Teaching the Incredible Hulk!

Over these past few weeks I have been disillusioned to to how I thought being a SAHD was going to be.

I had in my mind this idea of going places, teaching them things as we go about our day and time to get things done both around the house and little projects (like fixing my motorcycle and lawn mower).

Really all I feel like I have accomplished is the ability stay on top of laundry,dishes and go on walks with the kids. Oh course keep the kids a live and away from serious injury. But, I also feel like I find myself having trouble with control of my emotions.


I feel like my level of calm, cool and collective has drawn to an unbelievable low level. I turn into the Hulk and see myself as more of this guys who is not able to control my emotions when the kids either don't do what I think they should know how to do because they have been told to do it before.

I know that Hezekiah especially is a very smart kid. I mean yesterday he was riding his bike and I told him he needed to wear his helmet. He told me he did not want to wear it. I told him that it was important to wear it while riding his bike and that is why papa wears his helmet. He says "Well then I don't want to ride my bike". I was frustrated because I knew he only said that because he did not want to follow the rules. This made me furious because he had been pushing my buttons all day and this was the tipping point. I told him well since you are only saying this because you don't want to follow the rules you are going to wear this helmet for the rest of the time we are outside so that you can get used to your helmet and learn to follow the rules. My blood was boiling while I was telling him this and afterwards I felt like I was just the mean ole dad who does not know how to control his emotions. I apologized for my outburst cause it was unwarranted, but he also needed to know that he was in the wrong for his actions but I was no better for my own actions.

Today is a new day and I have told myself that I WILL take a breathe before reacting to frustrating situations. In no way do I was my kids to view me as some person who is able to fly off the handle and lose his grip on being level headed to frustration. H is great at bringing me back to center with this when he will ask me after I have yelled at him. He says "papa, are you sorry for growling at me?" to which I realize, wow, I did do that and that is what I had told H he was not to do when he is frustrated.

Kids are great at being that mirror that forces you to look into and see that you are broken and need a focused life on the Savior. Failure to do this is a failure to teach our kids how they should be functioning in situations they come into contact with.

 

I write all this as my kids sit in the living room on the love seat peacefully playing together while looking at books and listening to music. They really are great kids who are super easy it is my messed up self that is making this more difficult than it needs to be.

The First hill of the Roller Coast!

Monday and Today have been a learning curve I did not expect. I thought I had seen much of how my kids function by what the do during the weekend. I was wrong.

These two have been living a double life. During the week they would see us in the morning before daycare and then in the evening for a few hours before bed and hitting repeat the next day. But monday and today have been eye opening because it takes some juggling to keep these two out of trouble and focused on the tasks at hand. It sounds bad but it has a lot of silver linings. For starters, H has a clock in his room and I told him to not come down till it said 8 (I put a kleenex box in front of the other numbers to keep from confusing him). This may also seem like it is late for a kid but I can tell you we are blessed to have kids that like to sleep long and hard. It is only due to stupid day light savings time that this rule has to apply. He normally would sleep till the sun came up but when that is happening earlier it does not help. Ruby has had no trouble sleeping till at least 8:30 if not 9:00 due to her battle of in coming teeth and ear infections.

Monday consisted of debating on going to the Opening day parade which I decided not to go and was so bummed when the rain never came and it would have been perfect weather for a parade. But we wore our Reds gear and enjoyed time at the playground and then lunch and naps went well. The afternoon after naps consisted of hanging out at the house playing the fish game and watching the baseball game.

In the evening I planned our 10yr anniversary trip to Niagara Falls, ON. We are so excited to be able to do this partly because we have an awesome friend we consider another auntie to the kids and she has agreed to watch the kids for 4 days so we can go on this trip.

Tuesday every other week will have Corie being here in the morning since she does not go into work till noon or around 10 to make a little but extra money. But it was nice having her around this morning and the kids enjoyed having breakfast with all of us and getting a few extra cuddles in before work.

We spent the morning walking dexter around the neighborhood, hanging out, Ruby was battling not feeling good. This I noticed because she kept having these burst of energy followed by looking sleepy and then coming to me and putting her head on my knee while I sat on the couch. Nap time was easy for her and she slept for 4 hrs. H had fun playing with playdoh and kinetic sand before having lunch and taking a nap. But with H keeping himself busy I was able to clean the bathrooms, and empty an load the dishwasher. H aslo before nap wanted to read so he pulled out his BOB books and did a good job reading about two and  half of the books before he started to lose focus and it was nap time. He impresses me each day with his intelligence. In many ways I feel like he would not be so far along in his development if it were not for Agape Kid Care the daycare he was at for 3 yrs. (It sucks that they closed but the Lord has everything in his hands so the reason for why it happened makes sense).

After naps we took another walk since it was nice out and the kids got to play with some church friends down the street and then we met this guy on the way home who works on motorcycles.  I was just at a show recently downtown and seen one of his bikes. It was cool to know that he lives in the neighborhood and was nice enough to offer me assistance if I need it to work on my motorcycle.

Dinner was pizza and then after baths we watched a movie, I gave H the choice of two Wild Kratts episodes or An American Tail. He chose An American Tail and he really liked it. I was so happy to share with him a movie that I loved as kid. and then it was bed time.

Hump Day is tomorrow and the weather looks not nice to the challenge what can we do inside. I have some ideas.

Two Monkey's Jumping on the Bed!

Friday was the last day of Hezekiah's daycare and it was a sad day but the start of a new adventure. H also got a new bible that he loves. It has some great artistic work in it and will be another great tool for teaching.

Saturday was a day of relaxation with the family and prepping seeds for our garden. H loves to help with the garden. Watched the movie Trolls and Dr. Strange. 

Sunday was church and then mowing the lawn and tilling the gardens to prep them for planting. Our garden is the highlight of the summer. It is going to be HUGE! We are planting: carrots, beans, peas, squash, pumpkins, tomatoes, cucumbers, and blueberries and raspberries and blackberries. 

Monday starts the adventure of having both kids at the same time. Wish me luck and pray for me.