Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Progress. For Me, Not Lily...

as i have mentioned before, motherhood is ridiculous cause you and your 'personal' time are nothing compared to the time that BELONGS to your kids. and sometimes i am good at dealing with this, and sometimes i cheat. but when i cheat- don't worry, i get burned. for example, this morning i stayed in bed till about 8am. it was glorious. lily was definitely in my room with me, and she probably woke up around 7:30, but she let me lay down and drift in and out of consciousness. what a nice girl. i could also hear topher down the hall at about 7:45, but i just kept right on staying where i was at. and then i remembered that i was going to go to church for MOPS, cause they were having a panel of dads come in to speak, and Robert, my annointed-speaker-teacher-pastor brother-in-law, was going to represent a 'new dad'.

MOPS was at 9, and it was already 8. and as close as we live to church, it still takes us about twenty minutes to get there. so then it was hustle time. i got the kids up and into the living room with their morning cups of milk. i ran back to my room to get ready. i kinda had a nose bleed last night (dryness) so then i had blood in the back of my throat. gross, and probably too much info, but it will kinda explain the immensely stupid thing i did next. i started to get my contact lenses out, so i unscrewed the case, and then i started to gargle and spit out into the sink, and all of a sudden there was a contact lens in my mouth. what the heck. i finally slowed down to assess what the heck was going on here. as i stood at the sink, with a contact lens in my mouth, and my empty contact lens case in my hand, i realized that i had opened the dang thing up, poured it (contact solution and lenses and all) into my mouth to gargle. what the heck???? i guess even waking up at 8am was not enough sleep for me...

so last night went alright with putting Lily down for bed. the first night i had to sit outside of her room for about 20-30 minutes. not bad, especially since I decided to use that time productively by reading The Bible. you can't get mad at a kid for not sleeping while you are reading the Bible. then the next night was super-easy cause Lily hadn't napped that day, so even though she tried to fight sleep, she lost. i sat outside of her room for 10 minutes, even though she fell asleep after 2, just so i could finish the chapter i was on. then last night i was in front of her room for 40 minutes, and i finished a book that i had started a long time ago in preparation for a leader's retreat i was supposed to go to. finishing that book marked the first book i had finished reading in two years! YOWSERS. i am going to try to start reading books again- and finishing them! and i might do all of that in front of Lily's room.

so here's the progress i have been showing. i was never a big fan of this 'sitting in front of the room' business, because i was 'so busy'. always so many dishes to do, toys to pick up, numbers to input (for my 'half-of-kinda-part time job), e-mails to write, blogs to blog... etc. so instead it was easier (and my pediatrician even recommended it to me, so it wasn't entirely my laziness people!) to lock Lily into her room and have her scream and cry. i guess my demanding that after 8pm was my time, and no longer Lily-time burned both her, and myself.

and even though this new regiment we have going on is A LOT more time consuming, it is actually a lot less stressful since i have a new attitude about it. i don't sit there and think about how Lily is 'wasting my time' anymore, which i used to when i would have to go up and down the stairs to yell at her to stop screaming and go to sleep. i am plenty good at wasting my own time thank you very much. but now since i am using that time to read, i actually enjoy, and look forward to our nightly routine. Lily sometimes gets out of bed to grab another book off of her shelf, and if she loiters too long, i gently tell her to go back to bed. sometimes she comes over just for a hug and a kiss, and then i tell her i love her, and she goes back into bed. trauma and drama have been replaced with gentleness and kisses. cheesy, but true.

for now, this is working for us. i feel like Lily's been calmer lately, but maybe she is that way cause maybe i am calmer too. she and i kind of have the chicken-and-the-egg thing going, i know i obviously came before her, but i usually blame my hysteria on her hysteria, but maybe it's my disgruntled-tiredness that makes her disgruntled and full of tantrums, which then leads me to be angry-yelling mom (who i hate by the way, as Lily does as well) which she counters with sad and mad and hysterical Lily. i guess being the adult in the relationship, i will change my ways, and continue on this path of calm, patient, and kind mama, and see how that continues to change the Lilster too.

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