Miss me? I miss blogging. What does that say about me?
Quit making that 'L' on your forehead, jerkface.
On Thursday I officially hit the end of my rope with the gremlins and life in general. Gutsy and Intrepid were in good form, brawling, screaming and threatening each other in very impressive ways. 'I'm never going to play with you again' was thrown in there a few times on both sides. 'You're not my friend anymore!' was another. 'Spawnling likes me better than he likes you and I'm his only brother and you're not getting any treats ever AGAIN!' came forth from the four-year-old's shrieking mouth.
Shrieking... Oh, the shrieking. This is Gutsy's new weapon. If he doesn't get his way, he opens his asthma-ridden lungs wide and unleashes an eardrum-bursting screech that would make a harpy proud. Then he does it again, and again, and again. The listener is thrown overboard into a sea of unending, horrific noise. It's brutal.
I made a decision a long time ago never to spank my children. I have my reasons and they're good ones, thankyouverymuch. No need to even try to convince me otherwise. In fact, if we were all in the same room together and I mentioned that I don't use corporal punishment and you were just opening your mouth to argue my reasoning behind it, I can guarantee you that anyone who knows me and who happened to be nearby would give you that wide-eyed, head-shaking 'Nonononono, do NOT go there with her' look. I would tend to agree.
So anyway, In ten years, I have never raised a hand any of them. On days like that, I deserve a wall full of medals for my efforts. It would be so easy... So instantly effective... To put him over my knee. On days like Thursday, it's so tempting that I have to clasp my hands behind my back and take deep breaths. Walk away, Maven. Come up with another plan.
I never realized how much more work it is not to spank. I have to come up with all these new ways to discourage poor behaviour. Lazy people like me should never take firm stances on parenting methods. We have no idea the can of worms we are opening with our choices.
I'd like to think of myself as a balanced parent. I'm a lot of fun, I'm loving and playful, but also very firm when it comes to certain things. We have rules. Don't bash each other in the face, for example. Don't jump on your brother's nether regions is another. They're fairly straight forward and easy to deal with. If faces are bashed or nether regions jumped on, a time-out is put in place and an apology is expected.
I'm the time-out queen. We have varying degrees of time-outs, too. The Maven's judicial system. There's the 'sit down and take a breather to think about what you're doing' time-out, the 'Sit down right where you are with your hands on your knees and don't move until I say so' time-out, and the 'I need you out of my space, like, NOW, so get in your room until I have a chance to calm down' time out.
Normally we never get to the room. Maybe once or twice a month with Gutsy and next to never with Intrepid.
On Thursday we had several room time-outs. My heart lost five years of beating time from the blood pumping through it. I'm thinking Geekster should just save enough money for him to go to the old age home because I'm not going to make it there anymore. I suppose I should thank the gremlins for saving us some money.
What do you do when a four-year-old doesn't listen, when a ten-year-old is so upset with his younger brother that he's yelling right back at him, and when a baby is so scared of the screaming that he starts wailing? What do you do when all three of your children end up crying at the same time twice in an evening? When your husband had a bad day at work and isn't as emotionally available to you as he usually is? When your friends are not home or having issues of their own or just can't empathize with how busy things are?
You go nuts, that's what. Wide eyed, gritted teeth, tremoring fists, the voices in your head mocking you. "You suck, horrible parent thing!" taunt the voices. "You might as well stick a crack pipe in each of their mouths and some Hell's Angels tattoos on their arms, because you've created future miscreants!" Then, the tether holding you precariously over the cliff of insanity snaps and you fall down the precipice, reaching out at the very last minute...
And there dangled The Maven, at the end of her rope, wondering what the hell she was going to do.
There are a lot of things one can do with the end of a rope. Hanging comes to mind. But the thought making my beautiful eyes all bulgy-like seemed unfair to the people who've come to idolize my beauty (all two of them - Geekster and the guy from Nigeria who keeps emailing me for money so he can come to Canada and be my new husband).
So I did the next best thing and built a tire swing. It makes my lunacy much more amusing. Weeeeee! Look at how much fun I'm having as I jump into my big lake of crazy!
Big lakes of crazy rock. And best of all, nobody else is there so I don't have to worry about scaring them off with my cellulite.
So here I am, four days after my breakdown. While I didn't sit in the corner drooling and babbling senselessly, I did run a bath that evening and cry like a baby. My shoulders were knotted into little balls of fire, my head and neck were suffering from a righteous stress headache and my eyes were a nice shade of pink.
I feel stretched to my limit, In fact, I could make a damn yoga video with all the stretching I do to meet everyone else's needs. The best part is (surprise, surprise), I did this to myself.
Deep down, I must think I'm something pretty spectacular. For some reason, I figured having three gremlins, a Geekster, two cats, a dog and all the fixings wasn't enough to keep me busy and justify my existence. That's the problem with being a stay-at-home-mom these days. There's that societal mentality that we just don't do enough. We're spoiled. We sit at home and eat bon-bons and watch soaps.
Not true.
I'll have you know that I sit at home and eat cookies and watch DVDs of Grey's Anatomy episodes. So there.
In order to prove myself to um, myself, I decided that I also had to sit on two school committees, a non-profit committee, start a writing career and enroll in university.
And the stress built up and built up and built up and built up and built up...
And on Thursday I sucked as a parent and sucked as a wife and sucked as a friend and bailed from a school committee meeting and didn't touch my school work, meaning I also sucked as a volunteer and as a student.
Go big or go home, right? Good job, me. It's the addictive personality. See, I have to either do something amazingly well or not do it at all. As a result, I broke like Milli Vanillli's career and haven't been quite right since.
Yes, I realize I haven't been 'right' in some time now. But now I'm even less right. I'm so not right I'm left.
I'm still recovering from my spazfest. I'm fragile and I'm grumpy and I'm not interested in doing anything for anyone right now. I'm reprioritizing things a little bit in Mavenland. Let's see. Me, my kids who are going through Maven bootcamp with the energy I'm refocusing, me, me, sometimes Geekster if he's in a good mood, me, other family members who want to do things for me, some more of me, friends if they're understanding and/or buy me lattes, me and me.
I think that's fairly sensible.
Sometimes it's ok for the Queen of Time-outs to give herself one, right?
Quit making that 'L' on your forehead, jerkface.
On Thursday I officially hit the end of my rope with the gremlins and life in general. Gutsy and Intrepid were in good form, brawling, screaming and threatening each other in very impressive ways. 'I'm never going to play with you again' was thrown in there a few times on both sides. 'You're not my friend anymore!' was another. 'Spawnling likes me better than he likes you and I'm his only brother and you're not getting any treats ever AGAIN!' came forth from the four-year-old's shrieking mouth.
Shrieking... Oh, the shrieking. This is Gutsy's new weapon. If he doesn't get his way, he opens his asthma-ridden lungs wide and unleashes an eardrum-bursting screech that would make a harpy proud. Then he does it again, and again, and again. The listener is thrown overboard into a sea of unending, horrific noise. It's brutal.
I made a decision a long time ago never to spank my children. I have my reasons and they're good ones, thankyouverymuch. No need to even try to convince me otherwise. In fact, if we were all in the same room together and I mentioned that I don't use corporal punishment and you were just opening your mouth to argue my reasoning behind it, I can guarantee you that anyone who knows me and who happened to be nearby would give you that wide-eyed, head-shaking 'Nonononono, do NOT go there with her' look. I would tend to agree.
So anyway, In ten years, I have never raised a hand any of them. On days like that, I deserve a wall full of medals for my efforts. It would be so easy... So instantly effective... To put him over my knee. On days like Thursday, it's so tempting that I have to clasp my hands behind my back and take deep breaths. Walk away, Maven. Come up with another plan.
I never realized how much more work it is not to spank. I have to come up with all these new ways to discourage poor behaviour. Lazy people like me should never take firm stances on parenting methods. We have no idea the can of worms we are opening with our choices.
I'd like to think of myself as a balanced parent. I'm a lot of fun, I'm loving and playful, but also very firm when it comes to certain things. We have rules. Don't bash each other in the face, for example. Don't jump on your brother's nether regions is another. They're fairly straight forward and easy to deal with. If faces are bashed or nether regions jumped on, a time-out is put in place and an apology is expected.
I'm the time-out queen. We have varying degrees of time-outs, too. The Maven's judicial system. There's the 'sit down and take a breather to think about what you're doing' time-out, the 'Sit down right where you are with your hands on your knees and don't move until I say so' time-out, and the 'I need you out of my space, like, NOW, so get in your room until I have a chance to calm down' time out.
Normally we never get to the room. Maybe once or twice a month with Gutsy and next to never with Intrepid.
On Thursday we had several room time-outs. My heart lost five years of beating time from the blood pumping through it. I'm thinking Geekster should just save enough money for him to go to the old age home because I'm not going to make it there anymore. I suppose I should thank the gremlins for saving us some money.
What do you do when a four-year-old doesn't listen, when a ten-year-old is so upset with his younger brother that he's yelling right back at him, and when a baby is so scared of the screaming that he starts wailing? What do you do when all three of your children end up crying at the same time twice in an evening? When your husband had a bad day at work and isn't as emotionally available to you as he usually is? When your friends are not home or having issues of their own or just can't empathize with how busy things are?
You go nuts, that's what. Wide eyed, gritted teeth, tremoring fists, the voices in your head mocking you. "You suck, horrible parent thing!" taunt the voices. "You might as well stick a crack pipe in each of their mouths and some Hell's Angels tattoos on their arms, because you've created future miscreants!" Then, the tether holding you precariously over the cliff of insanity snaps and you fall down the precipice, reaching out at the very last minute...
And there dangled The Maven, at the end of her rope, wondering what the hell she was going to do.
There are a lot of things one can do with the end of a rope. Hanging comes to mind. But the thought making my beautiful eyes all bulgy-like seemed unfair to the people who've come to idolize my beauty (all two of them - Geekster and the guy from Nigeria who keeps emailing me for money so he can come to Canada and be my new husband).
So I did the next best thing and built a tire swing. It makes my lunacy much more amusing. Weeeeee! Look at how much fun I'm having as I jump into my big lake of crazy!
Big lakes of crazy rock. And best of all, nobody else is there so I don't have to worry about scaring them off with my cellulite.
So here I am, four days after my breakdown. While I didn't sit in the corner drooling and babbling senselessly, I did run a bath that evening and cry like a baby. My shoulders were knotted into little balls of fire, my head and neck were suffering from a righteous stress headache and my eyes were a nice shade of pink.
I feel stretched to my limit, In fact, I could make a damn yoga video with all the stretching I do to meet everyone else's needs. The best part is (surprise, surprise), I did this to myself.
Deep down, I must think I'm something pretty spectacular. For some reason, I figured having three gremlins, a Geekster, two cats, a dog and all the fixings wasn't enough to keep me busy and justify my existence. That's the problem with being a stay-at-home-mom these days. There's that societal mentality that we just don't do enough. We're spoiled. We sit at home and eat bon-bons and watch soaps.
Not true.
I'll have you know that I sit at home and eat cookies and watch DVDs of Grey's Anatomy episodes. So there.
In order to prove myself to um, myself, I decided that I also had to sit on two school committees, a non-profit committee, start a writing career and enroll in university.
And the stress built up and built up and built up and built up and built up...
And on Thursday I sucked as a parent and sucked as a wife and sucked as a friend and bailed from a school committee meeting and didn't touch my school work, meaning I also sucked as a volunteer and as a student.
Go big or go home, right? Good job, me. It's the addictive personality. See, I have to either do something amazingly well or not do it at all. As a result, I broke like Milli Vanillli's career and haven't been quite right since.
Yes, I realize I haven't been 'right' in some time now. But now I'm even less right. I'm so not right I'm left.
I'm still recovering from my spazfest. I'm fragile and I'm grumpy and I'm not interested in doing anything for anyone right now. I'm reprioritizing things a little bit in Mavenland. Let's see. Me, my kids who are going through Maven bootcamp with the energy I'm refocusing, me, me, sometimes Geekster if he's in a good mood, me, other family members who want to do things for me, some more of me, friends if they're understanding and/or buy me lattes, me and me.
I think that's fairly sensible.
Sometimes it's ok for the Queen of Time-outs to give herself one, right?