Post by vavavictoria on May 15, 2018 14:15:19 GMT -5
Also team #momwhohaslostit
these kids are sooooooo frustrating! And I HATE bathtime. My 3.5 year old is slower than a sloth. It drives me F’ing crazy. I am much more patient one on one but when you add the 18 month old crying and clinging to me over nothing and the big kid flipping her shit over the blue cup instead of the pink cup. OMG. I have definitely had to tag out with H and go lie down before I say something I will regret. My mom was a yeller. I constantly tell myself I don’t want to be like that but in the heat of the moment I pretty much always default to yelling.
Post by justcheckingin73 on May 15, 2018 14:17:28 GMT -5
I could write a novel about this. My DS was a difficult kid. He’s 8 now and can still be stubborn but nowhere near where he was at 2,3,4,5,6 and part of 7. In addition, he is/was a huge momma’s boy so I could not get away from him sometimes.
I’m a yeller and I also curse when pushed too far (lots of g-damns and f-words come out). I’m also an introvert and although I think I’m pretty self-aware, as a Mom, it’s very hard for me to find that point right before my breaking point where maybe I should take some time. It usually takes me to get to my breaking point to realize I’ve gone over the edge.
I’ve had some public moments - nothing huge I don’t think, but teeth clenching, yelling/screaming, grabbing, listen to me or I will kill you looks. It’s hard. And I always felt bad afterward because I had lost control especially because it felt like it was always something all the time. Now, even though my son can still be tough at times, it’s few and far between and I can recover and come at it from a calm place. Plus, I can actually reason with the kid now.
I think you’ve gotten some great advice and I have nothing to add but hugs and commiseration.
Post by sweetptater on May 15, 2018 15:03:22 GMT -5
I could have written justcheckingin73 's post. My kids aren't difficult on their own (usually), but put them together and OMG. They will NOT keep their hands off each other. I separate them and they immediately lunge back at each other. They're not even fighting, they just love to wrestle and play around. Of course someone ALWAYS gets hurt, then cue the tattling, whining, crying, etc.
dglvrk2, being a mom is hard. Show me a mom who has not lost it. Has anyone NOT lost it? I feel so bonded with you guys right now lol.
Also, You are in survival mode.
Under my old name I had the elderly neighbor who had stage 4 cancer whose daughter wasn't taking care of her and asked my "kid" (i.e. ME) to get her mail and then that turned into picking up her prescriptions, which turned into her phone calls but then her missed calls...and then her yelling at me when I returned her missed calls bc she was sleeping? ......with my FT job and 3 kids under 7 and deployed husband....there were tears at the mailbox. Mine, not the kids!
What (now) seems like a simple task of having my kid bring mail up a driveway was YET ANOTHER chore for me to do when I was tapped out. I had to nag my kid for yet one other thing beyond the huge list of our own chores.I won't forget dragging my trash cans up giant hill of a driveway, in my fucking high heels, bitching about having to take another trip back down and back up to get her mail, with a nursing baby who was screaming in the van. And having to feed 3 kids before leaving for soccer in 45 minutes. And I looked up at the house two houses down and said out loud, "Like THAT lady can't help? She's retired! WHy the fuck can't she pitch in!"
And as it turned out that other retired neighbor was sitting her her fucking rocking chair on the porch.
Sigh. Why did I get suckered into that? ETA of course I have guilt that I couldn’t help my sick neighbor without complaining about it...but in reality there were plenty of other people who were in a much better position to be asked.
I won't forget when he was gone another time, a good friend sent some like, chain mail thing for her daughter that asked me to send postcards or stickers or some shit----it sent me over the edge. I just remember thinking "How could she DO this to me?!" Doesn't she know how much I have on my plate? Doesn't she know how tired I am? I legit took that personally. That's an example of an irrational thought, but reflective of the state I was in. I could not handle one more dumb thing.
So my advice is number 1) say NO to all superfluous stuff. Some cousins graduation party? Send a card instead. Or don't even do that. Feeling guilty about not going to nephews lacrosse game? NOPE. Exhausted and just can't get to religious ed tonight? Skip it, and have the kids eat cereal and apple slices for dinner. (All speaking from my experiences)
I've come a long way. My H isn't even gone anymore. The SAHM PTA president who emails on Sunday night for us to send in flowers on Monday, school supplies on Wednesday and a nice handwritten note on Friday? I just deleted her email. I did not look back.
2) is there a way to pair childcare with self care? A big plus for my family has been a gym with Childcare included. When my H is gone, I take advantage of the hair salon at the gym, or the massage therapist. I find that I just won't always take the extra step of finding a sitter, but I can drop them at the gym and get ME time without thinking about it. Pricy? Yeah, but my sanity is worth it. In fact, I once dropped them off at noon and got weird looks bc they closed at 12:30. I knew it, but I simply wanted to shower by myself. And I did and it was great. I probably drove there and back longer than my shower but I needed it.
3) outsource. He's gone. Presumably, he's doing this bc the job makes it worth it. Right? Therefore; house cleaners, lawn care etc that's a perk outcome of this situation. You can't do it all.
4) I’ve gotten better about getting sitters. Now when my H leaves, I get a sitter for the regular scheduled nights that I would get my time that H would have done child duty. I try not to forgo that just bc he is gone, bc that outlet is really important to me to FUNCTION. Rather than bring all 3 kids to soccer practice (when I run alone) I pay $20 for someone to stay with the boys. I can still run. $20 is worth my sanity. I have my mom come on fencing night and out the little ones to bed so I don't have to drag them there. I also have my mom or a sitter come for an hour on my run night later in the week.
5) don't worry about your neighbors. I will be really honest with you, I have another mom neighbor who GETS it. If she had a meltdown' I would be so glad that I was in the right place at the right time, and that I was there to help her. I know that she would do the same for me. Moms get you. Do you see in this thread? We get you. So take that worry/embarrassment off your plate, bc we (moms) have all been there. And we would all help out another mom/dad who is there like your awesome neighbors did.
I forgot to add, my kids have responded to a relatively simple behavioral modification while my H was gone.
Define the problem behavior and also define the replacement behavior. Make that one the goal. I got a piece of scratch paper and made a strip of boxes for each kid for a one week period. One row for am and one for pm. So a 2 x 7 if that makes sense. 7 mornings and 7 evenings.
Ex: I asked how many days do they think they could....replace whining with respectful language. 11 out of 14 you say? Give me 12 and We go to the yogurt shop at the end of the week.
Every a.m and p.m. They had to rate whether they met their goal or not with a smiley or frowns. they got 1-2 warnings for each block.
They were really invested but I tailored it to each kids behavior. But yes 1-2-3 magic also really helped us.
Post by freezorburn on May 16, 2018 3:33:23 GMT -5
Sometimes life is just overwhelming.
I was a mess for the first year after my ex left, and there are a couple of incidents that stand out, as I went through the process of accepting that reconciliation was impossible and divorce was inevitable.
The first was, shortly after DS got his ASD diagnosis, I was taking an Incredible Years parenting class. I think there were 3 or 4 couples and one other single mom in the class. Maybe our second or third meeting, we broke out into small group discussion. And I remember expressing just how raw and scared I was feeling because my ex seemed to have zero interest in helping to co-parent DS. And one of the other moms (who happened to be undergoing treatment for breast cancer) asked if I would like a hug. Which I accepted. And then she just held me while I broke down and cried.
The second incident was around Christmas time, I took DS downtown to see a model train display and we stopped to get burgers. He flipped out because it came with cheese and he didn't want cheese. I can't remember where the confusion was -- maybe he said one thing but meant something else. He was still struggling with speech development at the time. And of course I couldn't scrape it off to his satisfaction. So he melted down, and people were staring, and while it was a fairly noisy place, I'm sure someone overheard me say that if he didn't like my parenting, he could talk to his dad about finding a new mother for him. Which I instantly regretted, but my frustration level was pretty high at that point from all the accumulated BS that was going on.
Tools that have helped us:
Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child by Gottman. Goes through emotion coaching techniques. This has helped me come up with things I can try when DS is dealing with something difficult. It has reduced my frustration level with his emotions, because it has given me tools on how to listen, interpret and problem-solve with him.
Mood Meter - DS's school uses this as part of their social/emotional curriculum, and we use a version of it as part of his behavioral therapy. It helps him to develop his own self-awareness so that he can then work on self-regulation.
For my own emotional reactions -- I was in survival mode for a long time, I had to set a few priorities and let everything else go. The house is cluttered but is free of biohazards. DS is fed, barely sleeps but we make a point of having a bit of high-quality one-on-one time each day. Self-care was low priority for a long time, but over the last couple of years I have been making more of an effort where I have the capacity. Trying to get enough sleep, paying attention to my appearance, getting a massage now and then. Going back to work has been the best. My parents drive me bonkers, so I limit contact with them, but when I do have to be around them I have a game plan and sometimes that helps. Putting myself in time out, like others do, helps. Sometimes I'll literally say out loud, "I need to think about how I feel about this," or "I need to think about how we are going to manage this." I find if I let myself feel the anger or rage, but delay responding to the trigger, I am able to cool off and come up with a more constructive response than what might come out of my mouth when my anger is at its peak.
I’ve had a particularly heated moment in a parking garage with 3-yo DD who was refusing to sit in her stroller. Yelling ensued, including an F-bomb that echoed through the parking garage, all in front of my in-laws. We were headed to a restaurant and I was immediately served a boozy milkshake.
Also had another moment when bringing DD to dance one day last year. She was refusing to get into her tutu and tights, so I had driven her there naked, brought her into the dance waiting area naked, and forced her into her tutu in front of a room packed with other dance families. There might have been a G-dammit sputtered that night too. Needless to say, we’ve quit dance, not over that one particular night, but because the refusing to get dressed behaviors continued and I decided it just wasn’t worth it anymore.
Post by HeartofCheese on May 16, 2018 6:58:21 GMT -5
Just wanted you all to know that I had a dream last night about yelling at DS to "Get out of the road! Don't go near the water! Stay away from the edge! Don't get near the hole! Come here, damnit! Goddamnit!" while several onlookers attempted to get me to calm down with judgy looks on their faces - instead of help me with my child. See? It's the stuff nightmares are made of. Freak outs in real life are totally legit.
campermom - I remember that mail incident. Your behavior ideas are great.
vasc- i’m sure not funny at the time or even now but I’m chuckling at bringing the kid in naked. We would have quit dance too definitely if the kid wouldn’t get dressed.
We need a self-driving car with one of those glass walls they have in limos.
I really wanted noise cancelling headphones in the car. DH said no- ugh. 😂
I tell my H on a regular basis that we should get one of those sound proof walls for the car, he laughs but he might actually go for the noise cancelling headphones if he gets a pair too.
campermom- I’m in awe of how far you’ve come in terms of turning off the guilt and focusing on taking care of yourself as a member of your family! Wow! I remember when you were going through the neighbor thing and everyone saying “make someone else do it!” And now look at you! What a rockstar mom!!!
I, too, want to thank @dglvkr2 for starting this thread. I'm also an introvert, and I've had several crazy weeks - activity-wise, kid-wise, DH-traveling-wise, etc. - all in a row. We got home from a long weekend late Sun afternoon, DH dumped his suitcase, repacked it, and left at 430am the next day. I'm trying to get a small business off the ground, but have all the responsibilities of a SAHM. All kid-related are falling to me - camps, enrolling in a new school, all appointments, coordination of everything... Kids were whiny, exhausted, clingy, and fighting like fools. I've had almost no down time or alone time in the past 3 weeks.
Yesterday, DD2 insisted on doing really silly, dangerous things, and kept getting hurt. She decided to pull herself up off the seat of a swing while I was pushing her and almost fell off. Later, she decided that she didn't need to hold onto the handles of her scooter, the scooter hit a crack in the sidewalk, and she faceplanted. The faceplant happened while DD1 was telling me that everyone hates her, she doesn't waaaaannnnna do her homework, and basically just telling me that she was going to the opposite of whatever I suggested. Things were bubbling up. I was very close to losing it... I started to lose it...
And then I remembered this thread. And I took a deep breath. I told DD1 to go to her room and calm down from what had turned into a complete and total meltdown. I told DD2 to play outside. And I grabbed a book and sat down, by myself, for 10 minutes. Amazing. And everyone was better for a few hours. When they bickered, I was better equipped to diffuse it.
I’ve had a particularly heated moment in a parking garage with 3-yo DD who was refusing to sit in her stroller. Yelling ensued, including an F-bomb that echoed through the parking garage, all in front of my in-laws. We were headed to a restaurant and I was immediately served a boozy milkshake.
Also had another moment when bringing DD to dance one day last year. She was refusing to get into her tutu and tights, so I had driven her there naked, brought her into the dance waiting area naked, and forced her into her tutu in front of a room packed with other dance families. There might have been a G-dammit sputtered that night too. Needless to say, we’ve quit dance, not over that one particular night, but because the refusing to get dressed behaviors continued and I decided it just wasn’t worth it anymore.
Post by justcheckingin73 on May 16, 2018 10:55:21 GMT -5
There really is comfort in the solidarity of this post. When you’re going through the tough times, it seems like all you see around you are moms who have it together and are handling everything so well. It’s helpful to know they we all have/had our moments even though intellectually it makes sense that we’re not alone, it sometimes feels so isolating.
There really is comfort in the solidarity of this post. When you’re going through the tough times, it seems like all you see around you are moms who have it together and are handling everything so well. It’s helpful to know they we all have/had our moments even though intellectually it makes sense that we’re not alone, it sometimes feels so isolating.
It feels like the Facebook Effect. You know, where you post the most awesome photos that show how great your life is. And if only you could see your former HS classmate cropped out the husband making a “F You” face and the crazy kid who just shit on the floor and has peas in his hair. This post feels like the unedited picture. And hugs to everyone willing to say “yep, I’ve lost it, hated it, tried to do better, and lost it again.” Cheers to us being human!
I totally did it this morning. I didn't loose my cool but I was short abrupt and had the mean mom voice. When we carpool with Papa DD is super energetic in the morning and bounces out of the car at before care. When it is just me we seem to always be running late and she moves like a sloth. Of course there were other people trying to get out of their cars this morning and I felt like crap saying "move it". The other mom stopped me inside and told me we all have mornings where the kids just don't want to get moving and we are rushing so no worries.
campermom- I’m in awe of how far you’ve come in terms of turning off the guilt and focusing on taking care of yourself as a member of your family! Wow! I remember when you were going through the neighbor thing and everyone saying “make someone else do it!” And now look at you! What a rockstar mom!!!
thank you-even though you guys are “strangers” I’ve gotten to know you all and vice versa and you’re right-it’s been a huge positive (and necessary) journey!
campermom - I remember that mail incident. Your behavior ideas are great.
vasc - i’m sure not funny at the time or even now but I’m chuckling at bringing the kid in naked. We would have quit dance too definitely if the kid wouldn’t get dressed.
She gets in funks about not getting dressed a few times a year, and I resort to putting her in the car seat naked (she still has undies on). Usually she will allow me to dress her once we arrive in the parking lot of the destination. However, that night she wasn’t even going for that. I wouldn’t recommend public shaming for use in day-to-day parenting, but ultimately I knew she’d quit the tantrum when faced with a roomful of other adults and kids.
Thank you, everyone, for the stories and advice 💚😊 It's very reassuring to read melt downs happen to even the best of moms -that would be you!
I'm on my phone, so cannot scroll back to see posters' names...but someone suggested journeling and identifying triggers. I've been doing this as I leave work, taking a few minutes to journal about the dayys highs, lows and what may be a challenge in the evening and how I can best manage challenges. It does help!
Someone also suggested audio books- getting some for my girls stat!
I need to get better at outsourcing and saying "no."
Post by helenahhandbasket on May 24, 2018 6:30:00 GMT -5
Sorry I’m replying so late.
I only have one, very well behaved kid (seriously, she really is. It had mostly nothing to do with me , I kind of feel like it’s just pure luck). I still admit to losing it more than I’d like.
It’s gotten fewer and more far between the older she’s gotten.
The one thing that really helps me to feel like myself is spending time with and reconnecting with friends. It’s hard to do- we are all so busy- work, family a million prior commitments, but once a month I make sure I have at least one social outing that’s just for me. The easiest thing to schedule seems to be happy hour after work.
I’m glad there was so much good advice and wisdom in this thread and I hope you are feeling not so much alone!