Me: Corbin, I hear banging in there. Who is banging the table?
Corbin: Bennett.
Me: I can hear Benny crawling around, what is the truth Corbin?
Corbin: God!
Me: Well…yes, but I want to know the truth about who is hitting.
Corbin: Truth starts with T!
Me: Yes dear, do you know what it means to avoid a question?
Corbin: When is Nana Vickie coming over?
Me: Corbin….
Corbin: I was just bangin the table a teeny little bit.
I have always suspected that my first born is what can be termed ‘a strong willed child.’ But because of his equally strong communication skills, in the past we have been able to side step all out temper tantrums by talking him through his fears and frustrations. However, over the last month or so we have encountered an issue with Corbin that we cannot simply reason away. He has started screaming every time we put him in his bed and waking up in hysterics several times throughout the night. We have tried to take a firm stance on this, but it has proven difficult to tackle disciplinary situations at bed time because by that point in the day we are so exhausted that our resolve is weakened. I don’t know why, but bed time has just always been a sore spot with Corbin. We have marveled as month after month we can lay a wide awake Bennett down in his bed and he simply rolls over and goes to sleep…for the entire night! We have never gotten more than a few weeks at a time of such blissful sleeping patterns out of Corbin. This is not to say that we compare one child’s behavior to another, it is just to say that we have been surprised to find that perhaps our first-born’s erratic sleep patterns are not necessarily the norm.
I know part of the problem is that we have tried too many tactics in addressing this issue recently and have ultimately undermined our strength in his young eyes. We have tried rationalizing with him about his fears of giants in his closet or bad dreams that creep under his door to get him. But I think that in giving them so much attention in our conversations we may have inadvertently validated these irrational fears. We have also tried coaxing him into making a better choice by offering positive reinforcement. We told him that if he could go a certain number of days without crying in his bed he would be rewarded with a special trip to the Chattanooga Aquarium. This idea sounded just fine to him during the day light hours, but as soon as darkness fell he announced that he did not want to go to the Aquarium because he was scared that the fish would try to bite him. He then proceeded to scream in his room for over an hour. The next night we tried a more immediate and known reward by offering to let him watch a movie of his choice the following morning if he could go just one night without screaming. He told us that he didn’t want to watch a movie because it might give him a bad dream and kept right on screaming. Since positive reinforcement hadn’t worked, several nights later we moved onto the negative. Corbin was told that he would not be allowed to watch his beloved Mickey Mouse Club House or Clifford the Big Red Dog if he chose to scream in his bed that night. As of today he has not been allowed to watch any television in a week…and the screaming continues. We have even resorted to spankings, a form of punishment that is reserved for only the most extreme disciplinary cases in our home, but it has done absolutely nothing to diffuse his fits. In fact we are starting to suspect that just by going into his room to administer the punishment we are giving him exactly what he wants – more attention. Corbin’s nightly tantrum escalated to Super Nanny proportions last night. After screaming hysterically while jumping up and down on his bed for about twenty minutes, we heard him get out of bed and begin opening and closing drawers in his dresser. Several minutes later we were standing together outside of his bedroom when the inevitable happened. His door cracked open and a tearful Corbin slowly emerged making whiny pleas to sleep in our bed or come play in the bonus room with us. The one humorous moment in this frustrating ordeal came when we asked him why he had been opening and closing his dresser drawers. “I tried to hide in my jammies drawer,” he replied ruefully, “but my head wouldn’t fit.” Sadly our laughter was short lived because what ensued was an hour and a half battle of wills that ultimately ended in me replacing the child lock on his door knob and him screaming and making empty threats as he dismantled his entire closet. He eventually screamed himself to sleep at which point Chris and I retreated to bed feeling utterly defeated.
I am well aware of the mistakes that we have made in dealing with this issue. And I am also aware that the main cause for my lack of resolve is that what I see manifesting in my son right now is an amalgamation of several of what I consider to be my deepest character flaws. It is so hard to see my son exhibiting signs of having inherited my irrational fears, my controlling nature and my general tendency to indulge my darker emotions. That being said, I believe that I am in the process of surrendering all of this: the mistakes I have made in parenting, the sins that I have passed on and modeled for my children, and the sins that are all their own, to my heavenly father. God knows my issues and he knows Corbin’s, and he desires for both of us to walk in the freedom that he already bought for us. I do not know the perfect way to tackle this issue. And I confess there are times that it seems larger than life. My inability to handle Corbin’s sleeping problems perfectly could very easily define the way that I view myself as a mother right now. But that will not do any of us one bit of good. So instead I am asking for God’s peace in the midst of conflict. I of all people should know that you cannot simply reason or discipline away another person’s irrational fears. Parenting books and tips definitely have their place, but I think that first we need to ask God to deal with the deeper issues of the heart. I honestly don’t have a plan for dealing with the screaming tonight, other than to commit this evening to prayer throughout the day, and to ask God to give me the ability to forgive myself and give me fresh eyes for my son. This parenting thing, like everything else in life, is a process. Sometimes we will get it right and often we will fail miserably. But I believe that God has us here, walking through the process, for a reason. So today I am going to try to rest in that.
Just wanted to share my excitement for our close friends Luke and Alisa. Last night they welcomed their second daughter into the world. Sophia Catherine came over a week late and weighed over eight pounds…which makes the fact that Alisa chose to go natural for the second time pretty stinkin impressive in my books! Mommy and baby are doing very well, but sadly daddy is suffering from a nasty case of food poisoning. Its times like this that I really wish we lived in the same city (Luke and Al moved to Atlanta two years ago). But despite the distance I’m guessing we’ll get to meet little Sophia pretty soon!
I’m afraid I might be falling off the blogging wagon. Which is a shame because I have now been writing on this thing for over two years. Plus I stopped writing in the boys’ baby books and getting pictures printed out around the same time that Benny started crawling, leaving this blog as the last account of their childhood developments and antics. Although maybe therein lies the problem. Lately I seem to write more about my kids than anything else on this blog, and that isn’t really why I started it. I love my kids so much. I mean really, like, a ton! However, I feel like I need my life to consist of just a little bit more than these kids, their intake and output, their clothes, toys, activities, friends and so on and so forth. I recently sat in a Bible study discussion where the topic of conversation was idolatry. We were listing some examples of things that we tend to idolize and one of the main things that most (though not all) of the women confessed to idolizing was their children. I have to admit that this made me feel like a bit of a dud of a mother. Because while I really do love spending time with my children, caring for them and meeting their basic needs…the truth is, I don’t really want it to define me. At least not entirely.
Of course I’m not really sure what the next step is here. I mean my earning potential isn’t high enough to be able to afford childcare for two kids if I decided to go back to work full time at this point, plus I don’t think any of us are ready for such a drastic change. But I am seriously looking into either going back to school or getting a part time job (preferably one that gets me out of the house, using my brain and maybe into a pair of high heels every once and a while). I have also signed both of the boys up for school two days a week in the fall. Well actually it will only be one day for Ben but my mother has agreed to keep him the other day. So I will have the time, now I just need to figure out how to make it through the next six months. Oh yeah, and some kind of a game plan.
I was tireless in my attempts to get a good head-on, smiling picture of Corbin on his third birthday yesterday, but to no avail. Apparently an important three year old rite of passage is developing a rather adept refusal to smile for or even look at a camera. So with that being said, here are some pictures of our birthday and adventures at a special big brother lunch, the Monkey’s Treehouse and his family birthday party yesterday.
I just want to take a minute to sing the praises of a certain kind of husband and father. He’s the kind of man who reads the kids their bedtime stories, changes diapers and helps with the dishes. he’s the kind of man who doesn’t forget to tell his wife how much he admires the contribution she is making to the family and who chooses a night in eating pizza and watching a Disney movie with his kids over a night out with ‘the guys.’ He might not be entirely aware of the seeds that he is sowing into his family by simply being present and engaged in their lives, but his presence in the home is life giving. These men, in my opinion, are the truly chivalrous, authentically heroic figures of our generation. And I have the incredible privilege of not only knowing quite a few, but actually being married to one of them myself!
Corbin just looked at the pictures on my last post and said, “Look Mom, that’s Benny and that’s me…and I look handsome!”
Its been an exciting week around here. Bennett has started saying a few words like dog and dada, and Corbin has learned how to spell his name. We also went to a Predators game to celebrate Corbin’s birthday (which is next week) and we made it onto the jumbo-tron for the first time! I also experienced a personal first today when I went out to eat lunch at a restaurant all by myself. I know it seems a little ridiculous that I am almost 27 years old and I had never done this before, but all I can say for myself it that I had no idea what I was missing! I took as much time as I wanted to eat my bowl of soup, I didn’t have to share a single one of my chips and was able to study and read for almost an hour. I kept looking over at the nearby table of young mommies and their noisy toddlers thinking, “man, they must be soooo jealous of me right now!” Then I got to go to the grocery store alone, which took approximately half the time that it takes when I have the boys with me. I am telling you, MANY are the advantages of having a wonderful and loving Nana here in town!
It occurs to me that my mom and Jake will probably be less than satisfied with that last rambling/nonsensical excuse for a blog entry. So here are some pictures of the boys to appease them. And is it just me or do my boys look mighty fine in hats?
My mother and sister were kind enough to (gently) point out that it has been well over a week since I have written a post. I believe their exact words were, “we’re sick and tired of reading about stupid fasting!” Right now there is a tiny voice inside my head saying, “Mommy! We don’t say stupid!” (Its amazing how I can still hear Corbin’s running commentary even while he is at school) Anyway, I’m sorry I haven’t been writing but it seems like these days distractions abound around here. The basic run down of our goings on is this: Bennett’s new nickname is Death-Wish Dave because he has developed a nasty habit of climbing onto things and then diving head first off of them. So a big part of my time and energy lately is being spent on trying to save the life of a ten month old who has literally NO sense of self preservation. We also bought the game Rock Band for the Play Station last week, so most of our evening hours have been spent rocking out as our super cool alter-ego band, ‘Everyone Is Always Right.’ I have also started the process of applying to grad schools, signing both of the boys up for preschool, and refinancing the house. All of these events, processes and happenings are beginning to reveal some rather interesting (albeit unsettling) truths about me as an individual:
1) I hate to cook and will find any and every excuse not to do it. For example, I have used all of the recent busyness as an excuse to cut back to providing my culinary services to my family no more than once a week. 2) Thankfully, my husband has assured me that he did not marry me under false pretenses and is in no way troubled by my lack of motivation and/or prowess in the kitchen. In fact I suspect he may be just a tiny bit relieved. 3) Since having babies, what little brains I had have turned into porridge. I am currently studying for the MAT, which is known to be the easier of the two Grad school entrance exam options, and I am absolutely floundering. However, I am immensely enjoying studying and trying to revive the few brain cells that I have left. 4) Financial decisions of any kind stress me out beyond measure. I have buyer’s remorse every time I leave the grocery store, so even talking about restructuring our current loan -even if it could save us money in the long run, is giving me anxiety the likes of which I can hardly articulate. 5) Rocking out on the guitar to Pin Ball Wizard is a tremendously satisfying outlet for stress. My goal is to beat Chris on Hard Guitar by the end of the month (I can already take him on the drums and microphone.) And lastly, 6) My Rock Band character is so much cuter than I will ever be and I kind of have a style crush on her.