Mommy Time Out

I wasn't born to be a mother. I never had life long dreams of being a mommy. No fantasies of a huge white wedding and a knight in shining amour to take me away....I never planned on being barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen. That's not to say that I did not want children. I did. Im just not a natural mother. I am not Zen. I am severely lacking in the patience department. I dont do "baby talk". I am not the mother you see on 7th Heaven....I am not Maggie Seaver, June Cleaver, Lorraine McFly, Claire Huxtable or Kitty Foreman. I am more of the....Sofia Petrillo, Joy Turner, Edina Monsoon, Lois from Malcom in the Middle, with a wee bit of Bree VanDeCamp mixed in. Crazy, sarcastic, loud, OCD-ish, tired, exhausted, overbearing....fiercely loving mother.

I need time for ME. I am not a mother first, I am Sarah first.

This week has been Hell. Between Cora's diarrhea, Gavin's attitude and physical abuse and Rachel's inability to do anything on her own, I had had it. Today my son slapped me across the face, Gavin and Rachel fought like cats and dogs. I had one or the other saying "mom, Gavin/Rachel hit me" at least every 37 seconds. It got to the point that I said, "I don't care anymore, hit him/her back" (Nominating myself for mom of the year). Cora did nothing but scream and cry and throw herself on the floor today.

Bill gets home at 6pm. At about 5 pm, after hours of asking them to please pick up their toys (something they are perfectly capable of doing) to no avail, I took their toys away. That sent them into a fit of epic proportions. After 30 minutes of screaming and crying I told them I was leaving when their daddy got home. And that I was not coming back. The minute I said it, I regretted it. Who says that to their children? (so, do I get that award yet?) Of course that did not make them happy. They kept saying "I need you mom" and " don't go mom"...but I left. I watched their crying faces in the window as I backed out. I did not wave, I did not honk like normal. I just left. No goodbye, no hugs and kisses (something I am usually a stickler about). I left my children brokenhearted.

I needed a Mommy Time Out (Term coined by JoAnn)....I went to Arby's, ate my dinner in the parking lot, cried a little, went shopping and drove the long way home.

When I got home, they forgave me. The thing about young children is that their love really is unconditional. They love you when you yell, they love you when you wont let them play outside in the rain, they love you when you wont make meatballs for lunch or when you take their toys away. Even if they say they hate you (we are not there yet!) they still love you.

I had a talk with them about responsibilities (yes, I am aware that they are only 3.5, but they do know how to pick up toys and make their beds.) and about being nice. They seemed receptive, but I know better. Tomorrow, I am going to teach them to tell me when I need a time out. Sometimes they sense I am getting too frustrated before I do. Because I have a feeling......

Mommy is going to need a lot more time outs.

Learn from your children

Have you ever sat back and thought about how children process information, go through major life changes, explore their world? I spent a good portion of the day today doing that.

When do we lose the ability to just "be"? Puberty? The day we are handed our driver's license? When we give birth to our first child? We spend the majority of our time cleaning, cooking, working and go go going that we forget to just sit down, breathe and just BE. Lay on the floor and drive a toy car around. It doesn't matter if you are playing WITH your child or if they have been sleeping for 3 hours....try it, it is unbelievably calming.

Kids are the most accepting, loving people. Life just IS to them. They don't care what color you are, if a family has two mommies or two daddies, they just don't care. Things like that are not important to them. Should they be all that important to us?

When does building a fort from 3 bedsheets become boring and stupid? I am 30 years old and I had a blast doing just that today. I realize that life changes and responsibilities get bigger and more stressful but do we have so little time in our day to build a fort? To climb a tree? To jump in a big pile of yellow leaves? You know what? I don't care if you do not have children. Go outside, rake a pile of leaves and plop yourself into it. Now.

Slow down, enjoy every moment. Be thankful.

When your children are fighting for the 83rd time in 3 hours, remind yourself that they are learning how to negotiate and go after what they want. And that they really like ice packs for their battle wounds.

When your 21 month old throws food on the floor, again, remember that she is expressing her dissatisfaction with the yummy goodness you provided her. And that she thinks you need to mop.

When all 3 of your children scream for an entire day, be thankful they have nice, strong lungs. And be thankful that yours are louder.

When you think that you cannot take it anymore, feel free to lock yourself in the bathroom and scream. It feels good. And kind of scares the kids a bit.

And at the end of the day, when you tuck your kids into bed, be thankful that you managed to survive another day.....and so did your children.

I am writing this mostly as a reminder to myself. To calm down, breathe, and just let it be. I am outnumbered every day and sometimes it feels like I may completely break down and run away. I don't. But I daydream about it often. Like hourly.

Identification

My children identify people by their possessions or other members of their family. I never considered it odd until I realized that no one else does this.

Examples -

Grandpa with the squeaky belt = Father-in-law. He has a squeaky belt on his truck.
Grandma and Grandpa with Eddie = My mom and step-dad. They have a dog named Eddie.
Grandma and Grandpa with motorcycle = My dad and step-mom. They have a Harley.
Bob with flat tired = My brother. His car has flat tires.
Baby Carmen = Bill's cousin. She was pregnant..therefore she WAS the baby.
Cindy with rice = My friend Cindy has a son named BRYCE.
Grape Grandpa with the cows = My grandpa lived by cows. He has since passed away.
Mike with the big brown truck = UPS guy

So I guess their odd behavior may be caused by their parents. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree after all.

Drought

There seems to be a drought in my ramblings. I need to rectify this situation. So here are some random thoughts about my family -

Rachel farts. A lot. When she does, she feels the need to tell everyone in the town. It no longer embarrasses me, I just roll with it. She also likes to hit her sister and then doctor her up. We are working on pretend injuries to fix. Lets not give Cora a laceration that need stitches, because Rachel is not getting the sewing kit. Cora would end up with her lip sewn to her earlobe.

Gavin is very bossy. Very demanding. I spend a lot of time either ignore his demands ("Mom, give me some milk!") or explaining to him that he will catch more flies with honey.

Me - Gavin, you will catch more flies with honey.
Gavin - I don't want flies, I want milk.
Me - Ask me nicely.
Gavin - give me milk now please.
Me - Honey.
Gavin - What do you mean catching flies?
Me - Ask me nicely and I will give you some milk.
Gavin - Can I have the fly swatter?
Me - No.
Gavin - Give me milk!

So this goes on for a good 20 minutes. Yes, it would have been easier to just give him the damn milk but it would not have done any good. He is learning though, it only takes 20 minutes to ask nicely now. It used to take 45 minutes and a 2 hour tantrum. He may be stubborn, but his mama has him beat. She also has Sam Adams and Excedrin Migraine at the ready.

Cora...sweet bean....not so sweet. She is the biggest drama queen I have ever seen. If you tell her "No", she runs across the room to scream and cry. Poor, sad Cora.

My kids still drive me ape shit crazy. But our good, cooperative days are growing. Now if they would give me 5 minutes to write a blog post more often, we'd be golden.

Speech Impediment

I was in the kitchen and I overhear this delightful exchange -


Rachel - Gavin, be a bitch.
Gavin - I am a bitch.
Rachel - no, go over there and be a bitch.
Gavin - I will be a bitch.
Rachel - Be a bitch!!!
Gavin - I am a bitch!!
Rachel - The bitch needa go potty.
Gavin - Go potty bitch.

My eyes got wide and I frantically try to figure out where they got this stuff. I generally do not swear when they are in earshot.

I looked around the corner - They were pretending to be BRIDGES. Bitch = Bridge.

Damn speech impediments.

The Donut/Doughnut Incident

Last night Bill went to the store to get some milk. I wanted a donut. ONE donut. He brings back a six. Great. They will go stale before they all get eaten as we are not really donut (doughnut) people.

So I ate my one doughnut (donut) and put the box on the stove. I got up to go to bed and said, "hide those donuts before you come in". Ok.

This morning Gavin gets up at 6:30. Bill put him on the couch and came in and told me Gavin was sleeping on the couch and that he was leaving for work. Ok. (Y'all see right where I am going, right?)

I got up.

Gavin was sitting on the couch eating a glazed donut. On his face he had powdered sugar, red filling, a couple of peanuts.

Me - "Gavin, whatcha eating?"
G - Doughnuts
Me - How many have you had.
G - 91
Me - *chuckles*

I go into the kitchen and notice the box on the stove is empty. :shock: Then I look at the table - one donut on a plate at Rachel's spot. Gavin had eaten FOUR doughnuts. FOUR. Not 4 donut holes, FOUR big ass donuts. Some frosted and sprinkled, some glazed, some filled with raspberry sugar goo. *sigh*

Me - Gavin, are you going to eat this one too?
G - No, that is for Rachel
Me - What about Cora?
G - Cora is too little for doughnuts.
Me - *eye roll*

So anyway, after breakfast...about 45 minutes after, Gavin loses all control of his behavior. Throwing things, hitting, biting, pushing, screaming oh screaming, hitting me, throwing things at my head, jumping on the couch, jumping on his sisters.....I thought he had gone mad. He has been VERY good the last few days, sleeping better, etc.

I spent the morning fighting some sort of Poltergeist of a child. Add to that a teething 18mo and it was disastrous.

Finally it was nap time. All three children went into bed, laid down, and fell asleep within seconds. That NEVER happens. Ever. Never ever.

It wasn't until I went to take a nap myself that I had the mother of all light bulb moments. The (*(&^*&%#$ donuts!!! He had been on a sugar high the size of West Virginia. No wonder he was some sort of crazy ass mad man. Nap time was easy because he crashed.

So, moral of the story is - hide your damn donuts!!

Absent

I need to apologize for my blogger absence. Sorry. I'd like to say that it was because my children were perfectly behaved angels, but alas, not so.

Today, we had our first experience with road rage. We had just picked up lunch and were heading home and some ass cut me off. So, I did what came naturally to me. I called him a dick. My son, who is sitting 800 feet behind me in the back of the van asks, "What is a dick?" I did what any good parent would do.

I lied.

I told him that his name was Richard and Dick is a nickname for Richard. Thankfully, he seemed to accept this and carried on asking me how I knew his name, why he almost hit me, and how come he waved at me (with a middle finger - seriously??? HE cut ME off.)

Last weekend I shipped the kids off to grandma's house. The morning we picked them up, they woke up at 5:15am. I wanted to visit a friend after we picked them up, so we swung by. It always gives me the warm fuzzies when my kids' behavior makes someone else feel better about their life. Especially when their life involves an 8 year old Autistic son. Bryce is the sweetest kid. He is incapable of hate. Everything I have ever seen him do or say has been filled with happy. After all he has been through in his short life, he is still happy, grateful and thankful. We could all learn a lot from him. As sweet as he is, he is a handful. And that is the biggest understatement I could ever come up with. 1 Bryce is equal to 4 or 5 - 3 year olds. I may not know him that well, but I do know he will not eat grape jelly, will eat you out of house and home (it does not matter WHO'S home), and cannot handle a crying baby or screaming child. This brings me to why he spent our entire visit outside. In the rain.

I don't know why really, but my kids started screaming hysterically and acting like possesed lunatics at Cindy's house. Well, they were tired, but still....They had the biggest meltdowns I have ever seen. Ever. Even when we ran out of frozen waffles they were still semi controlled. Cindy was laughing and probably thinking that I should drug my children....or get the Hell out of her house. *sigh* But she did say that I made her feel better about her life for a minute. Im glad. Because if you look at your life, no matter how hard or trying or frustrating, no matter how much you want to run to the nearest liquor store and buy a big bottle of Grey Goose - life really isnt that bad. I have 3 beautiful children, a husband who provides for us, a roof over my head and clothes on our backs....what more could I need? (Aside from aformentioned vodka, of course.)