No More

It was a weird day. It was Sunday, which means Sundays are always hard, but it was hard and weird. Lots of thoughts swirling around this head of mine at 2 am... Let's begin.

I yell. And spank. A lot. Too much. It has taken me until now to realize that it's not helping, and it's not working. I grew up with yelling and hitting and violence, as I may have mentioned in some past post, and it's no excuse at all for how I choose to act now... I'm just saying that's how I grew up expressing feelings. And it's hard to change. But it's time for a change.

I'm afraid that if I don't change I will never be able to be a stay at home mom. Hard job. I may lose my mind. Most of the time when I'm home with the kids on the weekends, I feel like I am just not cut out to be a SAHM. Bring on the mama guilt. It should be easy. It should be natural, right? It's not, at least for me. What's "natural" for me lately is screaming every time they make a mess. Which is A LOT. When Lucas hits Via, I spank him. When he's just being too loud, I become louder. You think I would have figured this out a while ago, with common sense and all, that it is just not working. He screams, I scream, he screams louder. Duh, Shaeli. Could we have not taken a step back and analyzed the situation before now?? Really though it's just gotten bad in the last few weeks. I'm sure the super hard work week, the pneumonia, the fractured rib and every other life stressor helped a ton with my mama actions ;) So, that crap week is over, my rib feels better, I'm not coughing all day long now... and we begin again.

No more yelling. No more spanking. The rest of July will be my "try"al month in which I give myself "tires" and remember this resolve before lashing out. August will officially be "stop" month. I have no idea what I'm going to do instead, so stay tuned as I figure it out ;)

What led to all this on this hard and weird day? I had to leave church. Levi was able to come today which was good because I had to physically leave church and go home to calm down. We weren't even 20 min in. Keep in mind our church starts at 1pm, and I'm usually stressed before we even walk out the door. That held true today. I was tired, hadn't eaten much, the last few days were hard as well... and these kids just didn't want to sit still. I tried giving him the iPad with headphones early - usually he does a good job of waiting until after they've passed the Sacrament - but he wanted to run around with his head still attached to it. I lost it. Right in the middle of a baby blessing :(  Well done, self. I took Lucas out and we both ended up on the floor crying. So Levi sent me home. Good man, that Levi. He knows when his wife needs a time-out ;) And I did. I took a time-out, ate some lunch, researched how to be a calmer mother, and went back to church.

So, the first line of defense will most likely be a mama time-out. It seemed to work pretty well today! Just to breathe or count or lock myself in my room (just figured out today that our bedroom door has a lock. Who knew?) The kids are just being kids 80% of the time so there is no real misbehavior to punish. Lately Lucas and Via have been awesome at picking on each other, and that 20% does need to be disciplined somehow, I'm just not sure how yet. Suggestions would be much appreciated!

I haven't really figured any other tactics out beside the mama time-out, so we'll see what works and what doesn't I guess. I've been reading a bunch of articles on parenting, not yelling, why spanking is bad (which I don't believe it is if you can do it right... I just can't do it right right now... if that makes sense.) But I haven't come across any foolproof ways to discipline. Probably because kids aren't fools ;) Those little midgets are smart! And of course what works for one kid won't work as well for another. So we'll get creative! Again, techniques that will work on a 3 year old would be very helpful! We may have to just wait it out with Via. I have no idea what to do with that chick. Lucas was not like this when he was that age :/ She provokes him, and I guess he didn't really have anyone to provoke at the time.

Now for the weird part of the day/weekend: I still want more kids. I still wanted more the whole time I was frustrated with the ones I have. Yeah, I wanted to ship them off somewhere for a while and crawl in my bed and die this morning, but I still wanted more. That feels so selfish to me, so then I'd go beating myself up again for wanting more when I can't even figure out the ones I've got. I have no idea how to analyze this thought... It's just weird to me. Just. weird. It's like I know in the very back of my mind that even though it is hard now, it will pass. This part will get easier, and I would still like 4 kids in the long run. I guess we will see how these next few months go and then maybe reevaluate...

Anyway, there's my confession for the day: I spent half of it mad and thinking I'm a horrible mother and the other half snuggling with Lucas during a movie and pushing Via in the swing at Grandma Dawn's. It was a toss up. But even the toss-up days mixed with yelling and spanking are not great like they should be. These kids deserve great days. They won't all be great, but most of them should be. So it's time for a change to become great.