Breathe In....Breathe Out...

That's my week in a nutshell. Unfortunately, I've not followed that advice enough and I have been more of the Wicked-Witch-of-the-West mommy instead of the Good-Witch-of-the-South (aka Glinda) mommy. More yelling and being 'ugly' than I care to admit. I apologized to both kids at some point (Thursday?? They all run together now.), something I have not felt I needed to do before now. I tried to explain to them that I lost my temper and yelled when I was mad and that is not something we are supposed to do.

Let's go over the issues, shall we? Maddux is 19 months....going on 13. Years. She is in the full blown tantrum phase where she goes limp in your arms when you pick her up and she cries and screams like someone is poking her with a fire stick. She also loves to get Eli riled up. Maddie will see him playing with a few toys, slowly walk over, and then grab one of them and take off, shoulders hunched up. She knows it angers him and she likes that. Maddie's voice is also an issue. She appears to have no inside voice these days. Happy, sad, indifferent....it all comes out loud. LOUD. As for Eli, the issues all boil down to one thing: sticking a toe over the line. He's not overtly defiant, nor is he doing any large-scale disobedience. But disobedience is disobedience and he pushes the limits every chance he gets. Over everything.

Let me tell you how it's just a barrel of monkeys dealing with these two opposing and intertwining discipline issues at once. When nap time comes I seriously collapse from sheer exhaustion only to watch the clock, counting down the minutes until I have to go back into battle for another four or five hours. I'm doing neither one of them justice by handling the situation 100%, so nothing is getting better. I vowed today to deal more with Eli since he knows the drill, and he is a good kid. It won't take him long to get back on track. Maddie might (read: WILL) take longer since she's fairly new to the discipline game. So far today, Eli has had three time outs and I'm expecting more when he gets up from his nap. That being said, I've not had to go any further with it, so I'm rejoicing in that small victory.