Tag: frustration

mommyhood, potty training

Double-Crossed

WFAM

I was feeling smug. I had Full Speed’s completed homework ready, the extra wipes needed at school for T.Puzzle and I was ahead of schedule. It felt good to be back in control after being heavily medicated for so long. The boys were in their shoes and jackets and I said, “Head to the truck, guys!”

Wouldn’t you know it? I couldn’t find my keys. I looked in all the usual spaces and places and found nothing but anxiety. I picked up my pace because the minutes were ticking and I had to get the boys to school. The faster I scurried, the more distraught little T.Puzzle became because he couldn’t keep up with me. He starts yelling in protest and keeps shouting, “Mommy, where are you!?!” over and over. This does not help my anxious state. All my smugness is tossed out the window. I’m starting to feel like I’m never going to gain mastery over my life.

I go back to the starting point of my search and look in the box in the cupboard I usually keep the keys. Turns out, they were there all along just kind of shoved over to one side. I’m relieved but chastise myself endlessly for adding so many needless minutes to our morning.

I finally get the boys shoved in the truck and buckled. I’m about to shut the door on T.Puzzle’s side and climb in the driver’s seat.  He looks and me and says, “Mommy, I have to go poopy!” Since he’s never said that to me in his life I figure I had to seize the moment.

“Full Speed, undo your buckle, we are heading inside so T.Puzzle can go potty!” I command.

“Mom, that’s going to take FOREVER.” Tell me something I don’t know, kid.

With much effort, we tumble back inside with haphazard abandon. I rush T.Puzzle to the potty, plop him on down and…, he looks up at me, smiles and proceeds to do absolutely nothing.

“All done, Mommy,” he says before he even attempts to do a darn, tooting thing on that potty. I chastise myself again for being a sucker this time.

When we FINALLY have Full Speed at school, I use the ride home to encourage T.Puzzle to go on the potty. “If you poop on the potty Mommy will give you a cookie.”

“I not hungry, Mommy,” he replies.

Double-crossed again.

children, mommyhood, tantrums

Make It or Break It

WFAM

We decide to go out to eat. My Dad is in town visiting and he requested a meal of fish. We had an overall successful family outing to Tae Kwon Do so Mad Dog and I felt confident the boys could handle a longer drive to go to a slightly (very slightly) upscale fish market for lunch.

We arrive and everything is going somewhat smoothly. We are seated waiting to order and Full Speed is playing with some hot-wheels cars while little T.Puzzle is coloring.  The boys are full of motion but are being quiet and entertaining themselves. I am taking this moment to attempt to read the menu. My Dad says, “Is he supposed to be coloring on that?”

I look up and see that little T.Puzzle is coloring all over the white linen tablecloth.

“You color on the paper, NOT on the tablecloth!” I say emphasizing my point by dramatically gesturing where and where not he can color.

He looks me squarely in the eye and without dropping a beat, colors on the tablecloth. Now, the waitress is at our table waiting for our order. She sees me lean in and threaten T.Puzzle with edgy vehemence. I realize that I must come across as a scary, intimidating Mom but I power forward. The waitress doesn’t know of T.Puzzle’s recent, defiant behavior and I can’t let the judgment of the world stop my discipline.

Once the order is complete, T.Puzzle again starts in with the tablecloth coloring. I hastily grab his crayons, toss them on the table and yank the kid out of the booth. I tell him he is heading to time-out. As I walk toward the front I grab his legs and heave him up in a disobedient ball. He is yelling and kicking and all the other fine diners are looking at us like he is a complete psychopath. I get him to the front and realize in my haste I left his coat and hat at the table. Normally, in Florida you can bypass the coat and hat but we are in a cold snap. It’s thirty degrees and overcast. He’s been sick so much I realize I’m stuck inside for the duration for what I am certain is going to be a doozy of a tantrum (it reached a level 8). People from the bar were peering at his ruckus, the hostess was politely trying not to make direct eye contact with me and I wanted to throw a tantrum of my own (I was thinking only a level 3 or 4).

Is it just me or am I the only Mom in the throes of a massive power struggle with her child? Full Speed started in on me when he was a year and a half.  T.Puzzle has since picked up the slack when Full Speed finally began to fight me a little bit less. I know my time is coming that every day and every situation won’t be a knock-down, drag-out battle of the wills.

I don’t think I will make it.

bad day, children, life in pictures, mommyhood

The Sick Card

WFAM

I know that motherhood is not always a cake-walk. You have to suffer through the bad to get to the good stuff. My challenge today is that as of lately with little T.Puzzle, there only seems to be a whole lot of suffering (for him and for me) and very little good. He has been sick on and off since Thanksgiving. I’m keeping him home again from school hoping this will help get him back on track. He is clearly feeling surly. The only thing that consistently is keeping him happy are DVDs of Thomas the Train. If he is not watching Thomas he is mad, defiant and dropping level 9 tantrums all over the place.

I don’t know what to do. I’m trying to be extra patient and not fight him on every behavioral misdeed (which I normally do, just ask Full Speed). At what point does the sick card lose its validity? Now I have a feeling that since I have given him an inch behaviorally, he has taken a mile, a town, a city and possibly the whole state of Florida.

The only thing I know for certain is that when this kid is 100% healthy, he best prepare himself for some serious attitude readjustment courtesy of his mother.

Get well soon.

kids, mommyhood, self-discovery

Life Balance

WFAM

The boys had been home all day. This is a recipe for disaster. Mad Dog had wanted to watch his Steelers in the afternoon and I went to see a movie. When I returned home, swords were flying, T.Puzzle was crying in spurts and the energy level within our home had reached a dangerous level. Since the football game was winding down I suggested we take them to dinner.

We decide to take them to the recently opened Panera. The boys are wild once we are inside and I have to drag them to a booth so Mad Dog can order in peace. They are boisterously loud with their assorted cars and train engines. I try to shush them to no avail.

“Mom, it’s the CARS that are being loud, not US,” explains Full Speed.

Whatever.

The food comes and T.Puzzle decides he hates his food and his drink. He is shimmying up and down and all around the booth. I’m trying to breathe deeply to cope. All I really want to do is staple him to his seat and force him to eat his overpriced grilled cheese. Alas, no stapler is handy so,……deep breaths instead.

“Mom, I have a surprise for you when we get home,” says Full Speed.

“Is it a nanny?” I ask.

“No, it’s my soccer game,” he replies. I know that sounds adorable but the soccer game is one that he got in his stocking and he doesn’t like it. It frustrates him because he can’t master it. Therefore he is constantly “giving” it to me and his brother.

I had that moment in the booth where I wished my life was different. I wished my boys were calm and mild-mannered. I wished that I could eat a meal from start to finish without having to pay a babysitter or wait until nine o’clock at night to do so. I wished that my boys shared their thoughts and emotions in quiet tones and only cried because they were genuinely sad and not genuinely throwing a manipulative tantrum (such as the one T.Puzzle was currently presenting to me).

Those wishes are far off and possibly may never happen. All I have to survive on is the hope that someday I will find my equilibrium in motherhood and that the personal sacrifices I have made (and they are different for every Mom and every caretaker out there) are worth it. Keep reading and let’s hope that together we find that balance in all our lives….

marital blissishness, rock and a hard place

Good Luck, Mad Dog

WFAM

This is how it went down….,

Me: “I’m frustrated because you didn’t listen to me.”

Mad Dog: “How was I supposed to know what you wanted? You didn’t tell me.”

This is the problem, I did tell him. He just doesn’t remember. I have no proof because I don’t tape record our conversations (which I am seriously considering). He thinks it’s all my fault. I’d try to say otherwise but I doubt he’d listen anyway. And the cherry on my sundae is that HE wants me to apologize to HIM.

Good luck with that, Mad Dog. Good luck.