Lessons learned the hard way ... the VERY hard way ...

Patience. It is something I like to think I have, but really have very little. When it comes to my kids it can go away VERY quickly.  When I lose my patience, I tend to be a yeller. Not something I am proud of, but I admit and I am yelling mom.

Plus I have two girls who like to test the little patience that I have very VERY often. This morning was one example. My youngest daughter is four and has a lot of difficulty making decisions. I try to give her only two choices but even then it takes her forever to make up her mind. This morning was no exception as she could not decide between the two shirts I gave her to choose from, the two headbands and then the two choices of footwear.

We were getting ready to leave for preschool and I told her to put on either her tennis shoes or her cowgirl boots. She hemmed and hawed for five minutes and still was without something on her feet. I told her I was going to the gas station and could take her to school as well, but she needed to get something on her feet – some fit throwing and yelling ensued (by her, not me). I removed myself from the meltdown and went into the garage to take care of some recycling and put my purse in the car. When I turned around she was standing on the steps with her boots in her hand. I figured that meant she chose her boots and needed help putting them on.

Nope. 

Instead she started freaking out again saying she didn't want to wear them. With as much calmness as I could muster I told her that if she chose NOT to wear the boots I was going to pick out her shoes. So, did she want to wear the boots or not? No, she said. Then as soon as I started walking in the house to get her some shoes she started yelling and screaming, “No, no, I do want to wear them, I do want to wear them!”

Now I could have stopped turned around and given her the boots to wear. But I have been down this road before. Many, MANY times. It never ends well. If I were to give her the boots she would then say she DIDN’T want them and we would go back and forth and then I would start yelling and there would be tears (probably from both of us).

So I stuck to my guns, grabbed her tennis shoes and struggled to get them on her feet as she literally kicked and screamed at me. Then, I picked her up and she continued to kick and scream and buckled her in her car seat. (This is very difficult to do with a kicking and screaming four-year-old.)

We started backing out of the garage and she (still screaming) began kicking the back of my seat. As calm as I could be I asked her stop. She continued I began counting her and told her if I got to three I was turning around and going home. I counted to one before the car was fully out of the garage. By the time we reached the end of the driveway I was at two. Then at the stop sign at the end of our street she kicked it again.

I knew I had a choice, I could turn the corner drive her to school screaming and carrying on and be to school on time. Or I teach her a lesson.

So I put the car in reverse and pulled into our driveway. In a calm clear tone I told her we were not going anywhere until her voice sounded like my voice and she said she was sorry. 

Then the bargaining happened. She cried and yelled that she would apologize and calm down while I was driving. Nope, not falling for it. I waited. She kicked the back of my chair again. I opened the garage door. More tears and yelling. She kicked, I pulled into the garage. More tears and yelling.

“When your voice can sound like my voice and you tell me you are sorry, we can go,” I calmly said again. She yelled and kicked. I turned off the car and continued my mantra. And she yelled and kicked. I turned off the car. She continued her routine. So did I.

I opened my door. Still she protested. I opened HER door. She yelled and kicked some more. I unbuckled her car seat. She freaked, BUT she didn’t kick.

I silently stood outside her door as she sniffled for a solid five minutes. It was the longest minutes of my life. I wanted to jump up and down yelling – “just say you’re sorry so I can take you to school. Don’t you know how easy this can be fixed? Just say you are sorry!!” But I calmly stood there and said nothing. I didn’t even look at her.

“Mommy, I want to give you a hug,” she said.

Whoa. Now what?? I had held my ground this long, did she think a hug was going to end this stand-off? It was well-played on her part I give her that, but I decided I wasn't giving in, mean as that may sound.

“I will give you a hug when you say you are sorry,” I told her. I waited for another two minutes. Then in a voice just above a whisper I heard it – “I’m sorry, Mommy.”

Hallelujah!!

I wanted to jump up and down and jabber on about how it is important to say you’re sorry and all that but I decided to just be calm and concise. “Thank you.” Then I gave her hug. (I may be mean, but I’m not a monster.)

I buckled her in, closed her door, got in the car and we drove to preschool. It was a quiet ride, but there were no tears, no kicking and we walked in to her school hand in hand. We were 10 minutes late, but that’s ok. Hopefully the lesson I taught her was just as important as whatever she missed in those 10 minutes.

Now I am exhausted … And I need an Oreo – or 12 …

You know what would be just as awesome as an Oreo? You clicking on the Top Mommy Blob logo at the top of my page to vote for me!! Thank you!

New study finds we need studies to validate ourselves

I read an article a couple days ago that said it is scientifically proven that writing is good for you. I really don't know why we needed a study to confirm that fact. Of course writing is good for you. It's not like writing is a bad habit or something like smoking or eating too many doughnuts. (Which of course begs the question - how many is too many?)

It's kind of a no brainer that writing is good for you. It's a skill they teach first graders. It's something you will always have to use throughout your life. Whether you are jotting a little note in a birthday card, writing the next great American novel or throwing words out into the interweb hoping someone might read them and therefore validate yourself as a person, we all have reasons to write.

The article went on to say that people who write frequently and more specifically people who write about themselves and their feelings frequently (i.e. through journaling or a self satisfying blog, cough, cough) are able to work through their problems more quickly because they force themselves to "take a step back and evaluate their lives." (Or, in my case, try to put the most humorous spin on it.)

It makes me think of a line from one of my favorite rom-coms "French Kiss" (before Meg Ryan's face began looking cartoon-ish.) She and Kevin Klein are walking through a city in France and she is saying that he needs to talk about his feelings. She says "a healthy person is someone who expresses what they are feeling inside. Express, not repress." To which Kevin Klein's character Luc replies "In that case, you must be one of the healthiest people in the world."

Not only does writing help you mentally, it can help your physical health, too. The study stated that writing can help patients heal more quickly because it helps them make sense of events and reduce distress. It even said that blogging may trigger dopamine releases similar to the effect of running. Cool, huh? So I don't know what did more for my health today - writing this blog or going on my jog this morning. (I'd say run, but at my pace it was really more of a jog.)

Now when I don't feeling like working up a sweat (or getting out of my pajamas), I'll just waddle over the the computer and blog away. Then I'll have gotten my exercise in for the day. Or at least improved my mental and physical being a bit. And trainers everywhere give a giant eye roll. Like we needed another excuse to not exercise!

So there, I have now successfully worked my mind and body, just by sitting here on my tukus typing away, And my fingers didn't even cramp!

Now if only a study would get released that said reading someones blog was the equivalent to 100 sit-ups then I could say you got just as much out of this blog post as I did ...

Maybe it'll be only 10 sit-ups, but still, it's better than nothing!

You could increase my dopamine even more my click on the Top Mommy blog logo at the top to vote for me! Thank you so much! You look thinner already!