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Monday, August 13, 2012

Just Mommy

The past few months I've had no energy to be anything more than Mommy.  I have been in mommy survival mode.  I told my mom I felt like I was in the ocean and I didn't know how to swim.  I didn't have time to learn to swim, I was just keeping my head above water.  I was in the middle of a crazy storm (I call it Hurricane Pnut) and I couldn't do anything but hold on and try to ride it out.  I did what I had to and nothing more.  The kids ate (way more take out than I'd like).  They made it to swimming and camp. Brian occasionally had dinner ready when he got home.

That was all I could do.  I went out for the occasional run and sometimes made it to the gym but not often.  I was constantly putting out fires.  I was angry and resentful and had no control over anything in my life.

My mom has been in town for a few days.  I've kind of seen my life through her eyes the last few days.  Does that make any sense?  Seeing her shock to my everyday life made me realize exactly how crazy it was.

Bottom line, I have a difficult child.  She is brilliant, funny, imaginative, perceptive, sensitive, whiny, manipulative, and moody.  This is who she is.  My parenting has been ineffective for her.  We have gotten ourselves locked in an ugly cycle; she does the same thing, I do the same thing, nothing gets better.

Yesterday morning, as I held back tears, watching my mom pull out of the driveway, I was at the end of my rope.  My life was out of control and I didn't know what to do.  I wanted to curl up and cry.

Thankfully I have a wonderful husband.  He took the kids upstairs and helped them clean their rooms.  I did laundry and started to clean.  I was trying to keep busy.  If I looked at anyone, I'd start to cry.  Before I knew it, our house was getting organized and I started to feel better.

I came up with a plan, with the help of my new favorite book, "The Difficult Child" and a ton of blogs/websites.   I have just started to implement it but so far, so good.  I know Pnut will test me.  I know I need to be consistent (this is hard for me).  Here are a few things I did to help out:

Found this on Pinterest
I'm putting the kid's toys in here when they don't put them away.  So far, they are REALLY into doing the chores.  So much so, they have put some toys in here just so they can do chores to get them out.  Going to need different chores.


I made these so Pnut and Little Dude would know what to do in the morning.  It worked this morning. No one argued about getting dressed or brushing their teeth.  We'll see how things go in the coming mornings.




I made these so they would know exactly what to do when I say clean your room.

I have a night time routine too. I need to make cards for that.  

I'm hoping all this will limit my need to yell and get upset.  Everyone knows what is expected.  These are the rules/routines, you decided if you want to follow them or have the consequences of not following them. 

I'm thinking about making a chart where they can put stars on for every time them follow the routine.  We can have some prize after so many stars.  I'm not sure.  I don't want to make it too complicated.

This is my plan.  I'm crossing my fingers it works.  I'm ready to be more than mommy again.

1 comment:

  1. I love that basket! I'm guessing 5months is too young to expect my little one to pack up after himself but can totally see me having one of those one day ;) Hope all the things you are implementing are paying off and you are feeling fabulous again :)

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