Today, this verse was not lived out very well in my world. Ah heck, this whole WEEK to be exact. The only thing really applicable to me is the "at our worst" part. I'm having flashbacks to when my Big Princess was four. Her year of life between four and five was one of our hardest together, and yes, I'll add so far for those who have lived through the teen years with their children. The reason it was so difficult is because she seriously was frustrated with life constantly. She was too big to be little and too little to be big. She could read, but not enough for her. She was able to do so many things well, like draw and color and be creative, but those things would frustrate her too because I believe in her mind she was seeing things differently than they turned out (mostly on the drawing side) and then the meltdowns would occur. I noticed about two weeks ago this kind of meltdown inducing behavior surfacing again and when I say I shuttered at the thought, I mean I shuttered at the thought!
Add to this mix the Little Princess, who albeit is cute with her new found ability to talk, is quite annoying to her sister right now. And by quite, I mean constantly annoying. So, when Big Princess is getting disciplined by me through words, there's this little parrot behind or beside me repeating the words as best she can with the same intonation and inflection that Big Princess is hearing from me. The first time Little Princess did this, Big Princess and I laughed because it was rather humorous. That's all changed now. Big Princess does not find anything humorous from Little Princess. I know a huge part of BP's issue is the fact that her little sister is naughty, talkative, whiny and full of reasons to be put in time out. Trust me when I say LP is quite annoying to me right now and is highly challenging this week. Unfortunately, she is also high maintenance too, which means BP is not getting any attention from me except for the negative moments like "Stop yelling at your sister" or "You can't hit your sister like that" and so on. Rarely do we get moments to just sit and talk, or better yet, sit in the same chair and cuddle up and talk. In my heart of hearts I know this issue is one I must solve immediately because it truly is affecting all of our lives.
Solving the problem is where the issue becomes a little more tricky. These are the options I see as possibilities:
- Leave work at 4, get Big Princess and spend an hour with just her doing something she likes to do. (The problem with this is leaving work---it's never done and it's never done at home so if I'm unable to complete the stuff I need for the next day, it's hard to leave.)
- Hire a sitter for Little Princess weekly and spend a chunk of time with Big Princess alone somewhere. (The problem here is one, finding a sitter, and two paying a sitter. My budget is beyond limited right now. Okay, so always--my budget is always limited.)
- Leave Little Princess with a friend and spend time with Big Princess. (I feel like I'm taking advantage of friends when I do this, plus that would mean I would need to fit it into my friend's schedule which really can be hard to synchronize. Little P also doesn't do very well when both Big P and I leave her alone somewhere.)
Anyway, it needs to happen and it needs to be a priority now because we're heading down a pathway I was expecting to head down much sooner than this, so when it didn't happen, I was surprised and excited by the outcome and didn't strategize much about game plans. I'm thinking the one with an hour after school together may have to be the one we go with. This parenting gig is by far the hardest thing anyone can choose to do.
1. You amaze me constantly
ReplyDelete2. Things at school will never be done. It's not possible to feel ultra on top of it, at least I don't think so. We can try and do our best, but the odds of having nothing on our school to-do lists is, well, zero.
3. I think how you think it all through is really interesting - I wish that all parents would be able do this - take a step back and consider what they can do differently to best care for their kiddos. Once again, you amaze me. :)
Parenting is hard (even when there is 2 parents). I think you are on the right track in spending time with Big P. Although our schedules (mostly C's) don't allow a lot of one on one time time, Robby and I try to spend a little time alone with C. M is just like Little P as far as talking and she needs to dominate ALL conversations and it really frustrates my nearly 14 year old. She tries to tell us something and M gets really loud trying to talk over C. I think you are doing an amazing job, especially since you don't have help. Hang in there and keep up the good work.
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