Mind Your Manners?

This feels like a really stupid thing to write about, but it's just a product of the wild adventures my mom-brain goes on every second of the day. Bear with me here. You only have to read about a portion of it all, I have to live in this mind!! All joking aside, something has really been bothering me lately. I have an almost 2 year old son and he is such a little angel most of the time. Curly blond hair, shiny hazel eyes, outgoing personality. All of this comes with a little streak of defiance that his father and I have been seeing more of lately. I know that he is coming up on those "terrible twos" we all love, and we are definitely trying to teach him to be nice, to not pull his sister's hair or step on her (he's pretty ruthless to her, I must say), to not hit at all, to use his manners when he wants or receives something.... And this is where I am hitting a little wall. He doesn't want to say "please" when I ask him to. He'll say "Ba-ba" and "Mo" ("Drink" & "More") but when I say, "Can you say please, please?" he replies with a firm shake of the head and says "Mo" (which also means "no"). I tried to ignore it at first because I didn't want to push him too hard and make him resent saying it. I want him to say it because he wants to be a good little boy and because he genuinely appreciates anything he receives, whether that be a drink from me or a gift from a friend at his birthday party 5 years down the road. He kept refusing to say it, however, and while I respect his independence and individuality, I also don't want him to grow up to be a shitty person because I didn't instill in him good values. That includes teaching him manners. I started refusing to get him more milk this morning when he said "no" to saying "please". I said, "Well, I'm not going to get you more milk until you say please." And I turned away from him while he whined a little bit and kept eating my scrambled eggs (there was a freaking shell in my eggs, too, which I subsequently crunched into during this little escapade.... yum) and he got my attention, looking at me with a very defeated look and mumbled, "Pees?". I rubbed his shoulder and said, "That's a good little boy" (somewhere along the line I started talking to my kids like I'm June Cleaver?? Don't ask me why.) I got up and refilled his milk sippy cup and gave it to him. I said, "Thank you for using your manners" with a smile and he still seemed a little subdued. It's been bothering me ever since it happened and I'm wondering if I am crushing his independent spirit a little each time I make him submit to me. Because that's what I feel like I'm doing when it comes down to the bottom line. I'm saying, "I'm not going to do this for you until you say what I'm forcing you to say." How shitty is that? I know it's my job to teach him these things so that he can function as an adult in society, but all we ever talk about is how fucked up society really is. The media, the government, as an adult I've grown to distrust both. And your whole life you are taught to submit. To your parents, to your partner, to your boss.... Is the way I'm raising my kids just me falling into line, the way they want me to? Am I just preparing my kids for a life of submission as well? You can say that we should teach our kids these things, but how will that ever help change such a fucked-up society? Shouldn't we be teaching our children to think for themselves? To challenge authority because authority usually doesn't have their best interests at heart anyway? Like I said, maybe I'm totally over-thinking this but the look on his little face. You weren't there to see it, but I don't want to have to be the one to extinguish my fiery child's amazing spirit and uniqueness. Yes, I am still going to request that he use his manners, I am going to continue asking him to say "please" and "thank you", but I don't think I'll be forcing him to say them. It just feels wrong.

Mothering Fail #552: Getting Lost in the Shuffle

I haven't written any entries in this blog in for-eh-ver because I didn't really feel that I had anything important to write about. Today, however, my 7 year old daughter handed me a letter from her purple backpack before she headed off to school this morning. It was perfectly written (with a few spelling errors- like I said, she is 7) and it broke my heart. I recently gave birth to my third child, another boy, and things around here have been more than a little hectic. Between just having three children to take care of, keeping the house clean, cooking all the meals, and sleeping, I don't have time to do anything anymore. Added to all of that, both the boys have been sick recently and I am just getting over an ear infection. The antibiotics I had to take to clear it up caused my newborn to get thrush, screwing up our already crazy breastfeeding schedule, and now my other son is receiving nebulizer treatments of albuterol every four hours on top of his antibiotics and steroids that he has to take to clear up HIS ear and respiratory infections. It's safe to say that the visions I had for spring are being crushed violently right now. I'm just so fucking tired. I've also been shirking my mothering duties regarding my eldest, my daughter. I knew that she was getting less attention, I just hoped that she could understand that it wouldn't be like this forever. Then I remembered: she IS only 7 years old, a first-grader who gets perfect grades and loves school but has the same attitude I had as a child, which is basically "Don't fucking tell me what to do, I'll do it if it's my idea ONLY!". I must say that I've definitely had to get creative with reverse psychology with this one. It's a good thing I was exactly like her when I was her age or she'd walk all over me! She is such a huge help with both of her brothers, she feeds the youngest a bottle so I can cook or clean, she occupies our almost-two-year old while I.... well, cook or clean... Anyway, the point is that most of the time she acts well beyond her years. And I'm writing this blog entry to remind myself and any other moms who have an older child and babies as well that the older child still needs as much attention as they used to receive from you. Here is a copy of the letter she wrote me:

Dear mom,

I realy want more atention from you. I never get to sit on your lap and I never get to lay with you. I feel sad becouse mercury and ares always get the atention and im the one that never gets the atention. I just want more atention.

Love London.

Okay. Let's get real here. I cried my eyes out when I read this letter from her. I feel terrible that she feels this way and I feel terrible that she had to write me a letter for me to realize that the poor girl was getting lost in the shuffle of our new lives. Of course I am going to do whatever possible to make sure she stops feeling this way. I'll get a sitter for the boys when they are feeling a bit better and we'll do something. I don't have the extra money to take her to a movie or do anything that is ridiculously overpriced (like the movies- UGH) but I know that isn't what she is wanting anyway. She only needs my time and attention for more than a minute at a time. I'm actually not even sure what the point of writing this entry was other than to vent my insecurities about being less of a mother than I know I can be. I'm not downing myself. I know I'm a great mother. My kids always come before me, always. If I have money, I buy the kids clothes because they are forever growing out of (or pooping through) whatever they have. Everything I have is theirs, everything I do is for my family. I think I have been stretching myself too thin lately, and I'm not the only one who is suffering because of it. Have any other moms gone through this? Because it's new to me and I'm not sure how to juggle everything anymore. Any suggestions on low-cost activities for a first grader and her Mommy? Or advice on how to talk to her about our situation and how it's hopefully temporary? Post in the comments below, any advice would be greatly appreciated!!

Honesty Is Best

First, I want to start this blog off by saying that I love my kids very much. They are the reason why I wake up in the morning and I really do sit around sometimes just being thankful that I have such awesome offspring. I know I'm lucky. I stop myself from writing blog entries that shine my kids in a negative light because I don't want people to think I don't like my children. But as I was reading this blog the other day by another mom, I realized how refreshing it was to hear from another mom the truth. She said her daughter had the attention span of a gnat and if she would have known how troublesome that little one was going to be, she would have stopped having kids after her! And I was laughing reading it because I have thoughts about my kids that I sometimes feel guilty for. Not about hurting them, though I do sometimes imagine myself smacking my daughter in the face. You know what? The truth is, with the way she talks to me sometimes, I'm surprised that all I do is think about doing it. I'm fucking proud of myself most days for holding it together so well.

My house is never clean. NEVER. I get through one room or task and the children have managed to destroy the entire rest of the house in a way that would discourage even the most optimistic woman. My goodness, when I imagined my adult life as a child and teen, it was not filled with this much cleaning. I've always been a slob, one to ignore the mess until it is so great that it's unmanageable with just one person doing it. I actually still do that sometimes, when I get really unmotivated. The dishes pile up and the laundry piles up and even if I get the laundry going I still have to hang up, fold, and put it all away. It's like chores birth other chores. I clean a lot more than I did when I didn't have a family to think about, so there's that at least. I can't have them living in filth so I clean and clean and clean. I'm a person who needs to be doing something different every day in order to not go absolutely batshit crazy. The kids keep me on my toes, it is a different adventure every day with them. But the tedious housework will be the death of me, I swear. Someday, when I am a wise old woman and have a system of cleaning figured out that actually works, I'll look back and laugh at myself for complaining about something as piddly as housework.

On to my daughter. She wants to be good, she gets good grades at school and tries to keep her behavior under control at school. She has been moving her behavior "pin" up at school above and beyond what is expected of her on a daily basis. So it pains me when she is so absolutely stubborn and indecisive and rude at home. It seems like most of her day is spent looking at what everyone else has and comparing it to what she has. Or doesn't have. Life is never "fair" to her. She threw a fit about wearing a jacket yesterday when we were walking up to the dollar store for a few things. I could have taken this time to grab my headphones, leave both kids at home with Dad, and have some time to myself for once. Maybe be able to go in the store and not have to be asked for every single thing in said store. But no. I knew they were itching to get out of the house too, so we all got ready and when I opened the door, it was very chilly outside. So we're walking and she keeps audibly grumbling about having to wear a jacket in her whiniest, most fucking cheese-grater-against-my-brain voice that her 7 year old ass can muster, and I'm thinking, "I am not sacrificing what could be alone time with the new ADTR album to hear this the whole fucking walk." I warned her that if she didn't suck it up and stop the whining that I was going to walk her back home and she would have to stay there while her one year old brother and I went. I said this a total of three times, giving her plenty of chances to turn it around. But noooo. So I walk her back and she's screaming her fucking head off outside, which is ridiculously embarrassing, and I tell Dad that I warned her and she can't go. So we go without her.

Why? Why does she feel the need to sabotage herself all the time? I don't understand why kids can't just shut the fuck up and deal with the hand they're given. I try to remember when I was her age, I do. And I was a smart ass to my mom on a constant basis. I wasn't trying to make her mad, I was just asserting the fact that I was a person too and she could ground me or whatever she wanted to do, but she'd never break my independent spirit. I was that kid who would NOT STOP while I was ahead. "Say another word and you're grounded!" was a regular threat in our house from my mom. But I just couldn't do it. I would end up being grounded for the rest of the year because I couldn't just shut my stupid mouth. So I do understand where she is coming from, she is exactly the child I used to be. So if the way my mom dealt with it didn't really work in my situation (because I kept doing it and being a smart ass over and over) what do you do? How do I get her to stop sabotaging herself, to stop making the mistakes I made?

On the phone the other day my mom was lamenting about how she used to punish me and how she feels bad about it now. "I was just so crazy back then," she said. Oh, yeah, I'm sure that being a single mom to three kids all aged one year apart was super easy. No one should act crazy when they are overwhelmed by life, right? I can not tell her enough times to please not apologize to me for things like that and that I know exactly how she felt at that point in her life because I'm at that same point in mine. I can completely understand where my poor mom was coming from. I feel so bad for the younger version of my mother. That poor woman; we fucking tormented her! My little brother was constantly in trouble, he and I lit the house on fire one time, spilled an entire gallon bucket of white paint on the carpet, you name it, we did it. I commend my mom for not beating the shit out of our spoiled, shitty little asses. "You guys were just kids," she says. I was there. I remember. I was a little shit. Chopped all my hair off at age three, stole a hundred bucks from my mom and brought it to second grade with me. Yep, theft in second fucking grade. I was kicked out of D.A.R.E. in fifth grade for smoking cigarettes on campus and then suspended in seventh grade for having a pipe in my pocket during P.E.. If my daughter puts me through half the shit I put my mom through, I don't know how I'll deal with it. Probably cry and call my mom. She'll laugh at me for a second in well-earned glee over the fact that I'm being repaid for what I did as a kid, (I will, too!) but she is always on my side. Always. She tells me like it is and doesn't always agree with my personal opinions, but she'll always stand behind me.

When it comes down to it, I stand behind my daughter in the same way. It was only me and her for awhile, and it bothers me when people pick her apart. Yes, she whines, yes, she can be very irritating sometimes. On purpose, just overtly trying to annoy us. She laughs and thinks it's funny and never seems to be able to see when she may be wrong in a situation. I bought her little brother a balloon at the store when we walked there. He was really good the whole way there and inside the store as well. If she had been there with us and had been good, I would have done the same for her. I thought that maybe I should grab her a little something as well, but then I realized I would just be rewarding her bad behavior. So I didn't get her anything and spent the entire walk home feeling guilty. Why? I don't fucking know, I wasn't the one who got themselves in trouble.

So we get home, and she asks me, "Did you get me anything?" in a very small voice, and I felt fucking terrible. But I figured it would be a good opportunity to show her why she didn't get anything that time. I explained to her that the only reason her brother got anything is because he was good. I told her I couldn't get her something at the store if she couldn't even change her attitude in order to be able to go with us. But all I've heard for the past two days is how he has a balloon and she doesn't. How it isn't "fair" that he should have a balloon and she not have one to play with as well. I seriously just want to scream at these points in my life. I just fucking explained to you the reason why. Your dad explained to you why you weren't able to go with us, but you continued to scream and throw a fit and not at least try to understand why you were being punished. I seriously can't deal with it sometimes. It's like all the good things she does do get overshadowed by silly little things like this. She is so awesome most of the time! She's absolutely hilarious (I'm going to go ahead and say she gets that from me!), she plays well with her brother, she buys him stuff at the store even though she doesn't have to share her money, she helps me around the house all the time. She does dishes, she picks up the other rooms, puts her toys away, folds and puts away her clothes. Am I being too harsh with her? It's hard for anyone to give you advice when they aren't in your exact situation, but am I the only mom who feels this way?

I feel like as mothers we are discouraged from talking about the things that bother us about our children. They are, after all, just kids. But the way you deal with these matters when they are still young has a huge effect on them when they are adults. If I can still remember what it was like when I was a kid, she will be able to remember all of this as well. I just want to do this correctly, you know? It's the most important job I've ever had or ever will have. I'm raising humans. This isn't a dog or cat, I can't just be like, "Oh well, I fucked up on that one." She will eventually be an adult and you people will have to deal with her. So I want to do the world a favor, do her a favor, and try and do the best job of raising her as I possibly can. But I can't just spend all my time painting my life in a bright light all the time. I am very positive, but I'm also a realist. I don't think there is anything wrong with saying that your kid is an asshole sometimes. Just don't ever say it in front of them and always try and act out of love, whether that be in comforting or in punishing them. I punish my kid because I want her to turn out to be a decent human being, not because I want to or enjoy it. When I've ever been brought to the extreme of spanking her, I feel sick to my stomach. I go downstairs and cry sometimes afterwards. If even I feel that way after doing it, then there has to be a better way. Something needs to change. Seriously, any advice would be appreciated.

You may be wondering why I haven't written anything negative about my son. He is only one, after all, but I can see his naughtiness showing through every day and it scares me. He steps on his sister's toes, pinches her, pinches me on my face, hard, slaps us, bites us.... He also gets into his moods where he doesn't want to be good, where it seems like everything he does is meant to harm you or someone else. We, of course, tell him it isn't okay and reprimand him. He can also be very sweet, hugging you and kissing you over and over until your heart melts in a puddle at the bottom of your yoga pants. Basically, right now I'm not sure what I'm doing. I'm not sure if the way I do things is the right way. I just don't know anymore, and I'm really hoping that I'll get smarter and better as I go. Practice makes perfect, right? Soon there will be three of these little terrors running around and I'll be grossly outnumbered. I need to get my shit together and figure this out!

When is it going to be okay to parent our children again? I feel like as long as I have my children at home it is easy to implement rules and structure but as soon as we go anywhere, I start to cower a bit in my punishments or reprimands because I don't know how anyone else will react to it. If my daughter talked to me at home the way she does when we are out, she'd get a firm talking-to and possibly a spanking if she doesn't straighten up. But in public, I rarely (if ever) spank her. She tends to act out more when we're in public, too. (What a surprise.) I spanked London one time when we were at a restaurant after she was repeatedly doing something that got her into trouble. I got up, grabbed her hand, walked calmly to the restroom, and spanked her a couple times on the butt over her clothes. She straightened up and we went about our dinner! (It worked!) Then our server, who happened to be a close friend of mine, came up and said that a lady at one of the tables by the bathroom had just gone up to her manager and said "Um, there's a woman beating her child in the bathroom. You should probably do something about that."

You silly bitch. People like this woman make me want to grab them by the ears and scream DIRECTLY into their face, hopefully forcing flecks of sputum straight up their noses. Fuck you and that high horse you rode in here on. You don't know me or my daughter, you don't know the situation, and I should take you into the restroom and beat you! You OBVIOUSLY don't have children, and if you do have children and have never been faced with the reality that your own dear sweet child is a brat and needs to be put in her place, then your child is a robot. There is a clear difference between spanking a child and them crying about it (let's face it, it sucks to be spanked) and beating a child. You can't just throw words like that around.

Nevertheless, I stopped spanking her for a really long time after that. I don't know if it is even an effective punishment. I just started sitting her in time-out (What a fucking joke that is, time-out? I had to literally hold her in the corner while she screamed bloodcurdlingly), started taking her things away (surprisingly effective for a little while). But as of late, she is just becoming nuts, I swear! Glittery nail polish on the toilet seat, so I took her nail polish away. Cut her hair off, so I took the scissors away. By the way, she's almost 7. She never got into anything when she was a baby and toddler but now? Jeez. She's ripped off our wallpaper (in a rental), written on the walls, written on furniture, sprayed an entire bottle of my perfume upstairs (No, I didn't, Mommy! I CAN SMELL IT, LONDON!) covered the peroxide bottle in her brother's diaper rash cream..... The list goes on and on. It's been like this for months now.

I feel horrible when I spank her. It has become the most effective LAST RESORT sort of punishment. Like last night. I went upstairs to lay her baby brother down (he just turned one) and was up there for 10-15 minutes before she finally got sent upstairs for complaining about the food on her plate for the previous hour. She comes up the stairs screaming like a banshee about how she's not tired and doesn't want to go to sleep. I almost had him asleep before all of this and I got pissed. I went into her room and told her if she didn't stop screaming like that, that I was going to give her a reason to cry. (Oooooh, my mom used to say that to me!) I went and laid back down, hoping she'd stop. But nooooooo. She's got to sit there pounding her dirty bare feet on her white wall, thrashing and making so much noise that I get BACK out of bed and spank her. One, two, three spanks, and she shut up. Zipped her mouth and laid down, eventually going to sleep.

But I was in my bed, trying to console the baby, who didn't know what the hell was going on and was scared. He didn't like hearing Mommy be mean like that. And then I cried silently in my room for a little while, thinking about how much I hated being a parent at times like these. It's not fair. I want her to become a decent human being and that means showing her right from wrong. I want to be that parent that gives her kids whatever they want, but I care more about them than someone who would do that. Giving them everything they want will turn them into pompous & entitled assholes! Whatever. Punishing kids is the hardest thing parents have to do, and when people in public scare you to the point of not being able to punish them, then what? I have resorted to scare tactics as of late. The mean mom eye accompanied by a low whisper of, "Do what you want now. Remember though, you have to come home with me. None of these people will be there. Remember that." I can be pretty scary when I want to be, and so far, it works a little bit.

If anyone has any suggestions on how to punish children without spanking them, I'd love to hear it. I need something new. I tried acting like I was going to drop her off at "kiddie jail" where they jail kids who are naughty. That just made her cry, sooooo yeah.