Jan 5, 2010
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The “CALM”, that is. I’m still trying. Though, yesterday, the kids were working on bustin’ it.
I was looking forward to getting the kids back to school so I could come home and nap with Will. However, he decided that he didn’t really need to nap and woke me up after about an hour. Which…..noooooooo. So we gave up & got up. That stank. When I picked up the kids, it all started. I was happy and calm even though Steven had begun to wig out already. Something’s going on with him and everything is all about how we don’t love him and everyone’s against him. How we only care about Henry & William & Maggie and he’s always wrong and horrible. Of course, he completely overreacts to everything (wonder where he got that from??), especially the few chores we ask him to do. You’d think I had him cleaning up after farm animals, waxing the driveway, building an addition, power washing the siding & jetting the septic field. Dude, I’m just asking you to pick up the toys in ONE ROOM, clean up your bathroom & take out the trash. CHILL.
We went over to my parents to try out our new Wii Fit Plus (yes. I’m trying AGAIN) and he kept freaking out over there. Me, Maggie & Mom-Mom all made our Miis and got signed up. Then Steven wanted to do it. And had a tantrum about it. He signed up and then wanted to do the Rhythm Boxing. But he was totally annoyed that he couldn’t just punch how he wanted and went to throw the Wii controller down. Mom-Mom don’t play dat. So he got reprimanded for that. Then, while I was doing the Basic Run, he pushed our big exercise ball at Henry, who proceeded to fall over and bonk his head on the granite floor. He started crying and Steven got angry that we “didn’t understand that it was an accident”. I kept trying to point out that I KNOW it was an accident, but Henry still got hurt, so we’re a little upset about it. I cuddled Henry and talked to him and Steven’s whining that we don’t care about him and he wants to run away. DUDE. :sigh:
I’m just trying to stay calm. Stopping to breathe rather than start shouting, freaking out and crying. But he just kept pushing and pushing and pushing. But…I didn’t yell at him. I talked to him calmly, told him what he’s doing wrong and why and that I wasn’t going to take it.
Then Maggie gave me trouble about the dishes. She really hates being on dishes and does her job halfway, trying to get out of doing it by just doing it a little bit and hoping I’ll pick up the slack. I think. But she does all the obvious dishes (after much prodding and nagging), but if something’s not right next to the dishwasher or a little difficult to do, she just ignores it. For example, there were 3 of William’s bottles waiting to go in the dishwasher. She couldn’t get them unscrewed but rather than asking for help, she just left them. When I got annoyed and said “You’re not done!”, she pulls out all the excuses. I say, “You can’t ASK FOR HELP? Even Steven asks for help when he can’t do something so he can get the job done right.” She didn’t like that. But, hey. Don’t just ignore it & walk away. Don’t try to engage Steven in something else so you don’t have to do the dishes. Don’t go play with Henry in hopes that I’ll forget to remind you. And do NOT raise your voice to me when I call you on it. Got it? Kthxbai.
So “CALM” definitely got a workout yesterday. I only yelled a couple times and it was pretty much at Henry. This morning we got off to school with no yelling at all. Even though Steven pulled the whole “I’m not going to school today” thing.
Oh well. Off to the grocery store for things to try to cook more healthy dinners, thanks to Cooking Light. My life is so interesting.
Jan 3, 2010
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So, yesterday I claimed my words for this year. Today was the first day I tried to implement the word “CALM”. And, while it was a challenge, I did pretty well, I think. Somehow, already, the idea of this is implanted in my brain. I know this because every time I felt I was losing my cool, the word “calm” started passing through my head. Which calmed me. I actually only screamed at my kids 3 times today, which is really quite awesome. Usually, when the kids are home all day, I scream close to a dozen times. Today, it was 3. The other times, I stopped myself and just did some breathing. Then I handled the situation calmly. I can’t believe it. And when things weren’t going necessarily the way I wanted, I just went with it. Though I did tell my kids when their actions were disappointing or upsetting me – I just didn’t yell about it. I cannot fully express what a big deal this is in my house. If you look up the word “overreaction” in the dictionary, there’s a picture of me losing my cool right there in the margin. I overreact. A lot. I flip out. Way too much. I’m really, really proud of how I did today.
Then there’s “HARMONIZE”. Today I saw that word as meaning working in what my kids wanted to do in with what I wanted to do – “harmonizing” our wants & needs. I knew that Steven & Maggie were dreading going back to school tomorrow. They wanted to do SOMETHING before they go back. I can’t do a whole heck of a lot since I’ve got Henry & William on board (Steve had to go into the school to prep for tomorrow), so anything outside or where Henry will want to “get down” was out. I knew that Steven wanted to check out Toys R Us to see if the new line of Bionicles was out. He still had Christmas money to spend, so I decided we’d do that and maybe go to the bookstore. We did that & I also picked up The Game of Life – which, awesome family game. Then we went to Barnes & Noble to use our gift cards. I got another game for us to play and a couple magazines. Maggie picked up some more books, too. Then we headed home. I fed William & we headed over to my parents house for some more Wii. Mario Kart, Lego Rock Band and Karaoke Revolution today. Steven is so very, very competitive on these games and freaks if he can’t win or do it his way. We have been working on that, but it’/s still an issue. But, I kept my CALM and simply explained to him how we were doing things today and he had to cooperate if he wanted to play. Of course, he wanted me to abandon the Wii and come play Bionicles with him – which….no. I wanted to play Wii. I have no interest in Bionicles. We went over there to play Wii, not Bionicles. Which, to him, translates to, “You hate me”. Can’t figure out how he gets from point A to point B on that one, but that’s not the case. So we did that for about 2 hours.
Home to feed William and Henry. Maggie started the pasta for dinner while I did that. Then we pulled out The Game of Life and set that up to play. This is the first time we’ve ever sat down as a family and played a board game. Daddy got home just as we were sitting down and he decided to join us. We took a little longer playing than I thought, but it was really good. The kids really liked it, I liked it, too. We also have Cranium & a kids version of “Would You Rather” that they’re looking forward to playing. I think we’ll do a once-a-week game night and see how it goes.
Speaking of Rock Band…I wanted to share these pictures I took. The first ones of Steven drumming are “We Will Rock You”. He loves that song.
Here are Steven & Maggie jamming on “We Are the Champions” with my brother, Andrew on vocals.
Here’s Andrew singing – isn’t he cute?!?
Here is my lovely husband doing something (I can’t remember!!) with Maggie on bass, Steven on drums and Henry on the all-important pillow.
Look how much fun my mom’s having with this! She’s just holding the baby while all of us rock out, and I think she’s having more fun than any of us!
And these are totally my favorite pictures. After watching and watching and dancing around, Henry figured out what to do with the drums. I looooove it!!
I am totally loving this. All of us, together, rocking out and enjoying each other’s company. Thank you, o Wii.
Jan 2, 2010
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Have you heard of this? This idea of choosing a word to represent your year? This word is one you’ll focus on during the year, making decisions, growing, focusing and rearranging life around the fulfillment of this word. I first heard of this idea from the scrapbooking guru, Ali Edwards. This is her 4th year doing this (her words have been “peace”, “vitality”, “nurture” and, this year, “story”). You can read more about her insight here. Then I saw my friend, Angie, had done it and I thought maybe it would be something that might help get my 2010 off on the right foot.
I started thinking about it. The hardest part is coming up with one word. There are words to describe what I want to accomplish outside myself & there are words for what I want to accomplish inside myself as well. And they are definitely different words and different ideas. So I decided on this idea. I’m choosing 2 words. One for what I want to do on the outside and one on the inside.
One word is going to be “CALM”. Focusing on finding my calm rather than immediately resorting to PANIC and CHAOS. Here’s my thought process: if I can establish and nurture calm within myself, it will begin to seep out of me. Creating calm in the house, in the children, in our lives. Because I believe the adage is true – ‘as mom goes, so goes the family’. I would really like to develop this. Making calm my default rather than overreaction. I know this is going to take a lot of work. Those who know me personally are probably laughing really hard right now as they know that my instinct is far from calm, but we don’t grow if we don’t try, right?
My other word is going to be “HARMONIZE”. I love this one so much. It has so many implications. I want to create harmony in my home. Through getting things organized, scheduled & in order. Through working with the others who live here rather than butting heads. By creating more family time with games, family dinners & rockin’ out on the Wii. I really want us to work in concert here. I think our lives will work better if we can get it together like a beautifully harmonizing vocal group.
So that’s it for my for 2010. CALM and HARMONIZE. I think what I’m actually going to do is make a couple of artsy designs with these words to frame & hang around the house as reminders. Cuz, I tell ya, if I can somehow master these 2 concepts – or at least just better incorporated them into my life – my life will change. My kids’ lives will change. Our home will be a happier, more pleasant place to be.
How about you? Got a word?
