Abdicating the Throne

I had a rough afternoon today. An evening shift for the hubby meant I was playing zone defense against my 3 boys. And since it started off with Thing One throwing a tantrum when I asked him to put away some dishes - to which I responded with putting my foot down, which totally didn't work. In the end (with my husband's interaction), Thing One put away the dishes, but the cloud hanging over my head stuck around. I was being a little bull-headed, a little childish, but I couldn't let go of my grudge.

So at dinnertime, when the kids wouldn't stop talking, and weren't eating, and right after Thing Two's dirty sock landed in my food bowl (which was a few minutes after his other sock hit me in the head), I resigned. I explained that they were in charge I grabbed a magazine, put Thing One in charge, and sat down in the living room to read.

A little while later (after Thing One had finished eating), the diners dispersed. Thing Three wandered into the living room to sit with me. I ignored him (dark cloud still hovering) and kept reading. At some point, they all wandered into the room, and I explained that they were in responsible for cleaning up after dinner and getting ready for bed. They ran upstairs and returned in their pajamas, teeth brushed.

I eventually got up and saw that Thing One and Thing Two were taking care of the dishes. Only, when I showed up, they stopped. I cleared up their misconception and kept them at it. Thing Two was directed to finish his food and then clean the table. The others had wandered down to the basement for game night, after enjoying cookies that I had managed to bake before I went postal.

We made it upstairs, dashing Thing One's hopes for a game night ("But it's only 6:50 and bedtime isn't until 8," he argued, to which I replied that it takes that long to get to sleep by 8).

Upstairs, Thing Three played with water at the bathroom sink instead of brushing his teeth; Thing Two whined about not being able to make his bed by himself; and Thing One lay on the floor making up a complex point chart (to be sure to get his due share of points for being in charge for the evening; in lieu of an allowance, we're offering points, which can be redeemed for video game time, television time, or other "prizes"; One of these days, I'll have to actually start keeping track of these. They also can lose points for misbehavior, but I prefer to overlook those - or at least just tell them they're losing points. And really, since I'm not actually keeping track of them, it's not particularly negative, right?)

Tangent: For a while, I kept a "good deeds" chart on a dry-erase board on the side of the refrigerator. On this board, I would write down the good deeds that each child had done for the day. I would ignore the bad stuff, and just keep reinforcing the good. It actually works really well for my boys, and I bet it would have helped me out today. It forces me to focus on the positive and not linger on the storm cloud.

In the end, I only had to return upstairs once to discipline them. And I really can't keep thinking about how rough they made my evening, because really, they did well. Maybe this was more useful for me because I needed to let go. My kids will not do chores if I don't leave them a chance to do them. I've been in hyper-control mode, keeping to my strict schedule (which hasn't left time for the mudroom project, or for fixing the window I broke, or anything else because I have to protect my evening relaxation time). And it really doesn't suit me. I'm stressed, and I take it out on my kids. And I hate to admit it, but I can tell that I'm going to have a bad day when I start my thoughts by thinking about me. "Look what he did to me", "It's not fair to me", "I deserve..", "I wanted..." Yeah, some days suck. But the way that my boys pulled through and got to bed sooner than if they were with anyone other than me (ok, so maybe I wasn't quite as hands off as I thought) make me realize that I am lucky to have these guys in my life.