Today was one of those days. One of the days when I failed as a Mother. The boys are asleep, so I can sit here with my wine and watch The Bachelor: The Greatest Seasons — Ever! I finally have time to sit back and reflect on the day and everything that happened. This is an important process for me. Today, I lost my cool more than 10 times. I put the boys in time out at least 12 times. I used to be able to serve a punishment and it hold a significant meaning for them. Now, they do not stay in timeout. They do not listen. They talk back. They laugh at me. They team up against me. All of a sudden they don’t eat dinner anymore? And all of this brings out the not so great qualities in me.
So what do I do? Well, for starters, but the boys to sleep early because since they didn’t eat dinner they don’t get dessert or milk and having them awake and me being in the mood I’m in isn’t a good mix. (Anthony has a virtual planning board meeting tonight.) Now I need to reevaluate my strategies and how were going to move forward from here. For starters, I have already told the boys that tomorrow they are only allowed Breakfast, lunch, dinner and one snack — no dessert. They are also on a screen limit. (Great timing as we are going to be experiencing Hurricane Isaias tomorrow.) These, I guess you could consider, are still punishment from today, but I need to follow through with my words/threats.
My next obstacle to tackle is dinnertime. So, I will now be making dinner and eating with the boys instead of waiting for Anthony to get home from work. In our house, the kitchen is completely closed off from the rest of the house. So when the boys are playing in the living room or basement I can’t see them unless I watch from the WiFi camera on my phone. The past 2 months, I haven’t really put effort into their dinners and I guess that is why they are (probably) giving me dinner difficulties. So yeah, I will be eating dinner around 5pm instead of 7/7:30pm. (Probably healthier for me anyway.)
Next, I think the boys need a little more scheduling in their lives. That all went out the window when summer came. Most days are spent at my in-law’s pool, so our days are great with very little fighting about anything. Wake up, breakfast, boys play or watch TV while I pack lunches and snacks, Bathing suits for everyone, I pack up everything else needed. I sunscreen the boys right before we walk out the door for the minute drive (#MomHack). We swim for at least 4 hours and then pack up and head home to make dinner. Swim days are the best days. [Side note: It was my decision to not go swimming today. I decided to catch up on housework and paperwork today. So I guess today was my fault.]
Soooo, the beginning of this post was written at night on August 3rd. My computer died and I had decided I was going to finish the post in the morning. Then Tropical Storm Isaias came. We lost power for 2 days. Ugghh, losing power, in the summer, with kids is the worst! We had toughed it out the first night, but then decided to pack up the boys and the food that was open already and head to my mom’s. We ended up staying there for 2 nights, even though our power came back, because our town was on a water restriction. The pumping stations had no power to them and we were essentially borrowing water from other towns. After our 2 days were up at my mom’s we came back home and repacked for our week in Pennsylvania.
And here I am. It’s Thursday, I’ve been in Pennsylvania since Saturday. But today is my first day with a computer. I’ve been catching up on sun and sleep. Spending time with my in-laws and the kids. Swimming in the pool and riding bikes and riding “slimmer” – their little electric ATV. My in-laws own a house in a mountain community up here. It is so nice. We have a place to come and snowboard/ski and tube in the winter and then in the summer there is a pool and a lake with a small beach. We love it a lot. Anthony spent his summer growing up up here. And I spent my summers 20 minutes up the road. We were always destined to be.
If Covid didn’t exist, we would be going out to mini golfing and the to carnival and race cars and really exploring Pennsylvania. The boys are finally at a great age that we can go and do all this fun stuff, but keeping a mask on them is hard. Trying to keep them distanced is hard. Life in the Covid world is messed up, like seriously messed up. I am happy for the quality time with the kids, they are only little once and I’ve really truly been able to watch them grow and mature and love on them tons. But I’m sad they’re missing out on friends and family and traveling and fun exciting stuff that 4 and (almost) 3 year olds can do. I’m just going to keep my fingers crossed for next summer.
What are some of your favorite memories from your childhood summers?
XoX
Christina