I admit it, I interfered. Dang. August 27, 2011

So I gave my children a little spending cash for back to school stuff. Nothing outrageous; enough to buy a pair of pants, a dress, shirt or two. It’s the first time I’ve done it; mostly because we’ve been given so many hand me downs there hasn’t been a need. But those seem to be getting fewer and further between – boys are hard on their clothes, and well the stuff we get for Talula is just too small – I think this girl is going to be tall with a capital T.

So off my husband went with Talula to buy a pair of running shoes and Thor and I strutted ourselves to Old Navy. I had told him the choices were all his, but that I would like to give a little input on size so they lasted more than a month ’cause he seems to be growing like a weed right now. I knew he was going to be drawn to all things with skulls on them and anything camo. It was ok, I had made piece with that, or so I thought. Until the only two things he found to his liking was a camo top and camo pants, and I thought “oh, goodness, I can’t look at him in that for the next year”, so I asked him to choose one or the other, but not both.

WHY did I do that?

Did I think that each time he wore the stuff (which would probably be always and I’d have to secretly was it at night) his play would look something like this guy…

          Or that when he grows up and gets married this would be his bride?

I don’t know. But what ever my reason, he got a choice, one or the other, not both – he choose the shirt and a hoodie with a skull and cross bones.

I will get better at this; I know that I have grown by leaps and bounds already, but it just cracks me up sometimes the little things that get you. Those beliefs can be strong and what ever mine is about boys who wear camouflage got me good this time.

Didn’t start with a bang. May 4, 2011

So far we have not jumped in with both feet. DNSN, was not overly present this morning. It was a morning that both my husband and I had to get out the door on time – sometimes being late is just not kosher, work-wise. So we gave reminders, asked questions, helped and generally did what we had to be done to get out the door. Oh well, there will be other mornings.

Thor is on day 4 of his consequence to last Saturdays performance – no extra-circular activities outside school until he shows us for 5 days that when he gets angry he can use better choices for how to deal with his anger. He asked a funny, but on the head question “but how can I show you if I don’t get angry?” Good point, and maybe the flaw in this “show me”; but it’s what he was in the middle of showing us, so we stuck with it. He’s handled it all fairly well and with good understanding that this is just how it is; he tried to push a bit when it came to today’s afterschool program – kickball – which he loves. But only asked twice (first his Dad and then me – I guess hoping for a different answer); and then dropped it.

That’s it, nothing else to report. Talula has t-ball tonight – her first practice – so I asked what she had to gather to be ready for the practice. She’s got the baseball pants on, and she knows she needs her glove and bat, can’t put her finger on their location right now, but that will be my DNSN moment for today. Oh and getting out the door in time for practice, that will be all her. I hope.

Interfering? Who me? May 3, 2011

If I learned anything from this past weekends’ experience, it’s that I need a refresher. So while I wish I could attend one of Vicki’s classes, it’s just not in the cards for me/us. Vicki has one that starts tonight, so I figured I might as well start at the same time. At least I know there will be many other parents feeling the same angst I will be at the same time. Strangely, that helps.

I have the DVD’s and the Audio. Tonight I decided to go Audio – doing dishes and listening to the audio was great. I have wanted to introduce this to my kids for a while, and I figured with all the school, sports, work and various extra-curricular stuff going on, finding the time to sit down and watch the DVD with them was more than I could hope for right now. It worked, Thor tuned in here and there and stopped in his tracks to do so. Talua, not so much, but nothing really slows her down anyway. Yes, it slowed the night down, but that’s ok, we’re about to enter into DNSN anyway.

Other than the usual – do nothing say nothing stuff – I have to remind myself of two things

1. This is DNSN interfering, which can be hard after a few go-rounds of the program, because the “non-interfering” strategies start to get used so much they themselves become interfering. But still, I will be posting the question “Are you interfering?” around the house. I think I tend to look at DNSN as a bit of a vaca from my responsibilities as a parent – and clearly that is not the purpose of this.
2. I will also ask the question “how can you move this forward“? of myself, ALOT. Because that will help me in the next few weeks of this

OK. Off I go.

Oh Holy night from hell April 30, 2011

We are “babysitting” children who live down the road – it’s a swap thing, they go out we take their kids, we go out…well you get it. It’s an attempt to make “going out” somewhat affordable. It works, most of the time, but not so much tonight.

Thor had a, hmmm, what shall we call it? A bad moment? A lapse in judgment? A meltdown of fairly epic proportions? The Perfect Storm? OK, so I’m being dramatic, but I think after the last 2 plus hours, I think I’m allowed.

Here’s what I saw: Thor picked up a kid size hoe (insert inappropriate comment here) and chucked it at the 6 year old girl who we are babysitting. In my head I KNEW that he had been provoked. Didn’t know how, but obviously knew by whom. Here’s the clincher, and my mistake; even though I knew he had been provoked, I focused on what he had just done and made him feel bad for it.

Sh-t.

Then I called him over, but he ran. While in my head I just wanted to talk, my body clearly told him a different story (later he told me he ran because he thought I wanted to hurt him – oh the tears, from us both). From there it continued to escalate. He ran down the road, came back with sticks which he chucked at his Dad, who then picked him up to take him to his room so we didn’t send the child we were looking after back with bruises. His Dad got kicked all the way up the stairs. Then things got chucked down the stairs, repetitively.

Oh, I don’t what to talk about the scene anymore. Suffice it to say it kept going for a while longer.

After he calmed down we talked. It was tough, really tough. He said things that no one wants their child to say. I tried to focus on what lead to him feeling like running was the thing to do – which was when he told me he thought we wanted to hurt him. At the end he so very simply said to me “when you want to talk to me, can you just say ‘Thor, can we talk’?”; sheesh, way to simplify life dude. And I responded with “absolutely, especially if you promise to come talk”.

This scene happened one other time I was looking after a couple of children after school. I’m still not sure what lead to it but he went ape-sh-t and headed down the road. I was stuck – 3 other kids at home – the youngest was 3, not someone I felt comfortable leaving alone, obviously. And I knew that if I piled the 3 of them in the car, there was no way Thor was going to get in the car. So I had to actually called my husband home and I left the house long enough to make sure he didn’t do anything stupid. He was pretty much at the big road when his Dad showed up. Scary.

I did touch on his response to what ever had happened. He didn’t really have much to say, other than to tell me what the child had done. We talked about “walking away” when things go bad with someone else.

I struggle with how else I could have handled this (other than saying “Thor can we talk” instead of giving him an “I want to hurt you” vibe). When he gets aggressive like this it’s truly more than a bit scary, and the two times it’s happened in the last year there have been other children around, and I become more concerned about making sure he doesn’t lash out at them.

Ugh. I haven’t written in this thing forever, and here I am writing about a completely out of the ordinary event. I guess I thought it might give me some insight. Not so far. But I do know that I need to write more, and I need to write about some celebrations!

Where are my dvd’s?

Inspector Gadget March 21, 2011

It finally happened. My kids asked to watch tv this morning. Well, not tv since we don’t have cable, but asked for Netflix. And really the only reason they ASKED is because they couldn’t figure out how to spell “Inspector Gadget” in Netflix search engine to find it – I think they know how to get to the Netflix page. “NO” came out of my mouth. Whoops. Let’s try that again. “Yes I suppose you can if you both think you can do all your morning things, watch Inspector Gadget and still get out the door on time. Do you guys think that is doable?”. “Yeeessss”. Okey dokey.

5 minutes late.

So I am in my car, husband is at work, so I have no departure backup. I’m fuming sitting here (and I have the theme song in my head making it worse; do-do-do-do-DOOO) and not sure how to move forward. Talula was still in jammies and hadn’t eaten, Thor was dressed and half way through his breakfast. Ugh. I think I have to go in and move it forward somehow or I foresee them in there watching it all day.

10 minutes late.

Right or wrong, I just went in and turned the computer off and came back out. Talula looked like she was settled in for the duration.

15 minutes late.

Here comes Thor. No sign of Talula – pretty much how I expected it to go.

Oh wait. There she is, dressed too. Wow. Not bad. Now I guess I wait for them to ask again, and we move on to privileges and responsibilities and see where that conversation goes.

Big thief, little thief. What begins with ‘T’? October 14, 2010

We heart Dr. Seuss.

How ironic is it that the day after my wee little boy lifts 10 bucks from his dads bedside table,  I come face to face, during the regular course of my work life, with someone involved in the break-in of our house over a year ago. Funny story (not funny ha-ha) that I can’t really share; but had to mention it because I thought the irony was thick.

So yes, Thor lifted money off his Dad’s table – and sometime there after came to me with a story of where it was “found”. I posted my dilemma on the forum, because we were fairly sure he had stolen it and I wasn’t sure I was taking the right action – didn’t want to back him into a corner, but also seemed like one of those things that shouldn’t be ignored.

For those of you who don’t read the forum (and why don’t you?); here is my correspondence with Vicki;

Morning,
So we have a wee bit of a thief – Thor has helped himself to a $10 bill that his Dad unloaded from his pants pocket onto his bedside table. Last night (when Dad was out) Thor came to me and told me that he found it in the woods “that time we had friends over”. It seemed like an odd time to tell me this, so my radar went up a bit, but at this point didn’t know about the $10 bucks on his Dad’s bedside. He asked what he should do with and I said “well I guess if you found it in the woods it’s hard to be sure who it belongs to and therefore difficult to give it back to them”. I left it open-ended on purpose. This morning in the space of about 10 minutes we heard two different stories of where it was found, once found at school and he asked his teachers about it and they told him to keep it and the finally story was that he found it at another schools playground. My feeling is to just let it go and hope that he fesses up to where it was “found”; but I just wanted to reach out to you in case you had some extra wisdom to impart.

Thank you, as always.
smss

Morning,

Miss you.  Lets have breakfast okay.  Yeah, I would let it go – knowing your child.  ALERT -  I am talking specifically to this parent whose child I know.  So please, if you are reading this, don’t jump to conclusions about how I would deal with stealing if it was YOUR child.  Ask me if you want to know.

I might also set up a situation where you could “lift” something that didn’t belong to you, but that you wanted and ask Thor to help you settle the moral dilemma you are struggling with.  That will open up the conversation.  And then I would bring it to Family Meeting around your value identification and mission statement and talk about all the ways it could destroy a family.

He is ready for this.  Love that kid.

V

SO. I found myself alone in the car with Thor this evening and the little voice in my head was saying “DO IT”. Oh. It was such an un-natural feeling, and I am fairly sure that he picked up on that because at some point during the conversation about my dilemma he asked (I kid you not) “Is this story for real?”. Ugh. It wasn’t quite what Vicki suggested, I hadn’t actually “lifted” something from someone, but I explained to him that there was something on a co-workers desk that I really wanted and it was just sitting there on their desk, so I was thinking about taking it. He asked some questions like “what is it?”, “don’t they want it?”. I can’t remember what else he asked. It was all so strange feeling. He said that it was on their desk, so that it was theirs and wasn’t something I should take. I asked why I couldn’t, he said, “because maybe they will need it”. He did suggest that maybe I should ask the next time at work if it (and “it” was a vase by the way – lame, I know) was something that person wanted, and if not, maybe they would let me have it. So I think maybe I need to actually take something – well, pretend to – and give this another go. Because what this conversation didn’t allow was him helping me figure out what to do once I had already taken the vase/$10 bill.

Don’t let thoughts of missed opportunities boss you around October 6, 2010

“You are not the boss of me!”

I finally had to say that to myself 10 minutes ago. Well, not really to myself, but to the voice inside my head.

Just got everyone home from school/daycare and away I went nagging, nagging, nagging. There is a Ugandan Gospel Choir signing at one of our local schools tonight. I showed Thor and Talula some you-Tube of them this morning to see if they were interested in going – they were. So during the car ride home I explained that if we were going to go, we had to head out right after dinner, and that would mean regular evening things would need to be done before dinner. Then we talked about what those things were and they made a list; un-pack backpacks, make lunches, homework, baths. It’s a lot. So we walked in the door and off goes my mouth. Do you guys want to go tonight? What do you need to do? You guys don’t have much time before dinner…

Even as I write this, I so desperately want to say something to Thor while he practices writing words on our chalkboard table. Can you believe it??? He’s sounding out words and writing them for the first time ever and I want to bust in on that.

It took me a while, but I realized what was going on. I didn’t want them to miss it. I really want to go to this with them.

I think they do want to go – but maybe in the end, having a chill afternoon instead of running around and keeping busy is more their pace right now. So I came home with a mission – to take them to see some awesome performance – and all I could think about was what they would miss if they didn’t go. Slowly, as I write this, I am easing off. Still kinda want to give them another reminder. But I won’t. I hope. But it really would be an amazing thing to see. And they play bongos. Thor really likes bongos; so much so the last time he was around some he asked me to dance with him (be still my beating heart). OK. OK. OK. Stop pushing me around, ’cause I don’t want to push them around. Sheesh, the mind can be a little too bossy.

Again September 24, 2010

It’s happened again. This time I have 4 claw marks down the back of my neck. I have truly no idea where it turned to that.

Our afternoon started with a discussion concerning movie night and what needed to be done if it was going to happen. We discussed, came to an agreement how long would be needed to accomplish said things (namely clean up the living room) and made sure we were all on the same page for what a “clean living room looked like”. And then I walked away to work on dinner. All moved along well for a bit, I went in at one point and offered to help with something they were working on and then went back to my thing in the kitchen. And then I started to hear pleas of “Thor stop”, “Stop Thor”. I ignored it for a bit and then it escalated to a point that I couldn’t ignore it any further. I peaked my head around the corner just in time to see Thor give Talula a “warning” kick. He didn’t actually make contact, but his message to her was clear. Earlier in the evening I had a discussion with Thor about noticing that he was getting angry about something and how he was starting to use threatening gestures and that he had shown us for 6 days that he had been working hard to do other things when he started to feel angry; gave him a chance for what Vicki would call a “do-over”. That conversation seemed to have turned things around and I thought we were back on track. I have no idea what was going on that was leading Talula to ask him to stop, and I also have no idea what was going on that would cause him to threaten her. But I do know that that action was the beginning of another rough patch. I (unfortunately) mentioned that I guess he would be showing us for another week that he could be safe around people, which I have no doubt caused the spiral to spin down even faster; but at the time it was all I could muster out of my mouth that was appropriate. Clearly there should have been some duct tape on my person. Thor then proceeded to throw the beginnings of dinner on the floor for the dog, and when Talula tried to rescue what hadn’t been thrown on the floor he started to physically block her from moving. That was the point when I went in, picked Talula up and started to walk away and I became the recipient of claws down the back of my neck. It took every ounce of me to not loose my cool, but instead headed to my room and put a Netflix cartoon on for Talula and blocked the door with a chair (hubby was out – and I didn’t feel like being a barricade).

After some time had passed, an hour or some after the standoff was over, I went and talked quietly alone with Thor. I asked if he could tell me lead up to the anger. He couldn’t really – except to say that Talula wasn’t cleaning up and that it was distracting him from cleaning. I can’t know whether or not this is true – I have no idea, and no idea why she would be asking him to stop. I told him that I loved him and after a bit he said he was sorry. I accepted his apology and we talked more about how to respond to feeling angry. I told him that while I still loved him even after he hurt me, outside of this house he was likely to find that the reaction to hurting someone would be very different. I was so saddened by this whole event that it was hard to snap out of that, but giving him a gigantic hug and snuggling with him was a good start.

labour day lock-down September 16, 2010

OK, so it’s not Labour day any more. This was a blog I started on that holiday Monday, and then never posted. Not sure why. But I find myself with the same story to tell.

Same story, different day.

Thursday September 16th lock-down.

Here’s the scene. Thor is feeling disgruntled about something that we have said “yes, as soon as” to and it slowly goes from “why not?”,  “But MUMMY?”, “Can’t I just….?”, “that’s NOT FAIR!” to lock down in the family compound. For the most part we ignore what he is saying unless it presented to us in a nice tone of voice and if he is not asking the same question he asked one hundred times in the past 5 minutes. And then the escalation begins…the growling, the forceful voice, all things clearly intended to scare us. At this point we walk away (maybe was our first mistake? should have walked away earlier? but it all started at the dinner table…) and then the remaining members of the family (Talula, my husband, me and our dog) find ourselves locked into our bedroom with either me or my husband propped up against the door because it has no lock. Tonight I was the door stop and he found something to use to bang against the door with so hard that I could feel my organs shaking.

Eventually the banging stops and one of us “adults” makes a test walk outside the room to see what the weather is like on the outside. Generally, we are greeted with a pelting from something or another and we head back in from the hail. Eventually there is a little “Mum?” or “Dad?”; and we say “yes?”; “can I come in?”; “yes……”.

And so it ends.

Now what? We know this much – this weekend is one our favourite Fairs – Thor is SO excited to go to it, and been asking “when is the fair?” for several weeks now. Here is “the plan”, Talula and I go to the Fair sans Thor and Dad “because we just don’t feel safe taking Thor to a place where there are so many people that could potentially be hurt if something doesn’t go his way and he gets angry” (maybe not those words – have to chew that over). It will be hard to keep our resolve, because it’s really a family thing, the fair, and while Talula and I will have a good time – it won’t be the same, so part of me will want to say “why bother going, why don’t we all stay home?”. So I will have to work hard on standing firm.

And now the really hard part. WHY does it escalate so, and WHAT is he getting so offended by? I think it his sense of fairness, but I can’t even remember what caused the Labour Day lock down, so I’m not 100% about that and need to mull it over. But my gut says that’s the root. When my husband and I mull it over we start to questions whether or not we are being unfair – especially from the perspective of a 6 year old. And for a bit I feel a bit guilty UNTIL I remember that even if it were the case that we were being unfair, his reaction to the situation is WHOLLY inappropriate. He thinks that his solution to the situation is to scare and/or hurt people and that is what we need to address and discuss with him in the next little bit. Where he learned that is the position to take when offended is, I have not doubt, from life pre-Parenting on Track I am just not ready to delve into right here, right now.

OK. And now here I am writing again after who knows how long, and all I am doing is whining about a bad night. So here is the good stuff from the last who knows how long. Talula is at “Thor’s big school” and she is so ready to be a big kid, and at every turn she has taken the opportunity to tell me she is good, and doesn’t need me for this or that while at her new school. Yum. Thor is getting back into the swing of school pretty well, a bit of push back about making lunch every now and then, but nothing big. He has experienced his first homework assignments and I have made it my goal to set the tone from the get-go. Obviously he can’t read, so I have to read the instructions and explain them a bit, and then I walk away. Every once in a while he’ll ask “is this right?” and while I haven’t been 100% successful, I am shooting for the “I don’t know, wait and see what the teacher says” response. I don’t even want to become the person to check the homework for accuracies. So far the transition from summer to school has gone as well as good be expected.

Goodnight.

PS- Talula went to bed with her pull-up on the outside of her jammies; “because you know that superhero in blue? he wears his undies on the outside”. Can’t argue with that logic. He is super-human.

Oh SO busy! July 22, 2010

It’s summer time! Soccer camps, play dates that go on for hours and hours, dinner at friends, friends over for dinner, work, a swim here a swim there, etc etc etc.

Leaving me not much time to write. But here’s the good news – I have nothing to write about.

???

No buttons. And before you cow-tow to me, I think there are no buttons (and I mean no buttons right now) because I identified so many freaking buttons when I did this six months ago that they all just faded to the background. Truly, for me just the act of identifying them is enough to make the go away almost entirely. It’s such a good exercise.

So that’s buttons. DNSN. Well, I’m doing stuff and saying stuff, and I rationalize why it’s ok for me to do so. Pathetic; “well it’s not his fault he so tired he can’t pull his socks over his shin pads because we got home way late from our friends house last night, help the poor thing” says my brain. And here’s the question I forget to ask “if he had slept for 15 hours last night would he still be having trouble pulling those socks up”? Probably. I can be a big sucker.

I dropped Thor off and soccer yesterday morning and went off to work. I was truly concerned about what he was going to do if he needed me for something and I wasn’t there. Which was a big wake up call, I need to start pulling away from him in little areas like these, and give him the room to flap his wings. Let the baby bird fall from the nest.