parenting

Life here has gotten busy. I don’t have much extra brainspace. I knew this was coming and I knew that I was having a really hard time keeping the house livable. Four kids make messes far faster than one mom can clean them up. The obvious solution was to make the kids do more of the housework. Unfortunately making kids do work is ofen 2-3 times harder than doing it myself, so I often fail to push the issue. With all of this in mind, I crafted an incentive plan.

Children are visual and I knew I needed a way for them to track how they were doing. I also needed a great big reminder of what they’re supposed to be doing. So I comandeered a left over display board and created four trails across it. Each child has a character and a path to follow. Each path has about 50 spaces, but the paths for Patches and Gleek are slightly shorter than those for Kiki and Link. When all four children reach the finish line Howard and I have promised to buy them a new video game or maybe take a family trip to Chuck E Cheese. I figure it will take them about a month to work their way to the end of the path. That’s a very long time for kids to work toward a reward, so about every 10 spaces along each path is a star space. When a child lands on a star space they get a treat. Right now they’re mostly focused on the star spaces, but I don’t much care as long as the work gets done.

The way that the kids get to move their characters along their path is by completing required chores. They have 5 Morning Things and 5 Bedtime Things that they have to do each day. Whenever they complete a set of Things, they get to move one space forward. The 5 Morning Things are: Get dressed, Eat Breakfast, Brush teeth & hair, Make your bed, Do one chore from the list next to the chart. The 5 Bedtime things are: Put on Pajamas, Eat snack, Brush teeth, Pick up 30 toys, Say prayers. Sad to say, there are usually plenty of toys for all four kids to pick up 30 toys each, particularly if the duplos have been scattered yet again. In addition to all of that each child has been assigned a day to be the kitchen helper. When they complete kitchen helper duties they get an additional move.

So far this plan has worked exceptionally well. I fill the chore list with things like washing doors and walls. Suddenly those things are actually getting done. The house has been lots more picked up. The kids moan and groan, but they also feel accomplished to know that they’ve actually contributed to the smooth running of the household. Since I printed up lists of the 5 Morning Things, and 5 Bedtime Things, I don’t have to nag about each thing, I just tell the older two to check the list.

There have been a few kinks. Just last night when I required Link to think up a consequence for a misbehavior, he suggested moving back a couple of spaces on the chart. He seemed a little too cheerful about the prospect and on further inquiry I discovered that he wanted to move back two spaces so that he could land on the star space again and get another treat. I informed him that the star spaces only worked the first time they were landed on and all the appeal of that consequence evaporated.

So I’m liking the new system. At some point in the next 4 months it will probably fall apart and I’ll have to create something new. That is to be expected as our family needs shift and our family members grow. It just feels good to have solved the problem for now.

In The Fellowship of the Ring Bilbo Baggins talks about feeling stretched or faded like butter that has been spread across too much bread. I know that feeling. I have four kids. Each of those kids has a whole loaf’s worth of wants and needs. It is the best I can do to cover the critical pieces. No matter how thin I spread myself I cannot butter all that bread. I cannot meet all the needs that my children have. This is why it takes a village to raise a child. I have to rely on friends, parents of friends, teachers, neighbors, and acquaintances to all help meet the needs of these developing people.

But oh how I wish there was more of me to go around. I wish I had more time/energy/desire to read stories to kids. I wish I could always be kind and cheerful while requiring chores. I wish I could spend time playing the piano with Gleek. I wish I could concentrate on helping Patches master potty training. I wish I could sit for 30 minutes each night and listend to Link reading aloud. I wish I could spend more time playing games with the kids. I wish I could always keep the kitchen clean. I wish I could be better at cooking healthy meals. I wish I could be better at controling all our diets. I wish I was smarter, better, faster, stronger.

It hurts to see things that they need which I can’t supply.

Sometimes I look at one of my kids and they are bigger than they were yesterday. Sometimes the “bigger” is physical and that cute favorite shirt is too small. Sometimes the child’s size doesn’t change at all, but the thoughts get bigger. New doors have opened in the child’s mind and suddenly whole new trains of thought are free for travelling. Sometimes this only means new vocabulary and interesting conversations. Sometimes it means that my four year old who has never once drawn on a wall suddenly creates mural sized portraiture. Frequently it means that I have to re-think all my parenting tactics for that particular child because they’ve suddenly grown into a different and slightly more complex person.

Patches got bigger inside his head last month. It happened about a week after I started babysitting NotMyBaby. These big changes are frequently triggered by an event, so it wasn’t really a surprise. Having NMB around made all of us, including Patches, realize that Patches simply isn’t a baby anymore. He isn’t even a toddler anymore. He’s suddenly morphed into a little preschooler. It shows in the conversations I have with him where he is stretching his vocabulary to try to express thoughts he doesn’t quite have words for yet. It shows in the way he throws tantrums when I do things for him that he wanted to do for himself. It shows in his new awareness of patterns and How Things Ought To Be. When I am changing his diaper I am no longer allowed to put his pants on while he is lying down, that’s not the Way Pants Go On, instead I have to let him stand and then coax him to put each foot in separately. Sometimes he even insists on pulling the pants up himself. His brain is now a three year old brain instead of a two year old brain even though his birthday isn’t until March. (Of course all of this starts indicating his readiness for potty training, but I’m not ready to deal with that yet so the potty training push will wait.)

These changes are now familiar ones. I remember when Kiki made the same shift around her third birthday. It was bewildering. I was always trying to figure out whether a certain behavior was just a stage that would be outgrown or something I needed to worry about. The first time around I really wanted a book that would explain common stages and the ages at which they occur. I never found one. Now after 4 kids I don’t need it anymore because I have first hand experience with all the patterns. Maybe sometime I’ll write up my observations in a different entry.

Okay, I lied. I still need the book. I’m pretty good at baby, toddler, preschooler, early gradeschooler, but I’m lost when it comes to pre-teen and I’m sure that teen will be just as bewildering. I think Kiki has turned or is turning a developmental corner too. The happy evidence of this is some of the wittyness I’ve seen from her lately. She’s gotten smart-alecky, but fortunately it is in a nice way that teases rather than defies. The unhappy evidence is the way she has been manipulating my emotions and pushing my buttons lately. There have been lots of tumultous conflicts in the past two months, mostly over homework. It helps to realize that all the conflict is in part caused by the fact that she’s gotten smarter. Many many times homework time was sidetracked for hours by diversionary subjects such as “I’m stupid” or “I’m worthless” because she knew that those statements change me from Homework Matron to Healing Mommy. I doubt this type of manipulation was conscious, but then I also doubt that it was completely subconscious. We’re gradually wrangling ourselves into a new relationship where I don’t allow her to manipulate me and she stops trying because it has stopped working. Not an easy process, but at least now I can see it as a process instead of worrying that I had a permanently emotionally unstable daughter who would be dependent on me for stability forever.

All this thinking about developmental corners has me once again realizing how important this journal is to me. Many times I’ve read back and found records of delightful events that I had completely forgotten. In here I manage to capture snippets of who my kids are today. That’s important because next week they might be different people. Again.

Most of the day was pretty good. The 90 minutes between 4:30 and 6 pm were not. I spent most of the time furious for no good reason. My kids were no worse than they usually behave. But for some reason every single thing they did recieved a high volume scolding from me. The knowledge that I was behaving poorly fed into the behavior in a horrific negative feedback loop. When I feel like that I want my kids to cower in fear and do exactly as I say. They don’t, because they are fairly confident and secure individuals. Unfortunately their failure to cower only makes me get madder. Anger is not rational. Anger definitely doesn’t want to be fair or reasonable. Anger was definitely in control this evening.

I finally reached a point where the fury could not hold any longer and I found myself in tears appologizing to Howard for being mean to his kids. Like any good husband, Howard patted my back and told me it was all okay. What really broke me up though was when Patches came into the room, climbed into my lap, and gave me a long long snuggly hug. I’d made him dissolve into tears on the kitchen floor only minutes before and there he was loving me, reassuring me, and seeking reassurance from me. I held him and appologized to him and talked to him. How can he still like me and need me on days like this?

It would be nice if I could say that Patches hug turned everything around. The rest of the evening has been better, but I’m definitely still a grouchy mom instead of an empathetic and kind mom. Hopefully I can get them all into bed soon so that tomorrow can be a better day.

I’ve been trying a little experiment this week. I’ve stopped suggesting to the kids that they go watch videos. If they come and ask me, I’ll happily turn them on, but I’m not allowed to sugguest it. I’ve discovered two things:

1. the kids are watching a lot less T.V.

2. It’s hard not to suggest watching a video when I want them occupied.

These realizations make me wonder about the reported hours of television that kids are watching these days. Parents moan and groan about how they wish their kids would do something else, but how many of them are like me? How many parents are unconsciously the instigators of their kids’ veiwing addictions? If we had cable television I suspect this experiment would have turned out differently because there would always be the allure of something new to be seen. As it is, the kids have seen everything we own multiple times and are fairly content to do something else instead. Yet another reason I’m really glad we don’t have cable, or dish, or even broadcast TV.

Children test thier parents. They’ll deliberately defy rules to see if they can get away with it or sometimes just because they’re mad. Parents never know when these challenges will come. They’re like Parenting Skills Pop Quizzes. And also like pop quizzes I feel really happy if I get it right and frustrated when I get it wrong. Today Gleek provided me with a Mommy Challenge and I got it exactly right, so I need to brag a little. I’ll put it behind the cut though because I’m not sure everyone cares to have all the details.

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Mommy ChallengeRead More »

As a parent it is my job to spread acceptance, not to be seeking it. My children and their friends are not the source to which I should turn for affirmation. I will build better relationships with my kids and their friends if I am confident in myself than if I am twisting around to seek their approval.

This thought will probably be increasingly important as my kids turn into teens. As they and their friends mature physically they’ll start feeling more like peers whom I need to impress. Their opinions need to matter to me, but my own approval of myself should be the one that counts.

Last summer I attended a convention and became involved in a last minute scheduling mix up. Some panels had failed to make the schedule and had to be squeezed in. Another panellist witnessed the problem and jumped in to say “They can have my slot.” Then he proceeded to complain about how he was always the one who had to be the nice guy and it wasn’t fair. During this monologue the persons in charge found a solution which did not involve cancelling any panels. At the time I was amused at the way this person threw himself under people’s feet and then complained about being stepped on. This event is on my mind because to my chagrin I’ve noticed a similar tendency in myself. I’m all too ready to believe that people will fail without my help and that my failure to volunteer is therefore cause for guilt. It is incredibly egotistical of me, and yet I continue to consider myself indispensible. I didn’t jump to volunteer this week and was so happy to discover that my failure to volunteer had zero effect on others. They found a good solution which didn’t involve me at all. I’m not the only capable person out there and I need to remember it.

Their solution was a relief because I did NOT want to have to undertake the effort necessary to help. Instead I want to have brainspace to tackle projects like trying to get my house cleaner. There are walls that have not been washed since we moved in six years ago. Today my kitchen is clean and I finally tested that old dresser for lead paint. The paint test swab didn’t turn bright pink and so the dresser has been given a wash and moved into my boys’ room. I like it there. It has a nice sturdy shape. Someday maybe I’ll sand it down and stain it so that it is beautiful. For now it can remain cream colored with chipped off bits which show a very odd greenish-olive layer underneath. I think someone once tried to antique it, made it ugly, and then painted over the mess with cream color. Anyway it’s mine now and I feel oddly possesive about it. Don’t know why.

Today was a fairly sucessful day for work and organization. At least it was if you take “successful” to mean “things got done” rather than “enjoyable.” Getting the kids to do their work was harder than pulling teeth. Kiki has gone for another round of anything-Gleek-does-is-annoying. Gleek was deliberately bugging Kiki because she wanted Kiki to play with her. Link decided that obstinant refusal was the behavior of the day. And Patches wandered around taking people’s toys, teasing older siblings, and demanding to be held. Truth be told, I wasn’t at my best either. I spent lots more time in mean mom mode rather than encouraging/cheerful mom mode.

There is a quiet space that always happens when kids know it is close to bedtime, but if they play quietly mom will be too busy enjoying the silence to make them go to bed. During that time this evening I spent some thought trying to figure out why I’ve been having such a tough time managing kids and behaviors lately. All kids have phases where they’re easier to manage and phases where they are actively pushing the limits to see what they can get away with. Right now I’ve got four kids in pushing-limits phases. This means that I have to re-think my tactics for all four of the kids because the old methods don’t work anymore. Not fair of them to gang up on me like that.

My strategic plotting had to be interrupted to actually put the kids to bed. Naturally they all ended up in bed later than I wanted. This happens every summer, the bedtimes slip later and later even though I don’t want them to. Patches usually goes to bed easily, but this evening he called me back for extra hugs at least 10 times. I’m not sure how much of his adorable sadness was real and how much was a ploy to get more mommy time, but it worked. Then I had an arguement with Link where I explained that the correct answer to “go to bed” is not “No!” Gleek’s bedtime story lasted 30 minutes because I could barely get a sentence read before Gleek would ask a question which required an involved answer. Before we were done we covered the circulatory system, why we have bones, how new skin grows, why mosquitos drink blood, how cheese is made, how to catch crabs for crab salad, where beef comes from, where bacon comes from, and why we don’t eat seeds that we find in the back yard. Eventually I just had to let her know that question time was over. I’m glad she wants to know all this stuff, but I’m exhausted from trying to keep up with her ravenous hunger for information.

Now I am in the quiet after bedtime. I’ll probably go upstairs and finish the book that Howard brought home from Conduit. It is a self-published book that someone handed to Howard for free. I firmly believe that good writing is a skill that anyone can learn. This person obviously has the drive because according to the back cover this is his third self-published book. I also believe that some people come very naturally to the skills necessary to write a cohesive novel with believable characters. Others do not. They have to work and struggle to attain those skills. The author of this book still has lots of work to do. I’m finishing the book because I’m curious and because it may be possible that I could hand it over to Kiki for reading. The simplicity of plotting and characterizations may appeal to a 10 year old, but I have to make sure that there isn’t any age inappropriate material in there. Part of me feels a little bad for not liking the book more because I know that any self published novel is a labor of love. But unfortunately just because the author loves it doesn’t mean anyone else will.

I’ve rambled enough. I’m done for tonight.

Gleek has been in the habit of coming and crawling into my bed in the early hours of the morning. This means she is usually there between 6:45 and 7:30 when I hit the snooze button 6-8 times. The other morning I came awake at 4 am because Gleek sat up in my bed and asked “Where is the wooot wooot?” In her head the noise and snooze button are part of the morning snuggles I guess. I need to train myself to get up the FIRST time the alarm goes off.

Every once in awhile I have to face the fact that none of my kids know as much about the world as I think they should. I also have to face the fact that they are motivated by completely different principles than I am. This week I was drawn upstairs by the heavy scent of Head & Shoulders. Kiki was taking a bath and wanted bubbles so she used half a bottle of Head & Shoulders to create a bubble bath. In the process she discovered that Head & Shoulders doesn’t just make bubbles, it makes foam. The entire tub area was coated with this foam. Kiki had to take a shower to get clean from her bath.

Howard and I are suckers for affection from our kids. We frequently coax and cajole to try to get them to give us hugs or kisses. Kiki and Link usually hand out affection upon polite request, but Gleek hoards her affection and makes us beg a little. Howard will ask Gleek for a hug and she’ll inform him that she ran out, but he can have one next time. He’ll then spend the rest of the day asking “Is it next time yet?” every time he sees her. And then she has the capability to wrap daddy around her finger simply by walking up to him and giving him a hug while announcing “It’s next time now!” Patches is pretty willing to supply hugs when asked. Lately a new game has developed. I’ll pick him up and say “Where are my hugs?” He’ll look at me, tip his head a little and say “Um… right there!” while pointing to my shoulder. Then he puts his head in the spot he pointed to and gives a hug. Just recently he added a little twist by pointing to my shoulder and informing me that that hug was Gleek’s hug. Then he gives a hug on the other shoulder.

Today while driving home from a garage sale Gleek and I had an amusing conversation:
Gleek: “Mom, I want to drive over that big bump again!”
Me: “We don’t have time for that. We need to go home.”
Gleek: “I will give you some time.” reaches into her pocket and pulls out something invisible.
Me: “But we need to go home and do laundry.”
Gleek: Hugging the invisible something close “This time is not for laundry.”
Me: amused “So you’ll give me time, but only to do fun things?”
Gleek: “I want you to swing me on the swings with this time.”

Whenever I stop to pay attention and appreciate I realize how much I love the way my kids think and how they view the world. The world they live in is a better place than the one I inhabit.

I sometimes worry a little at how differently I treat Gleek and Patches than I treated Kiki and Link at the same ages. I know that they are different people and require different interactions from me, so I guess what really concerns me is that I might be reacting to thier behaviors rather than considering and carefully choosing to act in the ways that will best help them to grow and learn. I remember spending lots of time thinking and planning how to teach and nurture Link and Kiki. Now I seem to function mostly on instinct. Some of those instincts are good ones that I spent lots of effort to train into myself when Kiki and Link were young. Others are instincts that I took lots of effort to supress, but somehow failed to suppress into non-existence.

These days instead of spending lots of time nurturing and interacting, I spend significant amounts of time trying to occupy Gleek and Patches so that I can go and do my own things. There should be space in my life for both. I should be glad to spend time with my children. I should be involving them in my projects so they can learn how projects work. The my projects would become our projects. It would be so wonderful if I could always greet my children with a face which says “I’m glad of you!” rather than “You’re annoying me again!” I haven’t been doing that and I need to figure out how.