Parenting is hard.

Making babies is fun.  If it isn't, you might be doin' it wrong.

Having babies is painful but brief, and hormones insure that you later develop amnesia for that bit.

How challenging being a parent is appears to be directly correlated to how good a parent you are trying to be.

Parenting

Since coming back from vacation I have been focused on being a better parent, and have been doing a good job of remaining calm in challenging situations with the kids.  Tonight I am emotionally exhausted though from a near one hour battle of wills with my almost 3 year old.  I didn't lose my cool despite getting frustrated.  I was trying to get him to use words to tell me what he wanted instead of pointing and grunting or crying.  He is non-verbal to the point that I am very worried about his speech development - he completed 8 weeks of speech therapy this winter, and despite the short term improvement I think he is going to have to go back. 

So here is what happened: Chris has a tantrum because his hands are dirty and he wants me to wipe them for him. He has a napkin. He isn't asking for help, he is just holding his hand out and holding the napkin towards me, and making non-verbal noise.  When I won't help him and tell him he can wipe his own hands with his napkin, he melts down and throws his napkin on the floor.  So I take his food and water before he throws those as well.  He calms down and starts pointing at them.  I say 'what do you want?  tell me what it is called. use your words' and a variety of other things to try to get him to verbalize.  This goes on for almost an hour.  He is crying and frustrated, and clearly STUBBORN.  I am feeling like a bad parent, starving my kid to make him speak when he is clearly communicating, just non-verbally.  Finally I give up and get up to put him in his jammies and he panics.  I ask him 'do you want this?' while pointing at the food.  He nods yes.  I say 'what is it called?' and he says 'bood'.  FINALLY.  So I hand him the bowl and this look of relief washes over his face.  He didn't understand what I wanted him to do. Now he asks for his agua and nap (napkin), which I give him, and he eats.  By this point the fact that he was using his hands to eat mashed potatos was out of scope for me to worry about.  One battle at a time.  For the rest of the evening he is an adorable happy little peach.

While sitting at the dinner table I am also having a conversation with Allyson.  This morning she snuck downstairs and stole about $2.50 worth of change from my change basket to put in her purse.  We have had this same sort of problem before with candy, granola bars, and taking toys that are going to be hers but I haven't given her yet off the counter and opening them/taking them upstairs to play with them.  In all cases she knows she has been bad because she tries to hide the evidence.  Each time, whatever she has stolen gets confiscated for a week or some sort of privilege is suspended.  Today she is heartbroken to have lost her new fancy beaded purse for a week.  We had a serious talk this morning about my being disappointed and if she is as sorry as she says she wouldn't keep doing this (she was hysterically crying and just repeating 'I'm sorry mommy', which makes me sound awful, but I didn't yell or raise my voice or anything, I swear).  At the dinner table tonight she brings it up and says she is sorry she stole from me and she will never do it again.  I said I hoped she didn't because it made me sad when she was naughty.  I told her that if I stole something just because I wanted it the police would come and put me in jail.

Allyson:  If I am a teenager and I steal, will I go to jail?

Me: yes, a special jail for kids. 

Allyson: and all I could do is read all day?

Me: you could read, but you would also have to work, and you wouldn't be able to play with or see your friends and you wouldn't get to see your family and I would miss you.  But you are a good girl and that is why I am trying to teach you to be good so you don't get in trouble like that.

Allyson: and Santa would be upset with me and not bring me gifts. 

uhhhh, yeah, Santa would be upset too.  It was at this point that she started getting a little sad and needed a hug, saying Santa knew she stole money from me that morning and probably wasn't going to bring her any gifts at Christmas.  Then she asked if the police were going to come for her.  I assured her that the police weren't coming and Santa was okay, because she and I were talking about it and she is sorry and learning from this and I'm not mad but trying to teach her that there are consequences for her behavior.

Parenting is hard.  I love my children so much it hurts.  And I only get one chance to raise them and be a good parent.  But knowing what the right thing to do sometimes is hard, especially when it comes to discipline.  I don't just mean 'you're in trouble' discipline, but being consistent about rules and expectations, and what is age appropriate.  There is a lot of worrying not just about their development but about whether I'm doin' it right.  I will inevitably make mistakes.  I just am trying to avoid making big ones.

*The chart above obviously doesn't take into account the child's temperment or special issues either.  Save your flame comments, it is an oversimplification for entertainment purposes.  Lighten up.