Perseverate Much?

Tonight at dinner my son just wouldn't let something go. I asked him to stop talking about it. To please wait until I got dinner on everyone's plate before he got into it again. The asking. Nagging. Asking again.

Just. Not. Letting. It. GO.

A minute later he brought it up again. My fuse was short as my youngest was yelling and fussing in her high chair wanting her food, my oldest was loudly talking about something too (why doesn't he have volume control yet?!), and I didn't want to discuss this matter as I'd already said NO five times prior.

That was it, I dropped the (figurative) hammer. I cut him off. I told him to stop. STOP! I told him he couldn't say another word about it right now. I told him we could talk about it while we're eating as a dinner conversation but NOT RIGHT NOW. The poor kid replied, "I'll just say it even if you don't listen" in such a helpless, I-just-need-to-get-it-out-of-my-head kind of way. I felt no better than a crumb but I told him, "No, you can't. Don't say another word."

It feels so bad to make him stop and hold it in. It's one of the hardest things I have been trying to do with him lately. At school they've set clear boundaries and so he has learned not to do it so much there. To the contrary, since my boys were little I have let them interrupt me to prattle on about whatever they felt they needed to say at THAT moment. (It's no wonder they both have had impulse control issues!) I didn't want them to feel devalued. I wanted them to know that Mommy is listening! Mommy cares what you have to say!

I still want to listen but have realized that it's okay to tell my kids, in no uncertain terms, that they have to wait for something. Their needs are not the only ones to be met, special needs or not.

Mid-way through our dinner, he calmly brought the subject up again. I praised him for waiting and told him it was a good time to talk about it. I think the conversation only lasted a minute longer and that was the end of it.

Although he didn't exhibit it tonight, he has made EXCELLENT progress accepting "no" for an answer. He can now politely say, "OK" and walk away. It has been wonderful and a huge step forward. Why he couldn't do that tonight I may never know. But he's learning and growing and so am I.


I'd love to learn other tactics to help my son from perseverating on things. What do you use with your kids (special needs or not)?
.

Rejected

I've been rejected. By my 22 month-old daughter. It was bound to happen I suppose, but it still stung a little and made me wonder if this is just the way it is going to be. Moms of girls, you are probably laughing at the naivety of that statement. I'm not stupid. I was a girl and subsequently know to torture a mother, after all. I just want to pretend it isn't true, mkay?

Anyway, after working all day and then taking my oldest to a baseball training session, it was nearly 10:00 p.m. and I was looking forward to a quiet house and some time to myself.

Not ten minutes after I get home do I hear Lady Wah-Wah through the monitor starting to fuss and cry. Now normally I just let her go a little bit and she settles down to sleep in a few minutes. We're not talking real crying here, because that is different and I go right up there for that. No this was attention seeking. Daddy attention seeking. And when I went up there to check on things, guess who was sitting in her room? Yup. Daddy. I will henceforth refer to him as "The Sucker". So, I go into her room and The Sucker is sitting in the chair in the dark, pretending that he will just sit there and she'll calm down and go to sleep. Yeah, cuz THAT works. <clears throat> I left for a few minutes and upon my return there the two of them sit, The Sucker and Lady Wah-Wah, relaxing in the rocking chair together. Oh so comfy and... wait a minute... do I see an evil grin on my daughter's face through the darkness?

Of course now I'm thinking, "Great. It will take me at least two days to undo this nonsense!" <sigh>  I offer to take Lady Wah-Wah, thinking how I will fix this situation and get her in bed like she should be. I go to reach for her and she's saying, "Mommy. Mommy!" and naturally I think she wants me. And this is the moment. The moment I reach down to pick her up... and she swats her little hands, screaming, "Mommy!! Moooommmmy!!" and some other I-hate-you gibberish, and starts crying. Hard. The REAL kind of crying.

The Sucker tells me to leave and come back in a few minutes. I do. I am hoping to find her asleep on his chest so we can put this whole thing behind us. But no. She starts whining and I know she's going to pitch a fit again if I try to take her. The problem is, Dadd... er, I mean The Sucker isn't feeling well so I need to take over. I tell him it's like a bandage - we have to just do it and yes, she'll cry, but I'll handle it and she'll be fine. He relented and after slowly taking off the bandage by saying goodbye and giving hugs (rip it off, dammit!!), he left the room.

You know she cried, right?

Well you probably also know that I got her to settle down too? And then I got her in her crib, still awake and yet content? And then I left the room while she peacefully fell asleep soon after?

Yup. I'm awesome.

But the questions remain: Will The Sucker ever return to the simple status of Daddy? When will he learn that he has to be firm but he can be loving and gentle at the same time? When will he stop mucking up my efforts to stick to a routine??!

Probably when he accepts that he'll be rejected.

I'm thinking that's when hell freezes over, right?

That's what I thought.


ETA:
I liked my story just the way it was, but I have to... er... correct a bit maybe.... BUT I'M STILL AWESOME!

I talked with my husband (aka The Sucker) on Sunday and he told me a little more about that night than I knew before I posted. Looks like I have to eat crow!

He told me he read to her and then she wanted her crib, so he lay her down at 8:30 and she fell right asleep. (Impressive.) Then at 10:00 she woke up crying. The REAL kind. It turns out she had gas! Oops. Looks like Daddy made the right call that time.

But still, in my defense, he wasn't getting her back to sleep very well and he's still a sucker. Just maybe no longer with the capital "S". :)


.

Love the past

I love this kid. :)

This is "Bean", as his dad calls him, and he's ten years old. He's my middle child and he's a funny, smart, fun-loving person. He's been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome since he was five (and a wild man in the Kindergarten classroom). I knew sooner than that, OF COURSE.

Tonight I rigged up the old camcorder (the kind with smaller tapes, not the full size vhs ones) to the huge flat screen tv. We're looking at the 1990s vs. 2000s and it's a huge discrepancy. But I digress. My husband transferred only a few of the old tapes to DVDs and I hadn't seen anything from these tapes in, like, forever. Or ever. Seriously I'm not even sure that I've watched the footage since I recorded it in 2004. So tonight we enjoyed a look back in time. And guess what?

I have footage of my middle child!! Hip hip hooray!

It's true! I wasn't sure until tonight if I had anything but a blip of our precious boy whilst we ran after our first born, the Drama King. It brought a few tears to my eyes and my throat even clenched. It felt like discovering something awesome in your attic that you never knew existed before.

So we watched our four year-old Bean run around, chatting away, and it was amazing. And it was so HIM. Hearing his little voice and looking at his little face again made me vividly remember how in love with him I have always been. How I couldn't go a day without hugging him (and squishing him and calling him George) and smiling back at his bright, contagious smile. No wonder everyone has always forgiven his bad behaviors and loved him.

Flash forward to the loud, rambunctious brothers NOT keeping quiet during our film festival. Their father and I were constantly shushing them as we stared in wonder at the screen. They were enjoying the home movies, just a bit too intensely. They were LOUD. Loudly laughing and cracking jokes and constantly jibber-jabbering. Which isn't a bad thing, them having fun I mean. I was just so caught up in the moment. As if the magic would soon disappear. As if our babies that had momentarily returned to us on the screen would soon be gone forever, only to live on in our old, forgetful brains.

But that's not true. I have it recorded and so to my past-self I wish to say a heartfelt, "Good job! You've always been a great Mom!" On so many, many levels I say that tonight. We have come so far and have grown so much since those days. Along with my praise I also have to say to myself an enormous, "Thank you."

Thank you.

:)

First 2011

Happy.
New.
Year.

That's about all I've got right now. That and a bad habit of staying up late and sleeping in. Kids back in school is cramping my style! But I'm glad they're back. ;)

Disappearing act

Ta-da! How'd you like my sideshow attraction? The blogger who disappears when life gets hard?

Sad thing is I didn't even realize it's been a whole two months since I last wrote, nor did I care.

I just read my last post - well, the one that I was writing on November 7th and didn't publish - and now I can clearly see why I disappeared. I was in the midst of reading Eat, Pray, Love so of course I was analyzing my own life a bit; I had just taken on a new weekend job doing something I've always wanted to do - photography; and the holidays were approaching. Fast. I just had to drop a ball and blogging was it.

The holidays were good to us. The "extra" income really wasn't so extra after all. And we had the lowest budget for the kids in many, many years. That being said, they are happy and so are we. I received a new perfume (it's been years since I bought any) and I got my husband a new coffee mug with his beautiful daughter on it. It outshines the old mugs of the boys, but that's to be expected. She's the princess of the family!

Speaking of the Princess, she totally enjoyed Christmas and the days leading up to it. She probably thinks we'll be having another one in a few days. I've tried to cut back on the Christmas stories and songs at bedtime, but they have become her favorites. With the tree up and holiday shows still playing on the TiVo, the concept that Christmas is only for one day is a hard one to digest! She has really picked up on her words and "Santa" is one of her clearest. :)  She makes me so happy and in love with her every single day. We're completely blessed with our little girl.

So what's the outlook for 2011? New visions? New adventures? Continued successes and blessings? Above all else I hope it includes good health for our immediate and extended families.

May you and yours have a wonderful New Year. :)  See you around in 2011!

Wordless Wednesday -- Dazed Dolly

Virtual Coffee I

This is a great idea, virtual coffee. I think I'll try it today and see if I can remember every Tuesday.

(And no, I do not usually drink coffee at 11 p.m. but today was busy and I'll take what I can get!)

If we were meeting for coffee I'd have a decaf with some kind of sweet pumpkiny creamer in it. Mmmm.

If we were meeting for coffee today I'm sure the first thing we'd talk about is the weather. How can it be 70 today when days ago it was in the 40s? But then we'd chuckle and say, "We'll take it." because it's the northeast and we take what warm weather we can get after September and until May.

I would definitely tell you that today I tried hard not to stress out too much but I decided to take all three kids, and the DOG, all by myself to get professional photos taken. Yes, I must be crazy. In my defense I knew what I was getting into when I planned this. I knew I could do it if I didn't expect it all to work out perfectly. I knew since I wasn't going to be in them I would have more control. I knew it would be easier and save more time to try it today because it was an on-site shoot at our local elementary. Verrrrry close by. Easy. Simple. Bliss.

Well, it wasn't bliss, but it wasn't much worse than that. I'd tell you it was nearly painless and it took all of 10 minutes and a shirt soaked with perspiration and then it was over. I'm assured the pics are adorable.

I brought the kids home and since my inner control freak took over (you'd laugh in recognition), and the warmer weather lured me, I grabbed my old (read: film-only) Canon Rebel and headed for the leaves with the kids. B did attempt to rake (!) the leaves into a pile but once said pile was made the boys went c.r.a.z.y. and wouldn't pose and the baby toddler wouldn't stay near me. "But everyone was SO happy!" I'd say. And you would agree that that was the best kind of crazy.

I'd finish up my story telling you how I chased E around until we were both tired from the effort and I used up the rest of the film. Which would lead us to talk about how crazy hard it used to be having a limited amount of photos to take and not know if ANY of them came out well enough for you to spend the $$$ to develop them. Which took days to do! We'd laugh and sigh at how our kids just aren't going to learn any patience with technology the way it is.

Then I'd have to slap your hand as you pulled out your phone to read a text message.

Halloween is coming up fast so we'd chatter on a bit more. I'd tell you about my search for a costume for E and settling on a bee. She even said, "Bee!" as I was trying it on her and that sold me. I'd then roll my eyes and laugh at how, once again, she's going to be a delicate insect (last year she was a ladybug) and her brother is, once again, going to be a demonic creature. <sigh> I guess I should be relieved my middle child still wants to go at all because my oldest has refused. We'll see when Halloween comes and he's craving candy!

Hopefully you'd have some funny stories of the day to share with me as we sipped the last of our drinks. It's getting late and we've both got full days ahead tomorrow. Thanks for meeting with me today. I've enjoyed your company and look forward to next week.