A United Front….Sorta

Any pair of parents with half a brain knows that working as a team to parent their kids is important. It gives the kids a sense of security knowing Mom and Dad are on the same side and work together to make sure the family runs smoothly. Mom and Dad know they have backup in each other when facing the parenting struggles that inevitably arise when raising small humans.

My husband and I are fairly good at this. The kids know a lot of things will get a veto from both parents and they’re mostly too young to try any funny business like asking the other parent if the first one says no. However, the kids have figured out I’m the stricter parent and they are starting to ask Dad about stuff instead of me in hopes he will say yes.

Last night the request came to both of us from two separate kids and my husband got sucked in. Miss 6 wanted to sleep with Mr 4 because “he was scared” (this reasoning made me roll my eyes like a 15yo brat, but I’ll go into that explanation another time). Mr 4 asked me and got a veto, Miss 6 asked Daddy and got a yes vote. So the whole thing ended with Miss 6 sleeping in Mr 4’s bed with him…..until about midnight when she had a nightmare and Daddy had to go rescue.

Did I hear her crying too? Yes. Did I let my husband go rescue her even though he gets up at 3am and needs his sleep? Also yes. Was it mean and maybe a bit selfish to pretend to sleep so he would go deal with Miss 6? Probably. But it also helped cement the discussion we’d had after tucking in the kids about getting on the same page and remembering to ask “what did Mom/Dad say?” when the kids request out-of-the-ordinary stuff. Maybe that will help them realize that mommy and daddy are a team and trying to play us off each other is a bad idea. Maybe my husband’s ADHD brain will remember that sticking to the routine is better than switching things up. Maybe I’ll learn that being less strict and letting things unfold in whichever way they do is okay.

It’s Not the Noise….

That drives us moms insane, it’s the way the noise never ever stops.

I’m not saying my children are extra noisy on purpose, or that I ascribe to the old idea that kids are better seen and not heard. I just wish the noise would occasionally stop for longer than 20 seconds.

See, we moms do enjoy the noise our kids produce. It assures us they are happy, content, thriving human beings learning to navigate their little world in preparation for emerging into the bigger adult world. Even when the noise dissolves into the acrimonious sludge of sibling conflict and we have to leap into the breach to prevent Pugsley and Wednesday from sending each other to the ER…we still enjoy the sounds of our kids. The orchestra of childhood wouldn’t be very entertaining or satisfying for parents or children without some tension and drama written into the score.

That said, I think the reason my social media streams fill up with ads for noise-cancelling earbuds and podcasts and audiobooks is the simple fact that we not only need some sort of connection with humans taller than 32″, but we need to listen to noise that has purpose and meaning. We need to hear a stream of words that doesn’t cause us to immediately correct the grammar and pronunciation, parse for subtext, and translate for full understanding while also listening for conflict between other members of the household. And then we need some silence to digest and process everything we heard that day, that week, that month, and at the parent-teacher conference last spring.

That’s where it gets difficult. I am blessed with 4 copies of my husbands and my innate “early to bed, early to rise” wiring so unless I want to stay up until all hours or get up before the rooster, there is no silence. Even when I do those things silence is still not achieved because our mom-brains are sooooooooooo busy we can’t settle our thoughts of kids and house to find enough mental silence to properly process anything. By the time we calm our brains even halfway, little feet are thudding to the floor and the mini-me’s are up and running! Stuff only gets halfway processed at best and that doesn’t really do much to shrink the “to process” pile in our brains.

And there is no solution to this problem right now.

It’s not “the season” (I HATE that phrase, it’s so trite and stupid and over-used and…..I’ll get off this tangent) for finding silence at home during the day. For right now all I can do is grab moments of peace that involve assembling a mountain of snacks, turning on the TV (thus replacing my kid’s noise with the noise of cartoons), issuing firm instructions to leave me alone, and retreating to another part of the house…..where some part of my brain still remains on the alert for noises that signal trouble. Or I foist the kids off on my husband, mentally brace myself to come home to a mess, and run away in my minivan for an hour or two of grocery shopping and aisle wandering without the added effort of tracking 4 extra bodies.

There just isn’t any silence to be had to fully process anything. And that’s okay, but also not okay all at the same time. I don’t really have a point to all this rambling. Words needed to go on something akin to paper because I’m trying to process a thought from 3 days ago while I have 20 minutes of half-silence Welcome to the conundrum that is motherhood.

Wisdom of Teens

Ladies and Gentlemen I am proud to announce that my teen stepson knows

EVERYTHING

-3 Fahrenheit outside and going for a practice drive with Dad? A coat is completely unnecessary. A hoodie is sufficient because, after all, the heater in his 20 year old truck won’t struggle to heat the cab at all! (Those of us who have driven similarly ancient vehicles in similar weather and know differently are….wrong.)

The hat that’s missing? It’s probably in his room under his bed, between his bed and the wall, or buried under something that doesn’t belong on the floor. Stepson informed me that it can’t be in any of those places and, of course, he knows best.

The homework he can’t find? No way it’s folded into a square the size of a business card and buried at the bottom of his dumpster-fire of a backpack. Not possible. (Never mind that this scenario has played out dozens of times before.)

5 Fahrenheit outside and snowing with a wind chill in the sub-zeroes? Obviously a hoodie is more than enough to keep him toasty warm on the 5 minute walk to the bus stop and subsequent wait for a bus that may or may not be late due to unforeseen icy conditions.

Such brilliant instances of the Teen Genius’s thinking occur almost daily and some days it’s a battle to keep from arguing with him. It’s also really hard not saying “I told you so” when Mother Nature, Natural Consequences, and Life in General gang up on the Teen Genius and prove him wrong.

Just to be clear, the Teen Genius is a great kid and fabulous stepson. He continues to dodge many of the stupid, asinine, idiotic, and wrongheaded things many teens do, is patient with his younger siblings, and fights daily to succeed in his high school career. That said I’m making it my goal this week to allow Natural Consequences, Mother Nature, and Life in General to do the teaching.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas is a time for family, celebrating the birth of Christ, and exhaustion. Between gifting, baking, cooking, hosting, shopping, trying to find time for prayer and reflection, keeping up with laundry and the day to day household tasks, and making sure the kids are getting some understanding of what Christmas is all about…..

I’m tired.

It’s not just being a mom and the domestic engineer that makes this entire ship we call a family run with some semblance of a smooth course, it’s the draining of the social batteries. On our best days those of us who incline towards introversion don’t mind some socializing. It does help us keep our social skills in working order and reminds us that there is a bigger world outside our cozy little routine. But hanging out with family and friends, managing kids who have eaten too much sugar or haven’t eaten at all, and trying to remember who to thank for the enormous gift basket of goodies is tiring. Add on two days of Masses thanks to how the Advent and Christmas calendars work out this year….and I’m already tired tomorrow.

I’m not complaining. Well, maybe I am. But just a little. Christmas this year is actually more relaxed than it has been and everything is shaping up to be a wonderful next few days. Cookies are baked, gifts wrapped, everyone is off school and no on has obligations outside of Saturday Vigil Mass, Christmas Vigil Mass, and Christmas Day fun. It truly is a wonderful time of year and I’m very grateful for the loving family I’m spending it with and all the blessings God has showered on us this season.

But I’m still tired.

Full

It’s been a while. Months, in fact, since I last wrote. Life was busy and there wasn’t much time to sit down and pull out the writing-brain without one of the toddlers trying to unplug my computer or spill my coffee.

That’s right, there’s two of them now. The Bear is now fully mobile and gets into, climbs on top of, and pulls open EVERYTHING. Add in Little Miss’ continued refusal to talk and the constant desire to eat of our newest addition, Baby Brother, and life is FULL.

Baby Brother was evicted from my womb in the latter half of February, a 9lb 14oz bundle of screaming boy. He is now an almost 16lb bundle of smiling, chuckling, fat cuteness who loves nothing better than eating and cuddling with mommy. Seriously, I can’t get him out of our bed at night. He’d much rather sleep with a boob under his nose than in his own bed. It’s not like the food supply is going anywhere, buddy! Stay in your own bed and let mommy stretch out! But he’s really, really, really cute so that helps alleviate the frustration.

In addition to the arrival of Baby Brother, we have moved, sold our house, got chickens (both layer hens and meat birds), started a garden, and our appliances keep dying one after another. Yup, last month I got a new dryer and this weekend I’ll get a new washer. Thank goodness for random appliance sales!

So life is busy, and full, and fun, obnoxious, irritating, joyous, silly, stressful, exhausting, and beautiful. And that’s all I have time to write. If I don’t go shower right now it won’t happen and I’ll be in my bathrobe until nap time.

Seasons of Motherhood

It’s been a rough year for this mom of 2. Lots and lots of lessons and learning about how this motherhood thing works and how I fit into the role of Mom. The biggest and most amazing lesson proved the hardest to learn, but has resulted in an astounding sense of peace and contentment. That lesson was:

There are seasons for things and it’s just not that season yet.

When Little Bear made his sudden appearance 3 weeks early it started the ball rolling for me. I wanted to DO STUFF. To be a better mom (that’s still a work in progress and will be until I die), to take the kids to stuff like story time, to join a mom’s group, socialize more, find a side-hustle to bring in extra cash, etc. To do all the stuff that the blogs, experts, and society in general says I should be doing.

Well, we tried. But the local story time was smack in the middle of naptime and Little Miss without a nap is not a nice person. So that didn’t happen. The mom’s group I found that I’d like to be a part of in more ways than just following and commenting on Facebook, also meets during morning naptime. We did make one meeting, but with traffic it’s over an hour’s drive away. A double whammy. After some research I found other groups that are much closer, but by that time I was pregnant again and just didn’t feel like getting out and trying to make friends. Not being hugely social by nature joining any group is a challenge and rather stressful. As for the side-hustle, I tried that shortly after Little Miss was born and decided it wasn’t in my wheelhouse then and it isn’t now, but I keep looking.

My anxiety in general was elevated most of the time as I worried that I wasn’t doing this parenting thing right and wanting desperately for someone to tell me I was on the right track in raising our kids. (Someone besides Mr. Fantastic, that is. He figures they aren’t little brats so we must be doing okay.)

It wasn’t until this fall that I was able to find a day to sit down and have what Winnie the Pooh would call a good think. That’s when the realization hit that it just isn’t the season for story time, mom’s groups, and all the other things I thought I needed to be doing. It is the season of motherhood where we stay home a lot and focus on caring for children and keeping the house clean. Yes, there are still family things to do and church to attend, but the main focus is just being a mom to small children, a wife to my husband, and the best homemaker I can be.

Talk about taking a weight off!! Yes, there are still days I want to do more, but those days God usually allows something to happen to remind me that I’m doing what He wants and that is enough. And truly, it is enough. My plate is full of laundry, cooking, cleaning, teaching Little Miss to be nice to her brother, teaching Little Bear to walk, and trying desperately to find 5 minutes to sit down and work on a project. The days fly by. They aren’t exciting or overly stimulating, but they are full and they are content.

 

 

The Practicality of Toddlers

Toddlers, as I have come to realize over the last few weeks, are a very practical thing to have around the house. No I won’t launch into a bouquet of bromides about how they keep us “young at heart” with their winning smiles and cute faces. In fact they give us grey hair and wrinkles with their death-defying antics and complete disregard of the laws of physics. Nor will I rant about the “terrible twos”, “threenagers”, or “fournados”. Little Miss is 2 1/2 and I am fully cognizant of all the trouble that age can present. Besides, that subject has been done to death by so many other bloggers, writers, and comedians that anything I say would be merely a repeat of other such opiners.

What I want to discuss, or rather mention as time is short, is the overall practicality of these little people known as toddlers.

-Are you endeavoring to change the diaper of your youngest child and suddenly discover what you thought was a simple wet nappy is in fact a blow-out worthy of Mount Vesuvius? And then realize the wipes are half-way across the room and know if you remove the restraining hand from said youngest child (who is a champion crawler worthy of the Baby Olympics) they will roll over and take off on a record breaking streak across the living room leaving a brownish-green trail. Enter the toddler who is quietly sipping a sippy cup and making faces at the dirty diaper. “Honey, go get mommy the wipes please. Go super fast. As fast as you can!” Off the toddler runs, narrowly missing bouncing their head off the wall as they round the corner and nearly tripping over their own pudgy feet. They return at a snail’s pace, fascinated by the package of wipes they opened all by themselves. You praise them for their Roadrunner speed while grabbing the wipes and attacking the baby’s dirty butt. Lesson? Toddlers are your extra hands.

-Do you have a fridge rapidly filling with small containers of leftovers that aren’t quite enough food for one person’s dinner and you’re sick of eating that stuff anyways? Or is there more than enough for one adult, but not enough for two and you just don’t want another tiny container of food sitting in the fridge? Feed it to the toddler! They don’t mind eating last night’s dinner for lunch. Added bonus is having a not-quite-toddler child to whom you can also feed said chili (though you may have to puree it first depending on the status of their teeth). Et voila! Clean fridge!

(Now I understand there are picky eaters out there who will not eat the same thing twice. In our house we have a simple rule: eat what Mom serves or starve. Remember that scene from Beauty and the Beast where the Beast tells Belle “Then go ahead and starve!!” Yeah, my kids are familiar with that line, though I try not to shout. Obviously there are limitations to this and we try to make foods the littles will eat, but some days there is just no pleasing anyone and I refuse to be a short-order cook.)

-Are you tired from a long day of work and eager to do nothing but sit in your recliner, sipping a beer, and watching a little TV? Do you get a bit put out when the beer is gone and you are required to get up and walk to the fridge for another? (definitely a first-world problem, but even those have their merits). Train the toddler! They always want to “help Daddy” especially when it involves getting into something they are usually forbidden to touch (e.g. the fridge). Little Miss learned how to do this last night and is soooo proud of her new skill she can’t wait to practice it tonight when Daddy gets home.

There are a multitude of other practical things toddlers can do:

• Fetching laundry hampers, clean diapers, wipes, etc.
• Carrying in groceries (if it’s a small bag or lightweight item)
• Getting baby’s bottle, blankie, pacifier, favorite stuffy, etc.
• Reaching things that fall (especially if mommy is 6 months pregnant and unable to bend that far)
• Opening/shutting doors
• Turning on/off lights
• Wipe up spills

I realize this post is turning into something I didn’t intend it to which is a mild harangue on putting your kids to work. While I’m all for the child-labor laws that emerged from the industrial revolution, I dislike this modern tendency of parents to do everything for their kids. It’s so important to teach children not only life-skills, but also provide them with a means to gain self-sufficiency and the opportunity to take pride in small accomplishments. Besides, as my aunt says, it’s a lot easier to teach them this stuff when they’re little and don’t know any better than it is to fight them on it later.

The Battlefield of Motherhood

I had an idea this morning as I sipped my first cup of coffee and watched Mr. Fantastic don his work boots. He reminded me (nicely as there is no nagging in our household) about checking a certain game camera to see if still works after being attacked by either a bear’s paws or a cow’s butt and knocked to the ground. I mentally ran through my day tallying up when quiet times are and which quiet time is likely to be more conducive to the concentration needed for this task…and I realized that being a mom is like being a general about to fight a battle.

It’s a daily battle to keep the kids alive, uninjured, and somewhat happy or, at the very least content, while keeping the house in one piece, performing such necessary chores as laundry and vacuuming, and getting decent food on the table at fairly regular intervals. Like any successful battle in any war planning is key, knowledge of the enemy helps, and luck is something for which to hope. As a mom I have a serious advantage in knowing my “enemy” (a.k.a my kids) well and understanding those things that make them nice people to be around and those things that will snowball us into a day of disaster.

Some days disaster is unpreventable. Stuff just happens. Little Miss wakes up on the wrong side of the crib, Little Bear is extra curious and extra frustrated by the word “no”, and mommy just loses it. Such is life. Those are the days when I retreat, turn on a movie, give them snacks, and retreat for a bit to clear my head before going back into battle.

Other days the war is fought and won with smiles, giggles, and happiness all around. Those are good days and we have a lot of them. But without the punctuation of the bad days, we wouldn’t know how many good days we actually have. Those days when I start with a plan, when I remember we have a schedule of sorts and I stick to it, those are the good days. It’s true that kids like regularity and structure. They feel safe when life is somewhat the same, somewhat predictable. I throw a curve-ball in on occasion because predictability is not life and I want them to learn to adapt and survive and still be nice about it, but I try to give them as much regularity as possible.

An old friend summed it up nicely the other day: “if I don’t carpe the diem it’ll carpe ME first!!!” And she’s right! It all comes down to planning. Not the detailed, meticulous planning I did in college to stay ahead of my classes and assignments. I’m not a person who likes strict schedules, they annoy me and make me anxious and grumpy (unless they are set by outside forces beyond my control). But a loosely organized, somewhat routine plan with more or less set times for certain activities is what keeps this little home battlefield clear of unnecessary carnage. Not to mention keeping this General Mom sane and nice which is key to keeping this little home a nice place to live.

Call it just another angle of this “self-care” mantra that’s going around all the parenting blogs. I call it following in my grandmother’s footsteps. She raised 5 kids and had a set time each afternoon when the kids either napped, or played quietly in their rooms for 2 HOURS so she could have some peace. Woe to them that broke that peace! (I may have mentioned before that my petite, white-haired grandmother is a lovely, wonderful, delightful, loving person with the terrifying ability to melt NFL linebackers and Navy SEALs into puddles of jelly with a single “look”. The woman is amazing.)

Today is still young, just budding out, and there is no telling how the battle will go. But the plan is in place, the battle lines drawn, I’ve run out of things to say (though I have an inkling of at least 6 tangential directions to take this thought), and the clock is reminding me that if I don’t shower and dress now, it won’t happen at all. So, best of luck to all the other General Moms out there! May your battles be few and the war not too terrible today. Soldier on!

 

The Widowhood of Hunting Season

(A gentle warning for the sensitive: This may get a bit graphic. We hunt which means we kill animals and then eat them. If you don’t like the concept of killing animals for food or get queasy at the mention of butchering processes, then this post is not for you. You have been warned.)

They talk about football widows. It’s a known phenomenon that during football season thousands of men (and a few women) tune out the world for hours at a time and dive so far into the world of football it’s a miracle they find their way home again.

What fewer people talk about is the hunting widows. Those of us who stay home and wait for our husbands (or wives!) and kids to come home from hunting whatever game is in season. These folks don’t get mentioned as much because hunting is something of a taboo subject in the “real world”. (Really, you should see the reactions when two guys figure out they have hunting in common. It’s like two guys figuring out they picked the same players for their fantasy football teams. Instant brotherhood.)

Therefore, in the vein of Jeff Foxworthy:

You Might Be a Hunting Widow If:

It’s not uncommon to find spent cartridge casings and shotgun shells in the washer.

You threaten to start charging .25 cents each for bullets and shotgun shells found in the laundry. And, knowing that threats are useless, you put a jar above the washer to collect stated fines and start planning a trip to Hobby Lobby to spend your recently acquired wealth.

You have washed game bags and rolled them for use just like the factory does.

Bloody clothes don’t freak you out.

You find yourself stocking up on things like bleach, Dawn, and Lysol (or Clorox) wipes with the sole purpose of sanitizing your kitchen after butchering dead things.

You are expert at wrapping oddly shaped chunks of dead critter in plastic wrap and butcher paper.

You walk into the garage and don’t jump/freak out at the sight of a dead deer or other large quadruped hanging from the ceiling minus it’s skin and feet and various other parts.

You name said dead quadruped because your husband hung it in such a way that it’s dead eyes stare right at the door from garage to house and it feels rude not to greet said creature every time you walk into the garage. “Hi Fred! How’s it hanging?” (Yes, I went there. No, I’m not ashamed.)

You become an expert at sharpening knives for butchering.

You have a large roll of butcher paper sitting on a shelf somewhere in the house.

Your kitchen contains several rolls of freezer tape and you use it to label everything.

You have an endless supply of Sharpies for marking packages of dead creature.

You buy the Costco sized roll of plastic wrap and hope it will last through hunting season.

You never run out of gallon sized freezer bags because they fit two grouse perfectly and two grouse is a meal (or two!) for the family.

You wash empty milk jugs and refill them with water to take up empty space in the freezer because a full freezer runs more efficiently. You also know frozen milk jugs are great for keeping dead critters cold during transport home from the field and much cheaper than buying ice.

You have more than one freezer. One is full of white packages labeled “Buck 2019” and “Bear 2018”, the other one holds everything else including a couple of packages of elk from your cousin who ran out of freezer space and is sharing his bounty.

You know exactly how long to cut a segment of hock or hind quarter to fit in your crock-pot for slow-cooked venison/bear/elk/moose roast or stew meat.

You buy one 3-lb chub of sausage from Costco each payday because your husband likes to grind it into the dead deer/elk/moose/bear to add fat. Also, you worked out the math that it’s easier on the budget to buy one chub each payday over the course of several months than buying several chubs all at once.

Your spouse babbles about which Game Management Unit he’s planning to hunt on which weekend in August, September, October, etc…..

You have to teach your spouse that it’s better to stop babbling on occasion and sit down with you and the calendar to map out actual dates for hunting trips.

You understand things like GMU, wildlife management, modern firearms vs. black powder, “quarter out”, “football roast”, “3 point minimum”, and the difference between grizzly bears and black bears.

You have taken hunters education classes and have a hunting license even though you don’t necessarily ever plan on shooting anything to eat.

You have to remind your husband to change out of his bloody shirt and jeans before sitting down to watch hunting shows before bed.

Your freezer has at least one section full of 32oz. yogurt containers of “hunting dinners” for grabbing and cramming in a cooler for hunting trips.

It’s normal to find more firearms tucked into corners of the master bedroom than at any other time of year.

You have to remind your husband that the baby is now crawling and he may NOT leave a rifle tucked into that one corner of the living room like he did last year.

You hear the phrases “hunting season is coming” and “gotta start prepping for hunting season” in February. In April it changes to “the new hunting regulations are out! I got 2 copies!” one for drooling over and the other for backup when the drooled over copy is no longer readable.

In June your husband turns into a giant baby and keeps saying “Hunting season is NEVER going to get here!!!” in that tone usually reserved for 9 year olds eagerly awaiting Christmas.

Your husband freely admits the only way he remembers your wedding anniversary is because it’s during the first week of bear season.

Your child will never live down the fact that his surprise entrance into the world 3 weeks ahead of schedule meant his father could not go on that one late hunt he’d been planning on for months.

You plan meals around butchering because there just isn’t room in the kitchen for you, your husband, and chunks of dead creature so you clear out. It’s either a crock-pot meal or breakfast for dinner!

Bonus tip for those about to marry a hunter: You know you’ll be a hunting widow if you have to threaten “Either we get married in (insert chosen month), or smack in the middle of hunting season. Your choice.” (Actual threat by me to Mr. Fantastic. He was waiting for the ring to arrive before formally proposing and I had to explain that we needed to set a date now to reserve the church. The threat worked.)

Fast-Track to Graduation

Motherhood is a lifelong education, that much I have figured out. However, there is no syllabus, no text-book, no how-to manual, and no lecturing professors (unless you have a judgy mother in law, aunt, mother, grandmother, or other relative/friend/coworker/fellow mom’s group attendee). There’s just a bunch of opinions, ideas, concepts, arguments, theories, and good/bad opinions out there. As a college class motherhood is a mess!! And there is no hope of graduation. Just lots and lots of continuing education.

All that said, there are classes that can be passed successfully and you’ll know you’ve passed them when you make an adjustment or change in your parenting because it’s necessary and good for the child (and you!), and you don’t spend several days agonizing over the effect it will have on your kids. I passed one such class last night and upped my “mean mommy” game to a new level. What did I do? I moved the “time-out” chair down the hallway.

Little Miss doesn’t like time-out. She doesn’t like being put in a spot and left alone/ignored for a whole 2 minutes. We have always had the time-out chair in the living room, but last night I realized that time-out wasn’t doing diddly-squat because Little Miss just turned around and watched TV over the back of the chair. Sure, she wasn’t cuddling with Daddy anymore, but that wasn’t cutting into her TV time. So the chair got moved all the way down the hall to the corner by the master bedroom doorway. Now when she sits in time-out Little Miss can’t see the TV and is even more isolated.

Does this sound mean? Or unfair? It isn’t. Time-out is a gentle way to teach Little Miss to mind Mommy and Daddy, and be kind to her siblings. It gives her a chance to learn to get herself under control when she’s out of control, and it gives Mommy a couple of minutes to get her own temper under control, clean up a mess, or calm down Little Bear. When we use time-out consistently our house is calmer, quieter, more loving, and happier than when we don’t. So I passed another class in motherhood last night. Little Miss was effectively reminded that Mommy means what she says and that obedience is far more fun.

My ultimate goal is to possess the same quiet authority my 80-something grandmother still has over her children. My Grandma can still shoot “the look” at her adult children (some of whom are grandparents in their own right) and they get her drift. We grandkids were (and most of us still are!) terrified of getting “the look” because we knew it meant a report would get back to our parents and punishment would be swift and merciless. Plus, getting “the look” meant we had disappointed Grandma and we just hated to do that. We love and respect Grandma so very much and it just doesn’t feel good to make her unhappy. If time-out is the way to teach Little Miss the respect, obedience, courtesy, and self-control she needs to be a functional adult, then so be it.

I’m sure things will change as Little Miss gets older and as we figure out the best way to discipline our other kids. There will be more classes in motherhood and more things that need adjusting or finessing to facilitate our kid’s growth into good adults and functional members of society. Some days will be better than others, some classes will be easier than others and I won’t pass every subject with an A+ grade. But isn’t learning what education is all about?