Tough day to be a mom

Thaddeus threw the most hysterical fit today when I went to bible study and was about to drop him off in nursery because Callia would not "let him be the leader" as they walked in. When I addressed it it escalated instead of getting better, so much so that after probably 10 or 15 minutes and two trips to the bathroom to pop him for defiance, and a talk with Callia to tell her how he felt (although I let Callia know I didn't blame her at all for his behavior), her apologizing and saying she didn't mean to upset him, him apologizing to her for expecting her to do what he said, then him continuing to be defiant and thrashing around on the floor, I still had to just leave instead of putting him in the nursery, which prompted Callia to burst into tears as well. The other kids in the nursery and the girl watching them all seemed very concerned. We left with Callia carrying my bible and Thad's jacket so I could try to keep a hold on him and his shoes (which he had kicked off), while he thrashed as hard as he could and screamed at me for leaving his shoes behind, all the way out to the van. I was so frazzled and frustrated I can think in retrospect of a few ways I could have handled it better. I feel like a terrible mother. Just confessing. Also, I feel a little freaked out at the thought that something similar to this could happen again at some point because although he had time alone in his room to calm down when we got home and came out acting like an angel, I don't feel that any lesson was learned. This is one of those days when the title of this blog is hilariously sarcastic, which I knew it would sometimes be, but man, this is to the point where the sarcasm isn't even funny. Being a mother is insanely difficult. Hopefully I don't make any future mistakes that will blow this out of the water and this can go down in my book for my worst moments as a mother, right up there with the times that I forgot Callia's school field trip, and a friend's birthday party that she was looking forward to.

Appreciation

I found a semi-old facebook post today from October 20th, 2009. Thought I'd put it on here just for "keeps". :)

Callia came down the stairs wearing fairy wings and a crown. Thaddeus started flapping his arms with a big smile on his face and said "Shack, shack, shack! Shack a ming, why, why!" (Translation= Flap, flap, flap! Flap your wings, fly fly!) This happened right after he was talking to my mom on the phone and said "Mommy... beedet" which melted my heart :D (Translation=Mommy is a princess)

"I need bandaid in mine mouf"

Thad was super congested and kept sneezing out snot, poor baby! He had been taking it all in stride all morning, then said "Mommy, I need bandaid in mine mouf cuz I not feew good"

"That happens, Mommy"

It's 10:00pm and Thaddeus is still wide awake in his room. When I put him to bed at 8:30 (a little later than usual), he was talking to me about good dreams and bad dreams, and he told me his bad dreams have monsters and also told about a good dream he had where he and MeMaw and Grandaddy and Daddy and Callia "and even you Mommy!" were there, and he was wearing his swimsuit and we were all at the "big pool". I have a feeling he was talking about Jan's house at the 4th of July. He said that was his one good dream, and that he has had four bad dreams. He has said before that he has had four bad dreams and one good dream, but hadn't said anything about what they consisted of, other than once mentioning a bad dream about a "scary man". We talked about his dreams, prayed about dreams, and sang songs, then I said goodnight and came downstairs. Then I came down and worked on a scrapbook page a little.

He started yelling about something, talking as if we could hear what he was saying, and Nathan went up to investigate. When Nathan came back down Thad was crying, and Nathan said Thad wanted me to lay with him but he told him that Mommy was going to be downstairs and he needed to go to sleep.

But when he was still crying after five minutes or so, I went up to see if I could talk to him about how he was feeling. He said he wanted me to be with him, and when I go out of his room it makes him sad. "That happens, Mommy, sometimes it does!" The way he said it was so cute. So I laid down with him and we talked about how he was feeling and about how Mommy is not really gone, I am home, and Daddy and Callia are home and we are all together at home when Thaddeus goes to sleep in his room and Mommy goes downstairs. We talked about Jesus and how he is with us and keeps us safe, and for whatever reason Thad started talking about Jesus and Callia and MeMaw on the playground. Then I said "OK you go to sleep and I will lay here with you for a few minutes". But it seemed like he could not relax, and if I did anything such as stroke his hair when he opened his eyes, he would say "are you going now?" and look so worried. A couple of times I said "No, I am going to lay here with you for a couple more minutes and you go to sleep," but after a little while, I had to say "Don't worry, I am not going far, I'll still be home but I'm going to go and you go to sleep." So he said "OK" in a very worried tone, and as I've written this, which has been about 15 minutes, he has not called for me again. We'll see how he does.

I remember Callia having trouble with being scared and having bad dreams at this age, too. It seems like the problem tonight may have had a lot to do with the fact that it was dark when we put him to bed, since it has been light every time for a couple of months and we've had very little trouble. Tomorrow night I'll need to make sure to get him to bed on time, and in the fall when the days start getting a lot shorter, I guess I'll need to be prepared for more hassle at bed time. Hopefully not, though! It is so stressful to have to deal with such a drawn out process to get kids to sleep, during the time of day when I usually get to wind down and be a real person and feel like more than just "Mom", which often is synonymous with "servant".

In a way I've got to love it, though. Before long I'll be missing their littleness.

"Two mama!"

Saturday night when I was zipping up Thad's PJs he crossed his eyes and said "Two mama!" I thought that was pretty funny. :) He started crossing his eyes about a week ago. He has been talking a LOT, although most of it cannot be understood by anyone outside of the family. I'm proud of him for putting so much effort into it. :)

At this moment, he is playing on the couch pretending that it is a pool. Callia has a Krispy Kreme paper hat on, and is using a short plastic tent pole as a paddle, pretending that the couch is a boat. Haha! I love to watch them imagine together. I used to LOVE playing imagination games with Maegen.

Tonight we are going to all watch "Finding Nemo" for a family movie night. We've watched that one on movie night once before but it was a couple of years ago, and I think we're ready for it again. Callia was SUPER excited when it came in the mail today from Netflix movie service.

Bedtime Revelations

Callia loves to talk and no one who has ever met her could argue that. I have people laugh and comment on it randomly all the time because she walks up to them and has candid conversations with them on the spot, having never met them before. I love to see that confidence in her and am so glad it's back since beginning to homeschool her last month. :)

At bedtime she often likes to talk to me about deep issues that she has been thinking about and I cherish the time I get to talk to her about what is on her heart. This evening we had a particularly wonderful conversation that I simply cannot resist writing about. :)

To set the scene, I broke the news to her earlier this afternoon that the man who lived at the opposite end of our block on our street had passed away. He was an older black man (although not very old, in poor health) who would always come out of his duplex and sit on his step to watch me wait for the bus to drop Callia off in the afternoon. Mom tried to tell me that he was just always out there but I believe he purposefully sat there so he could have a moment to watch Thad's excitement over the bus and to ask Callia how her day at school went. He was always extremely thrilled over both of them. :) He never went anywhere and Callia often made comments to me (not to him) about his nasty toenails. She was always disappointed if he was not there and told me so, and at one point she commented on how she missed him coming out and wondered why he hadn't been there in a while. I thought it was because the weather was getting colder and told her so. A few weeks later there was a wreath wrapped in plastic on his doorstep (December) and the other girl who waited for kids to get off the same bus at that corner told me that his family member had come by to check on him and found he had passed. I didn't tell Callia until today; I had just let her continue to assume it was because of the cold weather--I didn't know if she really needed to understand death yet. But now that my grandmother's cancer may be back I have been going ahead with breaking her into an understanding of the concept.

Today we went for a walk because the weather was so beautiful, and Nathan and Thaddeus had gone ahead to the house because Callia was being so slow because of a skinned knee and Daddy needed to go potty. :) Callia and I went ahead and took our time walking back carrying litter (to clean up our beautiful world), and she commented as we passed the duplex the man lived in that we wouldn't want to pick up the flag in his yard and throw it away because he would want it to stay there. I told her that I thought someone else lived there now. In the past she would have said "Oh, really?", but this time she said "Why? What makes you think that?" She wouldn't take "I just think so" for an answer so I had to tell her. She was very sad and said she loved talking to him and really liked him so much and that it made her sad and then went on her way.

So at bedtime I brought it up again to see how she was feeling about it. During prayer I said "...and dear God please take care of the man who used to live at the end of our street now that he is in heaven with you" (although I don't know if he was a Christian or not). She continued (which is a new thing that we do--praying at the same time back and forth between the two of us) "and thank you (I wish I could remember exactly what she said about him)".

The prayer went really well and then she wanted to talk about heaven and the streets of gold. In the end of the conversation she was laughing and saying that she wishes she could die now and go see the man at the end of the street in his beautiful new body that will never get old, and see the streets of gold and see God there. She asked if we would have houses in heaven and I told her that Jesus said "In my father's house are many mansions. I am going to prepare a place for you", and she was so excited about that. She talked about how wonderful the houses will probably be and "Maybe there will be golden streets in the houses, too! Noooo! I don't think sooo! Hehehe!" I responded "I bet there will be all kinds of wonderful places for us to worship God while we are there" and she said "but why would we worship God if we are already there with him?" and I said "because he is so wonderful that we will want to tell him so", and I watched a look of complete inspiration come across her face. I told her "That's why Mommy likes to go to church in time to sing (we seldom make it on time and last week she commented about how she hates getting there in time to sing), because I like to sing to God and worship Him. He can hear us from heaven and sometimes it is almost like being there with Him". She was so excited about that and wanted to sing worship songs with me "Like the ones you used to sing at your church when you were a little girl". So we sang "Oh Lord, you're beautiful, your face is all I see, and when your eyes are on this child, your grace abounds to me", and then "Jesus, name above all names, beautiful savior, glorious lord, Emmanuel, God is with us, blessed Redeemer, living Word", and then "I wish I could remember the third song we sang!" She was lifting her hands (she loves the drama!) and she was so genuinely joyful to be praising the Lord.

I praise God right now for giving me such a wonderful daughter and a chance to have such a great time with her. :D

Pointing and Grunting=PBJ?

As we already know, Thaddeus is a pretty funny little guy. Its Christmas break and Callia is at Mom's house so Nathan, Thad, and I were sitting here in the living room eating cereal. Thad decided he didn't want his cereal, and a few minutes later came up to Nathan rubbing his tummy and saying "pweese". Nathan figured he wanted something so he stood up and Thad led him into the kitchen to the cabinet where we keep most of the snacks and canned food. Nathan picked him up so he could point to what he wanted, and Thad tapped the top of the peanut butter jar. So Nathan sat Thad down on the step stool that seems to stay in the middle of the kitchen and picked up the peanut butter and called in to tell me Thad was wanting peanut butter. Thaddeus then pointed at the bread which sits in a bowl on the counter. Haha! He came into the living room with his PBJ on a plate a couple of minutes later with a laughing Daddy trailing behind. Thaddeus set it down on the floor and pointed to it and chirped "duh!" to show me his success in communicating to his father what he wanted. :)