I think the title pretty much says why I haven’t written for a few days!
It has been a long week, a long holiday with my son. He is going through that really wonderful stage that just about sixes go through where they choose to be defiant and just plain awful and exhausting. It was bad with C, but I never thought it would be this bad with J. I guess I should have expected it – he is that really quiet, strong type. So it makes sense that this just snuck in and attacked us when we weren’t expecting it.
It started slowly last week with cleaning his room. Then instead of the room getting better, it had just slowly gotten worse. So this week we told him he would be grounded if he didn’t clean. He wouldn’t clean. Around Wednesday we told him that if he couldn’t respect his property then we just might have to switch rooms with him and T so he wouldn’t have as big of a space to not treat right (okay that would cause all kinds of moving stuff around in a small house and getting a two-year-old to understand why she was moving and why should would be moving back, kind of problems – not our smartest move). So Thursday comes, still not much progress – he is working at ultra-snail pace. Although he did get about FIVE loads of laundry out. See this is one of his problems. He throws his clean clothes on the floor then walks all over, tramples them, plays in them and mixes them with his dirty clothes that for some reason cannot stay in a hamper. Now that five loads is european sized loads and did include one set of his bedding – which is why there were a couple more loads that has finally come out of his room too. Anyway – so Thursday he is grounded, still, and I am watching two little girls as well (who ended up staying the night and now know how mean Miss Charity can be to her kids). I had told J that if he would just clean I would take all of the kids out for pizza. I thought that was very very nice after fighting with him for a few days. A nice, holiday compromise. No. He didn’t care. Started making a mess again! So Friday rolls around and I limited on groceries and not really wanting to take five kids to the commissary, so we met a friend and her kids for lunch at the food court and tag teamed on a few small errands. (we had a little get-together last night). So I told J once again, being pretty darn nice once again, that he had to clean his room if he wanted to eat Burger King. He ended up with a sandwich from home while the kids all had kids meals. Seemed to bug him a little, but not too much. Also told him that as of that point he was not going to participate in one of our friends bday parties that is scheduled for today. We also told him that, hey kid, you want to be this disrespectful and mean to your parents and friends you may not get to participate in your OWN party next week. That conversation happened late Thursday night when we caught him sneaking into C’s room to play with the girls, after bedtime, when he was grounded. Sorry, a lot has been going on with him in a short time, so I am trying to keep it in order! So where were we? Oh, Bx. So we go home and I give him another chance to finish cleaning. Realizing that he has his first soccer game in a few hours :(. So I have to tell him that if he does not be nice and either finish cleaning, or at least have it almost done he will not be playing in the game and he will have let down his team. C is on the team too and layed it on thick with him. He worked a bit, but not much at all. So we made him sit out at his first game. I got a few glares from him, one very triumphant smile when we thought that there were not going to be enough kids and he was going to have to play. (more showed up). But that smile was what cinched it for me that this is a power struggle. It is about who can win :(. He is trying to see who can hold out the longest and that we won’t really punish him. Thankfully our friends realized this too and told him how sad it was that he wasn’t playing and that he was letting his teammates down and that wasn’t very nice of him and that they hoped he would behave and get to play next week. So he came home and did do a bit of more of cleaning. We can see his floor now and the majority of trash (he likes to draw and make things out of paper and had papers crumpled and torn everywhere in the mess) and laundry is out of his room. Once it is finished cleaning, which will be today, hopefully things will get better!
So any advice would be totally welcome. Otherwise, please pray for patience for us!!!
The uprooted roses 