Category: parenting

children, family, humor, kids, motherhood, parenting

The Art of Raising Boys

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ry=400-1As I navigate the sometimes choppy waters of raising boys, I’m often left wondering if I’m a balanced disciplinarian.  There’s a fine line between boys just being boys and blatantly disrespectful behavior.  I don’t want to live my life as Captain of the ‘No-Fun-Ever’ Police, but I also don’t want my boys to run wild.  I never know if I’m getting it right.

Here’s a list of common behaviors that fall into a gray area and how I view them.

1.  Wrestling constantly with your brother usually in a light-hearted manner.  ACCEPTABLE

2.  Yanking your brother’s glasses off his face while wrestling and tossing them across the room.  UNACCEPTABLE

3. Passing gas on command and cracking up endlessly.  Depends on the context and thankfully, it’s rare, so I usually let this one slide.  Do I understand the hilarity of it?  Never.

4.  Thinking you are AWESOME at everything.  ACCEPTABLE

5.  Smacking your booty every time you complete a math problem on the computer.  To clarify, only T.Puzzle does this.  I think it’s crazy and I do my best to ignore it.  At least he’s doing something academic, right?

6.  Arguing when told to do something.  Unequivocally UNACCEPTABLE.  This issue alone is the main reason my boys have come to know time-out and consequences intimately.

7.  Crying or having a terrible attitude when you lose.  UNACCEPTABLE

8.  The weird inability to pay attention to what I tell them to do.  As soon as a direction has left my mouth, I usually am asked 27 detailed, repetitive questions about what I just said.  As long as they comply with a good attitude, I chalk it up to that male quality that renders them deaf to the sound of female voices.

9.  Being averse to hugs and kisses from their Mom.  UNACCEPTABLE  They have to suck it up.  Just like I know they won’t change some aspects of who they are, neither will I.  Full Speed is politely resigned to my affections.  T.Puzzle is a little more squirmily defiant.  Either way, it’s happening.

10. Giving corrective feedback.  Well, if I married Mad Dog, the king of subtle, corrective feedback (an influencing genius if you will), then, can I really be shocked his boys share this trait?  I usually let it slide but if they catch me on a bad day, all bets are off.  For some reason, I’m much less open to Mad Dog’s feedback than the boys’.  Go figure.

I hope one day that my boys will be parents.  Ideally, they will have only girls and will be as confused as I am.

children, family, humor, kids, motherhood, parenting

Believe = Achieve

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T.Puzzle believes he is an extraordinary athlete.  Mad Dog and I continuously crack up over how he thinks he is one of the fastest and most elite players on his soccer team (or any team for that matter).  He likes to compare himself to Lionel Messi who is a professional soccer player from Argentina.  Messi is often considered to be the best soccer player in the world.  Confident much, T.Puzzle?

Having officially started our summer 3v3 soccer season, I had reasonable expectations despite T.Puzzle’s overconfidence.  Last year our only consistent known strategy for victory was to leave Full Speed in all the time.  He had to be our offense, our defense and everything in between.  T.Puzzle and his other five-year old teammates had flashes of brilliance but would quickly lose focus leaving Full Speed alone in the lion’s den.  This year I had a feeling T.Puzzle, with a whole year of growth and maturity under his belt, would at least contribute.  Hopefully, Full Speed would get a break every now and then.

As the first game started, I started to get really, really confused.  T.Puzzle showed such ferocity as he marched the ball down the field, I kept mistaking him for Full Speed.  T.Puzzle wanted a goal.  It was written all over his sweaty little face.   He kept kicking, and kicking and kicking.  He was relentless and began to score goal, after goal, after goal.  By the time our third game straight was victoriously completed, he handily led our team in scoring.  He even reached double digits.  Who is this kid?

Lionel Messi, that’s who.  Guess I better start paying attention when T.Puzzle tells me something.

Messi, jr. on the move Whether you think you can or you can't--you're right. --Henry Ford
If you can imagine it, you can achieve it. If you can dream it, you can become it.
—-William Arthur Ward 

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children, family, humor, kids, motherhood, parenting

The Bedtime Dilemma

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The inevitable summer bedtime negotiation had begun.  T.Puzzle and Full Speed aimed high, Mad Dog and I aimed low.  T.Puzzle wondered out loud, “Why do grown-ups get to stay up later than kids?”  We explained as best we could, that adults are done growing so they don’t need as much sleep.  Kids’ bodies are still changing and growing every day and need the extra sleep to help in this process.  He seemed mollified.  Then, he started to imagine what his bedtime would be in the future.  Full Speed started shouting out ages and as these ages increased, the bedtimes rose exponentially. “When I’m ten I’ll stay up until 9.  When I’m 12 I’ll stay up until 10″… and  so on and so on.  When he reached the number 18 we told him that at that time, if he didn’t live at home anymore, he could stay up as late as he wanted.  That’s the great thing about being a grown-up, we explained.  You can stay up as late as you want.

I asked T.Puzzle, “How late are you going to stay up when you’re 24?”

“Well,…I’m going to still live at home.  I’m always going to live at home,” he said.

Full Speed, not missing a beat, said, “I guess we better get some bigger beds.”

The boys hanging in T.Puzzle's crib. Hard to believe they both used to fit!
The boys hanging in T.Puzzle’s crib. Hard to believe they both used to fit!
children, family, humor, kids, motherhood, parenting

School’s Out

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imageWhy is it when an event is stressful, even the good kind of stressful, that my boys turn on each other?  This is their last day of school.  One would think they would be joyous.  They should be holding hands in a harmonious way and praising each other’s accomplishments and good fortune.  Instead, they came downstairs starting their day in the serious throes of World War III.  I ended up having to raise my voice so much to get their attention, my throat actually kind of hurts now.  Needless to say, fighting fire with fire did very little to calm the situation.  The only thing it did was make me need a throat lozenge.

When I pick them up today, who knows what I will encounter.  Right now, I am formulating a plan.  I realize how I handle the rest of the day with them will set the tone for our entire 10 weeks of summer.  By the way, is anyone interested in having two boys visit them for an extended period?  No?  Okay.  Plan B.  If they don’t have a serious attitude adjustment, they will be sent to separate rooms for an indefinite but very long period of time and all privileges will be suspended until further notice.  It may or may not work, but at least my throat will be saved.  Something tells me I better stock up on throat lozenges anyway.

children, family, gratitude, humor, kids, motherhood, parenting

Changes

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ry=400 Change is all in how you look at it.  I tend to be more sentimental than most in this regard.  Today is the last Friday of the school year.  After today, T.Puzzle will never be a kindergartener on a Friday ever again.  It kind of stabs at my heart when I think about it.

On the flip side, T.Puzzle is thrilled beyond compare.  He is so happy that kindergarten is nearing the end.  I suppose the fact that summer vacation is upon us helps his great mood.

I have a choice.  I can continue to be sad that my ‘baby’ is growing up or I can choose to celebrate this fact.  I believe every moment of a child’s development is a mixture of triumph and letting go of how things used to be.  Yes, there is an ache that he’s getting older.  There is also excitement and that unknowing, fluttery, pit-of-my-stomach anticipation that the future holds great adventures for both my boys.

It isn’t that change is bad.  Change is awesome.  Even if you have to go through a box of Kleenex or two to realize this.