You’re never really off the clock, ever, when you’re a parent. Even when they’re sleeping, you have worries. Or you’re processing the day’s events. Figuring out where to go from here. Wondering what to do when your kids hit you harder than your coffee does.
Today was an absolute doozy of a rollercoaster day…just my favorite kind of day.
Not.
These kinds of days make you look back and say “Remember how great the sermon at church on Sunday was?” and your husband responds “What, you mean, 6 hours ago?” These kinds of days when your kids hit you harder than your coffee does. In truth, though, I feel like that is what everyday has become for us.
You kind of lose the concept of time in the haze of surviving chaos.
A Weak Start
This morning, admittedly, we got off to a weak start with the kids. We’ve been running on empty since the start of this wild year, so I feel like my parenting lately has been, at best, weak sauce. “Oh no, don’t do that, kids.” You mean that I need to get off of my booty before 9:00AM to enforce boundaries? I don’t have it in me today, go for it.
It’s quickly caught up to me, guys. Toddlers can smell weakness like sharks can smell blood, and they go in straight for the kill…And then the teenager gets home from school and scavenges the last morsels of sanity from your picked-clean brain.
Anyway, this morning, not an awesome start. Orson is amazing and sensitive and the sweetest little man you could ever hope to meet…but he is going through a phase. He’s discovered hitting (which I briefly covered recently). It’s a fairly recent discovery that feels like it has gone through a significant escalation in the last 36 hours.
If his sister, Nova, is happening by, minding her own business, there seems to be an irresistible temptation to give her a solid bonk. It’s so fast. There’s no discernible trigger or mood swing or anger that seems to be associated with it, then suddenly, THUMP, his water bottle comes down upon her unsuspecting head. Her tears start instantly, her feelings are hurt, and we’re swooping in, ill-equipped, to do damage control as best as we can manage before our coffee has had a chance to kick in.
No Quick Fix When Kids Hit
I preface this to say, we ARE striving to be gentle parents.
We strive to be emotionally and mentally healthy in hopes of transferring that to our children through modeling and constructive discipline. However, Orson did get a couple swats to his booty as a result of his actions, but mainly due to our feelings of helplessness in the moment.
The rare occasions a spanking has been given, it’s quickly followed up by love and explanations, but I know when the adrenaline is surging and children are in fight-or-flight, their comprehension is severely limited. Meeting “violence with violence” when kids hit is NOT a parenting style I want to subscribe to for any reason.
Enter desperation, reactivity, and feeling the need to protect his younger sister–we succumbed to a “quick fix” lazy solution. Then we went to church.
We were so excited for the opening of our church’s new nursery and kids’ wing. They’ve had a few portables set up behind the church for Sunday School while construction has been going on, and this felt like a long time coming. We were excited, but dropping the toddlers off came with new and unfamiliar environments and situations.
This was the first Sunday that Orson and Nova were separated into different classrooms and they were VERY different classrooms than what he’s been used to for over a year now, so there was some separation anxiety for him (Nova seemed unphased). Thankfully, he settled in fairly quickly.
A Little Nudge
Service was awesome, as it usually is, and afterward, we always like to have a family discussion about our takeaways, especially to help our teenager process what he learned or hopefully answer any questions the message raised. That 10-minute connection time before we’re blocked out by earbuds is always nice and, often, really encouraging that he is listening and getting it.
Now, my babies are on a pretty regimented nap and sleep schedule. They have to be; it was not the easiest thing to do to get them on a synched up sleeping schedule so that they could share a nursery (and Mama and Papa could get their boudoir back). Sundays typically only push them about 45 minutes past their usual naptime, and they generally tolerate it just fine.
Today, we decided to push them a bit, to exercise their adaptability.
Camo and Ice Cream
We took the kids out for ice cream and to browse briefly around the San Antonio Bass Pro Shop. We were genuinely amazed that they were handling everything so well and enjoying the adventure as much as they were. Stuffed lions, tigers, and bears, oh my! Boat, boat, boat! Fishies!
Coen even seemed to really have fun on this “impromptu” and unexpected outing. In truth, Mama and Papa had actually already planned it a few days in advance. We wanted some Andy’s and had it in our April eating out budget–SCORE!
We start to trek home, hit some freeway congestion, and our ETA home is nearly 2PM. So, we make the executive decision to “call the day a wash” instead of trying to force a late nap on Orson and Nova; maybe we’ll just swing an early 6PM bedtime and keep the evening low-stim. It’ll be fine. Everything will be just fine.
Famous. Last. Words.
Duck and Cover
Orson went on a hitting spree. And throwing…and destroying..and shrieking. And hitting and shrieking at the same time. Etc. He was just a mess after we got home. Who could blame him, really? We had pushed him, things were new, he got sugary ice cream (which is a rare treat for us), and NO NAP.
It isn’t hard for me to look at my son with compassion and understanding if I give even a moment’s consideration as to why he’s behaving the way that he is. What I struggle with, with this particular phase especially, is just because he has a good reason for acting a certain way doesn’t mean that I can just let him act a certain way.
I can’t let him hurt his sister because he’s feeling dysregulated. I can’t let my kids hit each other just because they feel like it. Even when the feelings they have are all okay.
I reiterate what I said in this post: we are all learning and stretching and growing.
What Orson is going through is absolutely, without a doubt, developmentally normal. We fail him sometimes, honestly, a lot of times…and there are days when we want to throw up our hands with all of the kids. Especially when the kids hit harder than our coffee.
But we KEEP learning…and KEEP stretching…and KEEP growing.
And we know that they will too.
Never Off the Clock
With that in mind, after dinner, we spent the last hour before their bedtime snuggling and cuddling and giggling and playing and connecting with the babies. At the end of the day, even when we fail, we always lay them down in bed knowing that they feel our love. It was a great close to the day…except that it wasn’t. It was only 6. Freaking. P. M.
We then got to have a conversation/lecture with our 16-year-old about growing up and making good decisions. We only thought that we were off the hook when the babies went down to bed. Even now, at 9:05PM, my husband is having to sing “Twinkle Twinkle Dinosaur” through the baby monitor to our restless, frequently waking and fussing toddlers.
And you’re never really off the clock–ever–when you’re a parent. Happy Sunday, everyone. Is it Friday yet?