ugh!

parenting is hard. really hard sometimes. I think it goes up and down. and charlie and I are in a deep deep valley right now. that kid is as strong-willed as me. the hardest part is that when it is just charlie and me (or bill or any other adult) he is fantastic. super fun to be with, obedient, respectful, etc – just a delight to be around. but when he is home with his two very busy, very interested sisters he transforms from a little boy you can talk through challenges with to a little boy who reacts quickly and is often mean. now i know it is hard to have two little rug rats always wanting to be right at your side and playing with your stuff, but even if they are playing with something totally different he will run over and want to take it and play with it (even something really babyish). he has 5-8 minute glimpses of perfection – where he is the sweetest, most kind big brother. he will play hide and seek with them, get them toys, point out pictures in a book, but it is as if he can only handle so much and then he gets jealous and doesn’t know how to handle himself. we have talked through all these feelings and I just purchased a feelings book that we have been reading, but it is challenging to have the time to really talk through every correction when I have 2 other little, pretty demanding, people to manage (right now – “manage” means saving them from every high place they climb up to). I try not to bark at him about everything, but sometimes I feel like every other minute I am correcting, asking, reminding him about something. I can’t let him push his sisters over when they try to get to his cars. I can’t let him take something directly from them. overall I just feel defeated. mostly because he is getting more disrespectful with me by the day. out of any behavior I cannot handle being talked sassy to, but I find I am hearing it more and more and my response is getting more and more snappy because I am about to snap. obviously something is not working and I am hoping having bill home this weekend will help get us back on track. he needs to have someone else correct him in a different way and bill is so good and managing his emotions and words. it will be good for me and for charlie.

the other other thing I have to mention in this rant is that when you take an almost 3 year old little boy and put an iphone near him he becomes an animal. a crazy, obsessed, out of control animal. we don’t let charlie play with our iphones – occasionally he can watch a “mater” you tube clip on it, but that is usually a reward (which he has been not been getting a lot lately). our friends, aunts/uncles, grandparents, etc do let him play on theirs and the kid can navigate that thing better than most adults. he literally loses his marbles when it is time to be done unless prior to giving him the iphone you set up an expectation. with charlie you have to present the situation and talk him through what is going to happen when he is done with the phone/dvd/tv/etc before you give it to him to ensure that the ending is smooth (ie: charlie you are going to be watching numbers land soon – when you are done what are you going to say? “thank you mom”). if you do that he is usually pretty good. when bill and I were talking about what we should do with his iphone/ipad obsession I almost wanted to cut it out completely, but bill had a good point that technology will be a part of his life forever. at some point he will have to start learning how to manage technology. however, we have joked that if we wanted to stop parenting now we could just purchase him an ipad and we would be good to go for about 3 years.

thankfully I read a blog post the other day that talked about how as moms we really want our kids to be obedient, well-behaved, etc so that we look good. but in life our goals should not be to raise perfect kids, but instead raise a God loving, responsible adult. it was a great thing for me to read at the time because I need to remember what my ultimate goal is. charlie is definitely pushing me to pray harder and to lean on God for his wisdom and knowledge during these challenging times. I don’t even want to think about when he is in his teens. hopefully by teaching him that his decisions can have consequences we will be preparing him for the years ahead. prayers for patience and wisdom would be wonderful!

charlie I do love you more than you can imagine. I love spending time with you and you are a sweet, caring, goofy little dude. I can’t wait until we are out of this rut!