Even though I am a mother of two boys, I don’t understand them. Not even in the slightest.
For example, I don’t understand random, inappropriate bodily functions at the dinner table. I don’t understand them nor do I find them rip-roaring hilarious like my boys do.
I also don’t understand how Full Speed allowed the following to happen. He had sustained a fairly painful knee injury at school. Of course I gave him a generous amount of motherly sympathy and asked him how it happened.
“Well, I asked two of my friends if they could beat me up,” he replied as if this was the most normal thing in the world.
Apparently his friends were quite successful thus the ‘terrible’ knee injury.
I asked him why he did that.
“I don’t know,” he said.
In all my years on this planet I have never once asked anyone, let alone multiple people, to beat me up. I told Full Speed exactly that.
He smiled and shrugged at me. I sensed he thought I might be missing out on a valuable life experience.
How do you teach your children manners? My methods thus far have been modeling the manners I would want from my boys, and repetitive reminders to say ‘please, thank you, sir/ma’am’, hold doors for others, etc. I am officially over the repetitive reminding. I’ve probably been over it since early 2010. Since I don’t have a creative alternative I’m kind of stuck with what I got. Until…
I brilliantly came up with a pebble/reward system for every time the boys use good manners in public without a reminder. If they each fill a jar to the rim they earn a special privilege. I especially wanted them to focus on speaking respectfully to adults. Nothing pains me more than when a lovely elderly person asks the boys how they are doing, and the boys respond with a silly dance followed by a fall to the ground in a very unbecoming slapstick sort of way. I was feeling good about my newly minted reward system and happy the boys showed extreme enthusiasm. Until…
First stop was the gym. I was headed to workout and went to drop the boys in the kid zone. They went up to every adult in a 200 foot radius and said, “How are you doing today, ma’am/sir?” They said, “Thank you, ma’am!” or “Thank you sir!” if a woman or man glanced at them even in the slightest of ways (honestly, they were hard to ignore with the manners spectacular they were displaying). They said, “You’re welcome, sir! How are you doing today, sir?” to each other about 157 times and then tried to hold the door for every single person in the tri-county area.
At this rate I now officially owe them 497 pebbles a piece and counting.
When writing my posts I try to be honest. My resolution for the coming year is to keep the honesty going. Motherhood has not always been easy for me and I want to continue the truthful documentation of my triumphs and tribulations.
I would like to start this off by first of all sharing how far I have come since the birth of Full Speed. In the seven years that I have been lucky enough to call this kid and his little brother my own, I feel like a completely new person. I learned it was easier to accept the harsh realities of raising two extremely spirited boys than continue to fight it. The more I let go of my parenting expectations (like having a quiet house, having children who exhibit minimal tantrums and/or power struggles, receiving gentle hugs, etc.) and embraced my kids for exactly who they are, everything started to get easier. You can sense this evolution if you have been following my blog for a while. The more recent my posts, the less pitiful they are. 2011 has especially been a turning point for me. My boys are older and I am hopefully wiser (ha, ha). I am now finally able to reconnect with parts of myself that I thought motherhood had taken forever. My boys are more independent (sigh) and this has allowed me the freedom to return to myself a little bit more every day.
How do I know that I still have a long way to go? Well, this is where the honesty part comes in play. Every time I hear that a friend or family member is expecting a child, especially their first, a tiny part of me hopes that at some point their future bundle of joy will throw some serious, Grade A tantrums. There, I said it.
Full Speed, age 2, on the brink of a meltdownNever to be outdone, T.Puzzle, age two, gets ready to rumble
I have yet to meet another Mom who has dealt/deals with as many tantrums as I have survived. If you are out there, hang in there. It gets better and so do the deals at the liquor store if you buy in bulk.
Anyway, I raise a glass (or two or twenty) to my best year of my motherhood experience yet. Thank you 2011!
It’s difficult to know how effectively you are doing your job as a stay-at-home Mom. There isn’t much to go in way of job performance reviews or bonuses for excellence in laundering. I gauge how I’m doing based solely on the behavior and successes of my children. This is not a system without its flaws.
We were outside yesterday as I tried desperately to burn some Christmas Eve energy out of the boys. I ended up keeping them out too long and two meltdowns later, T.Puzzle had to be sent inside.
Full Speed didn’t mind. In fact he wholeheartedly agreed he was ready to go inside, too. He put all the toys away without being asked and happily volunteered to help me put away my folding chair.
“Wow, Full Speed! I’m so impressed with how helpful you are being. Way to go!” I felt so proud of him and myself. Obviously my caring and thoughtful examples through the years for Full Speed were showing signs of paying off. I gave myself a gold star for parenting until…
“Mom, I’m being a good helper to make sure I stay on Santa’s good list since Christmas is tomorrow.”
All things are equal in a the life of a boy. Helping out at an organization that serves the homeless population is as exciting as playing a dinosaur video game after a family movie.
I am trying so hard to teach my boys gratitude for what they have and foster a spirit of giving to help those less fortunate. As I took a step back and watched the boys interact with the volunteers and the patrons of the wonderful organization we donated our time and items to, they treated everyone the same. They were as excited to meet my friend who volunteers there as they were to hand out candy canes to the homeless in the waiting area. They brought a current of excitement to every corner of that place.
Full Speed and T.Puzzle help sort and organize the clothes we donated.Helping my friend hand out candy canes and spreading good cheer.
This same excitement carried through the rest of our day. They boisterously enjoyed our afternoon movie of ‘The Adventures of Tin Tin‘. They even took the dino hunting video game in the theater lobby to a whole new level of player concentration.
Dino hunting!
It’s possible that they didn’t fully appreciate our morning visit to the homeless organization. Maybe that isn’t the point. I think I learned more by watching them stay fully committed to each moment of their day no matter what it looked like. They treated everyone and every situation of the day exactly the same.
All things and all people really are equal to them.
“Well, I asked two of my friends if they could beat me up,” he replied as if this was the most normal thing in the world. 
