Day 58: You Make Me Feel

I will choose to find a positive perspective under even the most negative circumstances.
I will choose acceptance over resistance.
I will choose to focus on the things I value about my children, not the things that drive me nuts.
I will choose to extend the same grace, love and forgiveness to myself that I try to lavish on my husband and children each day.

A conversation on my Facebook wall today prompted me to think about this concept and how it relates to my children, namely what I model and teach them.

"How did that make you feel?"

"Did that make you feel angry?"

"That made me feel sad."

These are phrases I'm trying oh so hard to discard from my parenting repertoire. You may be asking yourself why. Emotional intelligence is so important and it begins with giving a child an emotional vocabulary and helping him connect with and understand what he's feeling. So these would be good phrases to use, right? Not quite.

Sad, angry and feel are great words, but make...not so much.

What I'm teaching Jackson each time I say this to him is that someone else's actions, feelings or words control his feelings. I'm unintentionally reinforcing the widely accepted idea (in our culture anyway) that someone else has the ability to decide whether we're okay or not. And in the process, I'm letting conditionality seep in to his unconditional world.

Instead of placing blame on a person or circumstance, I want to teach him to take ownership over his feelings and responsibility for what he does with them.

If he feels angry because a child took a toy from him, I don't want him to think that boy made me feel angry. I want him to think that boy took a toy from me and I feel angry about that. It may seem like an insignificant distinction, but I believe it's critical.

Placing responsibility and blame on the boy, the toy stealing or the feeling makes him a victim - a victim who has willingly surrendered his power to his assailant.

Seeing the experience as nothing more than something that happened and the feeling as something he has ownership over empowers him to do something about it. Instead of giving his power to his assailant, he retains that power and can direct it toward getting his toy back or accepting that the toy is gone and moving on.

I'd do well to remember this when he's "making" me feel frustrated or angry too! Because placing blame on someone else for my feelings disconnects me from the true source of that feeling. How can I see that my anger is arising out of a deeper fear or control issue if I put ownership for those feelings on him?

Feelings are God-given guideposts that shouldn't be ignored. They are a way to find healthy direction through life, and when we write them off as someone else's responsibility instead of paying them the attention they deserve, we take that away from ourselves.

So I'm in the process of replacing those phrases with others framed in a more accurate way:

"How do you feel about that?"

"I felt sad when that happened."

"Did you feel angry when that happened?"

And I'm purposefully connecting to the true source of my feelings, not the trigger. I hope doing so will keep my children from being conditioned by our culture's view of feelings.

Day 49: Better Late than Never

I will choose to find a positive perspective under even the most negative circumstances.
I will choose acceptance over resistance.
I will choose to focus on the things I value about my children, not the things that drive me nuts.
I will choose to extend the same grace, love and forgiveness to myself that I try to lavish on my husband and children each day.

I'm going to take another day to soak in some thoughts on trust and control, and in the meantime share a recent revelation and subsequent observation relating to the television.


I've been struggling to find a comfortable relationship with DVDs. I was paying far too much attention to external influences - research, opinions, what other moms are doing - instead of tapping into my intuition. Ironically, it was an external resource that brought me back to my intuition to make peace with the issue once and for all.

Putting on a DVD for Jackson never felt right. There were always feelings of guilt and inadequacy when I hit play - every time. I chalked those up to "shoulds" based on research, wanting to be the fictional 'perfect mom,' or having a black and white view of the issue that should be more gray. I didn't honor the fact that those emotions were coming from within me. In other words, I blew myself off.

I was never happy with how Jackson behaved during and after a DVD, but I blamed it on my absence instead of the DVDs presence (Of course! Don't we moms blame ourselves for everything?). In other words, I used guilt in a negative way by placing blame instead of using it as a positive guidepost for future decisions.

I listened to other moms I respect talk about their kids' favorite shows or movies and saw the TV on in other moms' homes and told myself, "See, they do it. It's not so bad." In other words, I looked at what someone else had decided was right for their family and tried to apply it to mine instead of looking at what I felt was right for my family.

Instead of honoring my intuition, I tried to smother it in reason: I do what we have to do to survive. We're not capable of being a no-TV house anymore. It's not ideal, but it's not that bad. I just need to relax about it and stop being so all or nothing.

Then by chance (or divine intervention) I came home from ECFE a couple weeks ago with a handout on temperament. I'm pretty tuned in to the kids' temperaments and had already done lots of reading on it, so I set the packet on the table and didn't give it another thought until a few days ago when I decided to read through the suggestions for the different traits before I filed it away.

I skipped to the section on sensitivity, knowing that Jackson is off the charts in this trait. There was the expected list: teach your child to recognize when he's becoming overstimulated, be sensitive to how much stimulation your child is receiving from noise, smells, etc., help your child avoid situations that are overwhelming, and so on. But then there was this simple suggestion: Limit the amount of television your child watches.

Somehow seeing it under the category of sensitivity and overstimulation finally helped me make the connection. I was uncomfortable with it because I knew deep down that it had a negative emotional and physical impact on Jackson. Not because of the research on brain development, not because of the arbitrary number of hours "they" call acceptable or unacceptable, not even because of a change in his behavior. Those feelings were there because I know him in an inexplicable way that can only be felt.

The fact that I couldn't put my finger on why I didn't like it or what felt wrong about it shouldn't have stopped me from acting on the feeling. When it comes to mothering, the feeling is enough.

Five days without the TV have validated my instincts. He's not needing more attention without the distraction of a movie, he's actually needing less. Instead of asking for a DVD (since they've all been removed from our living space and relegated to the depths of our place-here-if-you-never-want-it-to-be-found-again mess of a storage room), he happily plops down with a lump of homemade playdough and entertains himself creatively for an hour.

He's happier and more at peace without the bombardment of screen full of action overstimulating him (even if the action was just Cinderella going to a ball!). And the fact that he readily accepted the change, even seemed to welcome it, also validates that he also knew it wasn't a healthy activity for him.

I'm disappointed that it took me so long to acknowledge and honor my intuition, that I allowed other things to guide my choice. But I'm thankful for the experience because it reinforces what I'm always preaching to myself and other moms: Trust your instincts above all else. We are each experts on our own children and no one else knows what's right for us and our families like we do.

Day 43: Freedom Conceptualized Part I

I will choose to find a positive perspective under even the most negative circumstances.
I will choose acceptance over resistance.
I will choose to focus on the things I value about my children, not the things that drive me nuts.
I will choose to extend the same grace, love and forgiveness to myself that I try to lavish on my husband and children each day.

This is going to be a thinking-out-loud post that may or may not make a whole lot of sense along the way, but will hopefully come to a thoughtful conclusion at the end of part II. The concept of freedom is one that I'm still working through, so my thoughts aren't fully formed ideas yet. I say this to say: if I ramble, bear with me!

Freedom is the cornerstone of my country, my politics, my faith, my worldview. You would think this would make it accessible to me, but it always seems decidedly out of reach. The obvious conclusion, then, is that I am the only one denying myself freedom. How ridiculous. To be surrounded by freedom, yet choose to live in captivity to anything is simply asinine (I've secretly always wanted to use that term and never found a fitting place for it, but if ever there was a time!). But to everything there is a purpose, so what purpose does rejecting freedom serve in my life?


When it comes down to it, living freely requires accepting responsibility...for everything. If I'm tethered to my defaults, they can take the blame for my failures. If my feelings control me, I can't be held liable for my actions when they take over. If my Italian genes determine my fiery temper, it's not my fault when I fly off the handle. All of this comes in quite handy when I don't want to carry the burden of responsibility that comes along with my choices.

If I'm tied down by my circumstances, I get to complain about never getting time to myself. I can talk about all the sacrifices I make for my husband and my children, and how those things don't allow me to do what I find relaxing or stimulating. I can moan about how stressful my life is and how that makes me less patient, less capable of living outside of default mode. To put it in no uncertain terms, if I'm captive, I can be a martyr.

But when I take a good honest look at my life, and when I remember that at every moment of every day I am free, suddenly things are very different. Suddenly I'm choosing to yell when I'm angry, choosing impatience, choosing not to make time for myself, choosing to let the things that bring me fulfillment (outside of my children of course!) fall by the wayside. Suddenly these things aren't happening to me, they're happening because of me. 

In most of life I have a strong sense of personal responsibility; I can't stand a victim mentality. But in these insidious ways, I've been living as a victim. How ironic that I'm my own perpetrator. I've refused to accept freedom because I don't want the responsibility that comes along with it. I don't want to accept that the reason I don't get time to myself is because I choose to sleep with my baby and refuse to offer him breast milk from a bottle. What fun is it to look honestly at why I feel stressed: I take on too much, I refuse to admit when I can't do something that's asked of me, and I refuse to ask for help. Oh, any my time management skills suck! 

No one forces responsibilities on me, and no one can make me feel guilty for saying no or not getting something done. That's a lot to accept. But whether I accept it or not, it's reality. So why pass on the freedom staring me in the face just so I can hide behind a false sense of "I'm not responsible?"


More on that tomorrow...

Day 29: So This is a Tantrum

I will choose to find a positive perspective under even the most negative circumstances.
I will choose acceptance over resistance.
I will choose to focus on the things I value about my children, not the things that drive me nuts.
I will choose to extend the same grace, love and forgiveness to myself that I try to lavish on my husband and children each day.

Holy. Crap. I thought we had seen Jackson's first tantrums, but apparently that was just child's play. This was the real thing. There was no gentle fall to the floor in protest, no loud complaints, no statement of his need. Instead it was like he was possessed; nothing coming from his mouth was coherent, the screams were louder and more violent than anything I have ever heard from a human being, and he physically fought me so hard I finally had to throw him over my shoulder with no jacket and trudge through the wind and snow to the car just to save everyone in the chiropractor's office from enduring the rest of it.

Here's the kicker: It was all my fault.

This isn't just the mommy guilt talking. This is the reality. I started us down the path toward this tantrum before breakfast, and instead of hitting the breaks, I accelerated through it, causing even more damage. Here's what happened:

I gave myself a free pass on the detox diet Saturday because we had friends over for food and drinks, and I've been exhausted and irritable since. Today was no exception, and on top of it Jackson decided to get up an hour early. I managed to keep Max asleep which meant the living room was off-limits for the morning. Of course that means it's the only place Jackson wanted to be. So I spent the morning hushing and herding him and, I'm sure, making him feel unable to do anything "right." I had set the tone for the day and it reeked of resistance.

We decided to go to a friend's house before our chiropractic appointment, which may sound like a positive turn to the day, but actually made things worse. I should have been realistic about how long it would take to get ready and not scheduled anything in between. I'm not capable of being calm, patient or responsive when I'm rushing to get us out of the house; I know this about myself and should just avoid putting myself in the situation.

We had a power struggle over going potty before we left and with each minute that ticked by I got more aggravated. In hindsight, I think Jackson was showing me with his refusal to pee and incessant request to play with me upstairs that he needed a calm day at home with no appointments, but I ignored it. Instead I got mad and read him the riot act about "not listening" (aka not doing exactly as I told him with no questions asked regardless of his current feelings or needs or how unloving I was in my request). Let's just say it was a bad morning full of things I'm not proud of. We didn't get going fast enough to fit in the play date, so we headed straight for our appointment.

The car ride provided me with enough "alone time" to calm down and compose myself. I apologized and told him how much I love him, but was met with silence, which was really strange. So when we got there I reiterated those things as I was getting him out of the car seat and gave him a kiss, but he still seemed pretty quiet. I saw a problem and didn't take the time to address it.

When we got in he went to the toy box like usual and chose a basket of pretend food to bring in while we all got adjusted. But he wasn't moving fast enough for my liking (God forbid anyone have to wait a minute or two because I allowed my child some transition time) so I grabbed his hand and started toward the room. He protested loudly and said he needed the bread. Fortunately he found it right away because I had no intention of waiting - that's how far out of my mind his needs and feelings were today.

As our chiropractor opened the door for us Jack started saying something about squash (can you tell how closely I was paying attention?), shook his food basket and finally threw it on the floor and started yelling and crying when I turned and brought Max into the adjustment room. He knew I wasn't connected, he knew I had been resisting him all morning and treating him with disrespect, now I wasn't even listening to what he was saying and even walking away from him and he had had enough. 

He cried and yelled as Max and I were adjusted and refused to come into the room. All I could think about was what the other person in the room was thinking about my "lack of discipline" (strange passers by are one thing, but when you know the philosophy of your audience it becomes exponentially harder to ignore them and focus on what you know your child needs). I nursed him for a minute in the changing room to try to calm him down, but for some reason felt like we just needed to go. Again, not taking into account what he needed at that moment. I threw all the fruit back into the basket and shoved him out of the room crying. When I tried to get his jacket on things really escalated. By this point I was so far beyond frazzled I didn't know what to do, so over my shoulder he went.

At the car he wouldn't get into his car seat so I tried to physically force him. He got angrier than I've ever seen a person get and made sounds I've never heard before. All the while poor Max had been along for the ride, but now he was starting to get scared and cry. I was feeling absolutely desperate to stop the tantrum, but somehow I was totally disconnected from all the things I know and believe and I kept grasping for ways to externally control him instead of meeting his needs. 

Was I ever going to get him home? Was he going to freeze to death before I could get a handle on the situation? Was the screaming ever going to end? Were people passing us in the parking lot going to call the police? In an almost out of body experience I found myself trying to force him into his seat with my hand over his mouth, his eyes wide with fear and rage. Oh no! How did we get here!? I finally woke up. I took him in my arms and started bawling. We sat in the front seat together while he calmed down enough to get a few words out. I asked what he was so angry about and he replied, "Because Mommy wasn't treating me very nice today." Devastated doesn't begin to describe how I felt then or how I feel now. This isn't one of those times I can chalk it up to a learning experience; there's no bright side. I flat out failed all of us. And I am completely ashamed of myself.

His every movement had been critiqued and controlled from the moment he woke up, and I had been short, impatient, and disrespectful all morning, meanwhile expecting the opposite from him. I was putting all that on his little two-year-old shoulders and it was too much weight for him to carry. On top of that, I ignored all the signs of distress along the way and even failed to "show up" for his tantrum. It was not his fault, it was mine.

Rather than feeling a desire to meet the need he was showing me, I was feeling angry that I couldn't stop him and mortified because everyone in the office had a front row seat. Rather than loving him, comforting him and helping him through his intense feelings, I tried to smother the symptoms while I fueled the fire. In every way, I was more concerned about the people around us than I was about us - more importantly him.

In hindsight I know the severity of the situation was because of his own detox process and probably my cheating on Saturday. For the second day in a row he woke up from his nap drenched in sweat and his mood and self control are definitely tied closely to what's happening in his body. But none of that changes the seriousness of my poor choices. 

So if you want authenticity, here it is! You've just been invited into the worst day of our two and a half years. I'm trying to be gentle with myself (and I hope you will be too!), but I figure I might as well ride the failure train into self-beating station for the night. Breathe in...breathe out...It's over and I can't change it. I can only move on and thank God for a new day up ahead.

Day 5: When You Win, I Win

I will choose to find a positive perspective under even the most negative circumstances.
Jackson is newly DVD obsessed. This was a tough one to log under the negative-into-a-positive category. I like to do things "right", and a two year old watching DVDs isn't right in a black and white world. Before Max came along, I could do almost everything right, and that meant Jackson had no screen time whatsoever before he turned two. Once I started trying to juggle two kids along with running a household and working from home, I ran out of options. I couldn't give him my undivided attention or fill his day with child-centered outings anymore, nor could I expect him to entertain himself for hours on end.

Cinderella's ball gown

It started innocently enough. We would only watch a DVD if Mommy had to work longer than 45 minutes. Then we hit a rough patch with naps and we added 'when his body needed to stay restful and Mommy couldn't sit and read books' to the parameters. Then it turned into a way to keep him occupied while I put Max down for a nap, and before you know it we're watching Cinderella almost daily. Only Cinderella, by the way. Don't try to suggest anything different, he's not interested. It's a hard pill to swallow, but it's where we're at. Having two children, especially this close together means that sometimes we do what we have to do to get through the day, not what's ideal.

The positive is he's not satisfied with plopping on the couch. He draws while he watches, he talks to Gus Gus and Jaq (I'm proud to say I know it's spelled that way because we also read the book, haha!), or he cooks while it's on. The other positive is that he's able to use it as a framework for imaginative play. He's constantly pretending we're the step sisters and Max is Cinderella, or that we're Jaq and Gus and Max is Lucifer the cat. Or that a homer hanky is "Cinderella's beauuuutiful ball gown." Just like with books, he can take elements of the story and create his own version.

The DVD is no substitute for independent play or interaction with me, which he still gets plenty of, but it's not ruining his life either. At least he isn't getting sucked into becoming a screen zombie, even if it is on more than I'd like.

I will choose acceptance over resistance.
With Max in the sling, I pushed the car seat on the stroller with one hand and held Jackson's hand in the other as we walked through Target. He had found a foam sword in the $1 section at the front of the store, and I decided it was a dollar worth spending to keep him occupied while we shopped sans cart.

We miraculously made it all the way across the store without incident when we came to the toilet paper aisle. There I saw a large section of empty, ground-level shelving next to the Charmin. There he saw a veritable wonderland with bears to talk to while they watched him...excuse me...while they watched "the King and the Grand Duke" play with a sword. (Why yes, that is another Cinderella reference.) I let him play while I agonized over a toilet paper, then a kleenex purchase before coming to him to explain it was time to go. This is where the struggle of wills usually begins.

I explained why we needed to keep moving, that Grandma DeGia was going to be waiting for us at our house, that we couldn't take our sword home until we paid for it, things I thought might internally motivate him to come instead of imposing it on him. No such luck today.

So do I drag him to the front by the hand crying? Maybe if I pick him up and carry him it won't be so bad. He's not so big, maybe he can still fit in the infant car seat...

When I stopped trying to devise a way to force him into what I wanted him to do, it dawned on me... Maybe he can tell me what he needs before he's ready to leave. So I asked. Turns out he needed to say goodbye to the bears before he ended their picnic, and he needed to be assured we would go see the leprechaun on our way out (he gets a kick out of walking down the cereal aisle to check out the Lucky Charms box). It was that simple this time.

So instead of resisting him and subjecting the store to a tantrum and him to the trauma of being deprived of power over his own body and life, I got to accept that he had needs that were as valid as my need to leave the store and meet them. Through the cooperative lenses I try to put on over my black and white eyes, this is an obvious example of how meeting everyone's needs is possible and doesn't require sacrificing the "win." Even through my competitive default lenses that say when one person gets what they want the other loses, I'd still call this one a win-win!

I will choose to focus on the things I value about my children, not the things that drive me nuts.

If we stayed home for all of Max's naps and Jackson's nap, we would never leave the house. Until recently, Max could sleep in a sling pretty much anywhere, but it seems this is slowly changing. At best he'll fall asleep after we're out for 30-60 minutes, which usually means he only gets to sleep a very short time before he's woken up to go back in his car seat and head home.

This is quite inconvenient since a tired baby isn't all that much fun. But I will instead focus on the fact that he is giving us a window into his developing personality. He's curious, engaged and loves to observe. He's learning as he watches and listens, and he wants to be an active participant in his world. At four months, these are very cool qualities.

I will choose to extend the same grace, love and forgiveness to myself that I try to lavish on my husband and children each day.
I often have to stand face to face with my past mistakes because I'm the mother of a child who never forgets. Literally, never forgets. In the past I've let this be another catalyst for beating myself up and feeding the cycle. Today I celebrated. 


In the middle of a happy and peaceful breakfast, with no prompting at all Jackson suddenly blurted out, "Mommy, something happened when someone yelled at me." So I asked, "Who yelled at you?" and got the dreaded but expected answer: "Mommy." I followed up with the obvious, "What happened when Mommy yelled at you?" And was met with the even more horrific, but still expected, "I felt scared." 


Now I know he gets scared when I yell, even though he doesn't act like it in the moment (heck I get scared when I yell) and we've talked about it and I've apologized after every single time it has happened. But there was something about the spontaneity of this pronouncement that cut me to the core like never before. That those feelings stick for so long and are so pervasive that they effect him days and weeks later is sobering. 


The celebration came after the devastation passed. He trusted me enough to tell me. He trusted me to understand and honor the way I made him feel, not blow it off as something in the past or something that didn't matter. He trusted me to be able to handle hearing something honest about myself and respond with love and acceptance. And he followed up his observation with the declaration: "Mommy would never hurt me, and she loves me even when she's angry. I'm always safe with Mommy." I can only hope that he internalizes those words along with the fear that I've caused, and that I can internalize the lesson he taught me today. This will be a catalyst for change, not for wallowing in self-hatred.

The Real About Me

Mothering is a daily adventure into uncharted territory. No one else has ever parented these children in this stage in this mood under these circumstances. Consequently, no one has the answers to any of our daily struggles - trust me, I've looked everywhere. It's like we're all playing a game with an opponent who gets to change the rules at will...without telling anyone.

I don't have the answers for anyone else, much less for myself, but I do know this: We're ALL struggling. And none of us are talking about it.

The Perfect Mom you see at the grocery store with the polite children in matching outfits, her hair styled and nails neatly manicured - she's a figment of your imagination. She has bad days, pajama and bedhead days, temper tantrum days, exhausted and frustrated days, even yelling and shaming days. I guarantee it. How do I know? Because I've been told I'm that mom. BAHahahahaha!!...Oh, sorry. Excuse the outburst. I've been told I look like I have it all together, like there's peace and harmony between me and my children, like I have a sense of calm about me...seriously.

But the truth is I'm just as much like the Real Mom at the grocery store, with the screaming kids knocking items off shelves, sweatpant-clad with food in her hair and fear in her eyes. We all have our good days and our bad days, triumphs and failures.

And in the end no matter how prepared we are, we're all winging it. We pick up tools as we go, learn by trial and error, and just pray everyone comes out on the other side in tact. I'm convinced that if we, as mothers, can start showing our authentic, imperfect selves to each other, we would find that the understanding, support and collective wisdom we gain will bring us that much closer to our own version of Perfect Mom.

So here's my real About Me:

I'm a control freak. When I can't control my circumstances (read: my two year old's behavior) I get angry. When I get angry, I yell. When I yell, I feel guilty. When I feel guilty, I get angry at myself for losing control. The more out of control I feel, the more I try to control my circumstances...and so the ugly cycle continues. It takes every ounce of strength I have to prevent this from being a daily occurrence.

I'm a pessimist, a real-life Debby Downer. I have an uncanny ability to see and assume the worst in every situation. The end of the world happens daily for me. It takes all my energy to choose to see the world, and sometimes even the people I love, in a positive light.

I live in a black and white world. Every question should have an answer, and I want all the answers. I naturally value justice over compassion and understanding. My tendency is to value being "right" over all else. It takes everything in me to see the gray that covers nearly all of life, and to choose cooperation over competition.

Except in my very closest relationships, I'm not good at being real. I assume that opening myself up will bring negative judgment from others (hello again, pessimism, my old friend). I place a very high value on privacy, often at the expense of intimacy and all the growth, joy, and satisfaction that comes with it. Vulnerability is terrifying (especially when you expect to be ridiculed, judged or attacked!) so it's easier to pretend I have it all figured out and put together, no help needed. And, drum roll please...It takes everything I have to just be me - the good, the bad, and the ugly - in front of anyone.

That's a list of my defaults. But I'm also loving, dependable, passionate, intelligent, loyal, a good listener, warm, fun-loving, determined, never satisfied with 'good enough' for myself or the people I love, and never satisfied with living in default mode. Above all else, I'm a mom who loves her children more than life, and who would do literally anything for them...even start a blog reveling her failures and weaknesses in an attempt to find balance and a better life for them!

With this much of myself to overcome in a day to be who I truly believe I am underneath all the baggage that comes with 26 years of life, I don't have the energy to waste on constructing a perfect facade anymore. I'm choosing to free myself of that, and to put that energy into actually *being* all the things I look like I am from the outside. Buckle up...It's going to be a bumpy ride.

Day 2: Am I Really Doing This?

Most days I feel like I'm nose-above-water with an anchor tied to my ankle, so it seems a little crazy to undertake one more thing that requires a daily commitment. But the reason I struggle with positive parenting in the first place is because priorities are all too easily jumbled in the busyness of life. So I guess a daily reminder to keep my children at the top of the list and to stay present with my goals is something worth making time for.

I will choose to find a positive perspective under even the most negative circumstances.
Day 2: Jackson throwing his fork, then broccoli on the floor because he's angry isn't "bad behavior." It's his way of showing me that he's aware of his needs and feelings, that he trusts me enough to let me see them, and that he needs my help managing them. This was his way of expressing that he was angry and sad because Daddy had to leave, and I'm so grateful he didn't just "behave" and sit alone with those feelings.

I believe my child's behavior is always motivated by a deep desire to have his needs met. Those needs are never as simple as 'wanting to make me mad' or 'acting out'. Each behavior that elicits a negative feeling from me is nothing more than an earnest attempt to communicate those needs. I have to work hard (really hard!) to act on this conscious belief rather than the unconscious beliefs I've internalized from others.

My job isn't to correct his behavior, it's to identify the need he's trying to show me through his actions and meet him there without judgment. Each time I do this, I reinforce that our home and our relationship is a safe place for him to feel and to be as he is, that he is loved the same when he's angry as when he's cheerful, and that he is understood and accepted. My job is also to offer him the tools he needs to communicate those needs in healthier, more effective ways. Modeling is the most important way to do this, and also happens to be the most difficult for this big-feelings Mom! Is it any wonder he throws something to communicate that he's angry, when he's watched me do the same?

Each time I ignore the real issue and treat the symptom, I chip away at the relationship I've spent two years building, especially the trust and security he so desperately needs. This happens all too often...hence the blog!

I will choose acceptance over resistance.
Day 2: Max has decided that he would like to wake up in the middle of his afternoon nap, the only quiet time mommy has to accomplish things, to poo. I consistently nurse him well in advance of nap time and offer him the potty multiple times before laying him down, but he has decided that a poo before nap just isn't his thing. I can let it bother me every day and ruin my afternoon, I can fight it by trying even harder to encourage pre-nap poos, OR I can simply accept that for now, this is what works for him. I can anticipate it, work it into my schedule, and release myself from the dread of interruption. Maybe I can even enjoy the quiet opportunity to spend a few minutes with him while Jackson's sleeping...even if it is for poo.


I will choose to focus on the things I value about my children, not the things that drive me nuts.

 Day 2: As I was packing the 6-month-sized clothes away and exchanging them for the next size (already?!), Jackson insisted on rifling through all the neatly folded piles to find things that would fit on or over his head. My first reaction was to get annoyed and make him stop, but when I saw how goofy he looked with a tiny little shirt hanging from his head, I decided to cherish his love of dress-up play instead. In the end this meant that I got intense joy out of watching him play, especially once he donned his first Halloween costume complete with yogurt bucket hat, self-made bead necklace, playdough scissors, and basket of food on his way to "hang out with Cinderella's step-sisters."

I will choose to extend the same grace, love and forgiveness to myself that I try to lavish on my husband and children each day. 
Day 2: Jackson was unruly at bedtime. His eczema was flaring up for the first time in two weeks and the manic behavior usually comes with it. He was climbing the walls, almost literally. Instead of acknowledging that he was feeling out of control and just as overwhelmed as I was, I chose to bark demands at him. "Control your body," knowing full well he couldn't. "Calm yourself down," knowing he wasn't capable, especially not on his own.

I felt overwhelmed by the level of activity, angry that I had completely lost control of the situation, frustrated that after weeks of success on a new plan of action for his eczema we were hitting our first obstacle, guilty because it might have been the pizza I ate the night before that was causing the flare up. And the icing on the cake is that I'm fully aware in the moment of the fact that I'm failing him, and rather than latching on to that as a way to change direction, I feed into the problem by letting it make me feel angry at myself for not being able to remain calm! Let's just say a wave of big feelings was knocking me down, none of which he was responsible for.  But I made him responsible for my feelings when I was impatient and refused to do what was best for him. Instead seeing that he needed help, I saw him as an obstacle that I needed to overcome. I failed him.

Once we both miraculously calmed down, I acknowledged that I had let him down. I asked him if he was feeling overwhelmed and told him that I should have helped him, that it's okay to feel that way and okay to ask for help. I apologized, he forgave me. It's done. I will release myself from the guilt and anger that come along with these disappointments, and I will file it away under "learning experiences" not "failures."

This one is the hardest, and most important for me. Forgiveness and grace don't come naturally. I like order and justice, black and white, and it banishes me to a cycle of negativity all the time. The more I beat myself up for my mistakes, the more I make them because I feel unworthy and incapable of change. I label myself a failure and it remains a self-fulfilling prophesy.

But I refuse to continue modeling this to my children. I refuse to pass this family curse on to them. I WILL forgive and accept my imperfect self because they deserve a mom who walks around with joy and freedom, not with a heavy burden of failure and self-loathing. And because I can't bear the thought of them internalizing the message of imperfection as unworthiness. I am worthy of these things because God says I am, and who am I to argue with that?