High Maintenance Mom

We've been having trouble accomplishing our basic morning chores - get up, come to the table, eat breakfast, clear your plate, get dressed, etc. It's not really new trouble, just the realization that most mornings are a struggle. After reading Positive Discipline and particularly Positive Discipline A-Z: 1001 Solutions to Everyday Parenting Problems , which I highly recommend because it condenses the first book into 30 pages and then gives specific advice for numerous issues through the teenage years, I decided to try a family meeting. This was not our first family meeting. I've tried them several times while reading the books but I tend to want to try everything at once so it wasn't surprising they didn't work the first time. Somehow, this meeting was a success. Maybe the kids needed to adjust to the idea or maybe we were all in the perfect mood but somehow it worked...

I recently attended a talk by Madeline Levine, author of The Price of Privilege: How Parental Pressure and Material Advantage Are Creating a Generation of Disconnected and Unhappy Kids. It was a fabulous talk and I recommend the book. Levine talked about how we give birth twice, once to our fantasy child and the later to the real child. I feel as though I'm working on our fourth as I struggle to see our second child as his own person, not his brother, not my first version of a perfect child, and not my now modified version of what he could be...

As I continue to search for ways to make our family life easier, I recently realized we had slipped into a really difficult period. My kids were constantly having fits and I was too tired to handle it. I'd yell; they'd cry, stomp, slam doors, and yell; and then I would try to make things better only to repeat the cycle. Recently, I've been trying a 'new' trick - point out the positive things in our day. I know it sounds really simple and prior to having two kids over three, I didn't realize I could forget this but, surprise, surprise, I did...

I was at Whole Foods on Monday with both boys trying to get a medium size list of food. It was a reasonable trip with only a few trying moments such as N operating the automatic peanut grinder and both kids blocking the aisles. Another shopper, who was male, told me I was a great mom so I was trying even harder to be that person I want to be. Of course, the euphoria started to decline as the experience continued and by the time we got into the checkout line, we were all ready to go. N asked if he could stand up in the kid's cart he was pushing and I said no. A minute later I looked over, noticed he was standing up, and said in a nonconfrontational way, "N, it's not safe to stand in the cart. You asked if you could and I said no." I was amazed he asked in the first place but since he did, I thought I was handling things pretty well and he was getting out of the cart. It was at this point that the checkout clerk said, "looks like someone is going to get a spanking when they get home..."

In the book eat love pray, Elizabeth Gilbert asks herself what word defines her. She says most people in New York are defined by the word ACHIEVE. Prior to having kids, my word was something like ACHIEVE, but since I've had kids, my word has changed to PUSH. I spend a significant part of my day trying to get my kids to get up, get dressed, brush teeth, wash hands, and go to bed. The methods, or more accurately, the resistance to my requests have become very tiring. My goal, or early New Year's Resolution, is to change from PUSH to something more soothing my kids will respond to...

Ever since I found out I was having a baby a while back, it seems that the schedule debate has been looming as if it was a nasty four letter word. It was very clear to me that having a schedule for my new family would be a blessing and something that I would hold to come hell or high water. Let me make myself very clear, however. I do not believe that newborns should be on any schedule except for their own! I am talking about babies old enough to self soothe and those who understand the rhythm of the day. I found an interesting question and answer series on www.aplaceofourown.org in the Topics, Child Care Management, Schedules and Routines.

Our youngest, N, is now wearing underwear during the day. Like, his brother, he started using the potty occasionally at an early age (around 18 months). We assumed it was going to take a while so we didn't pay much attention to it, unlike his older brother who we thought would be wearing underwear any minute so we rushed him off to the potty all the time. I think because it didn't become a game, we didn't visit every restaurant and plane bathroom. Or, it could be that since we now have two active boys, we travel and go out much less so their hasn't been as many opportunities to investigate every toilet and tampon container in our area...

The other night we had a dinner conversation that reinforced how differently the kids and I think at times. Now that both kids can carry on conversations of varying complexities, I often find myself assuming the kids think like I do. It's a sad assumption that I know I shouldn't make about anyone but here I am, assuming my almost 5 year-old and I see things the same way when it's made perfectly clear to me time and time again that we want different things. For example, I would like a clean room and B would like to cover his floor with as many toys as possible. Because I continue to search for examples where we do see things the same way, I innocently started a conversation about the preschool bunny who had just died. "I hear the bunny died over the weekend." Yes the kids replied, leaving me to believe that we were all in agreement on what had happened to the very old bunny...

A recent report, "The Importance of Play in Promoting Healthy Child Development and Maintaining Strong Parent-Child Bonds," by the American Academy of Pediatrics promotes free play for kids and discusses how our current hurried lifestyles (too many activities) are hurting our kids instead of helping them. Unstructured play has been found to help kids reach important developmental milestones...

It's amazing the things you say you will never do when you are a parent. I was against Dr Ferber's Cry It Out approach to sleep in its extreme and hoped it would never have to come to that. It has! I know my little girl so well and knew it wasnt until now at 6 months that she was ready. My husband declared it night #1 of Boo-Hoo Boot Camp and I cried more than my sweet girl did. My husband said all of the right things and held my hand as we waited and hoped we were doing the right thing.