Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Still figuring it out.....


It's true that life with kids is one step forward and you're lucky if you only take two steps back.  Sometimes it feels like you have been thrown back via slingshot and land flat on your ass.  Life is swimming along and you're thanking God for the miracle of your days when suddenly, you're reminded, by your little darlings, how impossible being a parent really is.

Life was like that today.  After a brief rain, the skies cleared to a beautiful blue with gorgeous cotton clouds.  There was even, thank you God, a breeze.  The whole weekend and then today was so good that I began to feel...smug.  "I've got this!  All that work with all those family councilors and therapists is paying off!  My kids are well adjusted, understand our boundaries and appreciate the hard work we are doing as parents!"  Smug.  Then, I wasn't.  One innocent comment led to a frustrated comment which led to an angry comment which led to all hell breaking loose.  We had ourselves a situation. We had ourselves a broken PS3 controller, a contrite parent and a sobbing, hungry, tired and over screened child.

And then we did what I think most parents do.  We went into crisis mode, fix it mode, calm down mode, please eat something mode.  I'm pretty sure the child won, although there were no real winners.  There were no lessons learned.  I take that back, there were lessons learned but they weren't helpful, good parenting lessons.  I have a feeling they were, "throw an epic fit and get what you want" lessons.  Just when we were getting good at "responding, not reacting" (lots of therapy here people) we blew it.  He moved the goal posts, and we blew it.

So, we live to parent another day.  I will take this setback, being shot from the trebuchet, and learn and be better next time.  I'm just praying for a softer landing.