I told them they had mandatory sibling time after school.  Neither could play with friends until they played nicely together for awhile.

The funny thing was, it seemed like they were looking forward to it when they got home from school.  They had some ideas of things to do and they were pleasant with each other.  Of course there were a few disagreements during the time, but they did have fun.  So often they are trying to take off to play with friends or bury their face in the iPad (Dylan, not Kylee.  She doesn’t like electronics much).  It was nice to see them playing and having fun.  And ever since then, they actually play together.  There’s been a lot less fighting between those two.  Fighting between Dylan and Sadie is at an all-time high, but Kylee and him are getting along nicely.

I’ve started the summer off trying to run a pretty tight ship.  You have to clean up one thing before starting another.  Before lunch, you have to clean up your messes.  Play with siblings for awhile in the morning before taking off with friends.  Read, do math work, do chores.  I know, I sound horrible, right?  I am.  I’m mean.  But with them home all day, I don’t have big chunks in the day to get the house under control.  And they can trash the whole place in ten minutes.  So I stay on them.

But it’s been a really fun thing to see them playing together, and WANTING to play together a lot.  Kylee actually going to Dylan to ask if he wants to go play outside.  There’s been a lot of whispering between the two of them, which of course makes me suspicious.  But I can’t imagine they are doing anything to really make me angry.  As best I can tell, they have secret hideouts.  There might be more they are whispering about, maybe staying up late hanging out.  I don’t know.  I figure I will find out eventually if it’s something they shouldn’t be doing.  But it’s pretty cute.  At least my home feels like a place they like to be instead of them just wanting to play with other people every free minute they have.  That’s important to me.  I want to do family things and they need to be each other’s friend to do that.  Kylee was a bit of a poor sport when we went to Yellowstone because she wanted to play with a friend on her free Saturday instead of going with us.  That bothered me more than it should’ve maybe.  But she got over it quick and did have fun with us.  I’m determined to be a close family so they better just get used to it.

There’s so much more to motherhood than making sure they are fed and clean and rested.  It’s super complicated.  It takes Dylan a really long time to break a habit.  Kylee and Sadie are quicker.  But I have to tell Dylan over and over and over and over.  And even though he knows the correct response, he still makes the wrong choice more often than not.  I can’t tell you how many times we have DRILLED it into him that he can’t push Sadie around, hit her, kick her, etc.  She IS a bit of a pill, I’m not saying she’s innocent.  She has taken to smacking people that make her mad, and believe me we have our own battles with that one and her spoiled attitude.  But she is so little compared to Dylan, and he will shove her so hard!  No matter how many times we have said, “She’s a GIRL.  She’s SMALLER than you.  Stop being a BULLY.”  I will be standing RIGHT NEXT to him and he just CAN’T HELP HIMSELF.  It rubs him the wrong way so badly when she tries to push him around, that he just reacts.  It’s inappropriate behavior like this that has made him lose electronic privileges for the whole month of June.  I’m kind of happy about that.  But I’ll get into that later.

I do love these kiddos of mine.  They are really great.  But it's not an easy job.