Tough Love

Excuse me while I vent.  My blog seems to be as good a place as any.  Is it too much to ask to have one evening of compliance and obedience?  Seriously?  Or at least have a night where only one child is being rebellious and strong willed?  I can handle one silly kid, or one defiant kid or even one sassy kid, but all three in one evening is too much.

I made dinner. Grilled cheese, fruit and chex mix.  They had had a health lunch, so I could go easy on dinner.  Pretty simple...right...no such luck. From the minute they sat down it was a battle.  Eat, sit still, stop talking, stop drawing, leave your brother alone, stop complaining.  (a repeat of lunch I might add)  Discipline was dished out, they don't care.  Finally one was sent to his room, one went without dinner and one remained at the table.

The one in his room had to do his homework.  He played through spelling, wiggled through practicing his bible verse, so I gave up and tagged daddy for reading.  When my dear son was done, daddy looked like he had gone "two point seven seconds on a bull named Fu Man Chu"

Grammy was tagged for son without dinner to clean up the mess he made in the bonus room.  He ended up calling her names and getting a dose of vinegar....can't use sassy sauce 'cause that is child abuse. GIMME A BREAK PEOPLE!!!

Finally, one son left standing er...uh...sitting at the table.  I emailed the following to his occupational therapist:

"We have had a tough day with Mason and eating.  This morning Mason choose a granola bar for breakfast.  Once it was opened he refused to eat it.  He sat at the table for 2 hrs, refusing to eat.  Mom finally let him get down as she wasn’t sure what else to do.  For lunch, he could not have his fries (oven baked) until he ate the granola bar.  He finally ate it and then his bowl of fries.  For dinner he ate two jars of food and then wanted a treat.  I pureed lasagna (what we ate) and put it in his baby food jar.  He refused and is still refusing.  Finally, I gave him the alternative between the lasagna and another jar of applesauce with strawberries, in his preferred jars.  He almost tried the applesauce, then freaked out.  His choices are to eat three bites of applesauce, get 3 stickers and a reeses cup or eat on bite of pasta, and get a reeses cup.  He has been at the table since 5 PM.  I am sure I am doing this wrong.  It is so frustrating.  I don’t want him sitting at the table all night, but I don’t want him to ignore the boundaries we have set.  We have gone over what he has to do to get up.  He refuses, yelling NOOOOO!  It is 7:30, so now he will go to bed....Ps:  he said he couldn’t do it.  So I told him I would help him.  He choose the applesauce, but when I went to give it to him, he refused.  He wants to succeed, but stops himself."...I left out the 2.5 hours of off and on screaming/crying.

In the words of a friend...stick a fork in me I am done!

Tough love...loving a son enough to make him do his homework...loving a son enough to not tolerate disrespect to his grandmother...loving a son enough to sit through hours of feeding therapy when it would be much easier to quit and let him eat french fries for the rest of his life.

Most days I feel like I am failing. Today is one of those days!  I want to run screaming into my room and hide under the covers...but they would find me...and the issues would still be there.  I know God is trying to teach me something, but tonight it escapes me. 


Three little boys are in their rooms...nope make that 2...one has come into our room saying he is scared and can't sleep.  Sigh!


These are the best days of my life.  These are the best days of my life.  These are the best days of my life.

Now off to watch "Modern Family"  cause laughter is the best medicine.