Parenting is Tough

Today has been one of the most difficult days I have ever had as a parent, one of those that makes me go "God what were you thinking when you decided to give me kids."

First there is Maddox's stunt... Madison had just cleaned her room, and it was spotless, I checked. While Maddox was supposed to be resting in his room he apparently had better plans. . . he went into his sister's room and completely destroyed it. The strung all her clothes from the hamper across the floor, threw shoes out of the closet, pulled books off the shelves, unmade her bed, and cleared her night stand onto the floor. I was only later alerted to this when Madison went to her room and shrieked "Maddox! Did you do this to my room." His reply was a nonchalant shrug...

...my reply was a bit more, shall we say colorful. In the end he cleaned it all up, and apologized. His only explanation for why. . . "Sister is always mean to me."
This is true, and while I originally thought he was being vindictive, I have come to think that he is just a 5 year old boy who loves his sister beyond words, and is extremely frustrated with how she treats him. He, being quite witty, chose the one thing that would get her in the most trouble. He knows that she has to have her room clean to go to a friends, and that she told both her dad and I that it was clean, so it would have been a double whammy! Not doing her chores AND lieing.

I have to say that Madison was pretty sweet about it all, I had called her in to tell her brother exactly what needed put where and she kept trying to go easy on him. When he had finished, and had given her is tearful, heartbreaking apology, she took him by the hand and they went to pray together and ask God to forgive him too. This about broke my heart.

My second episode came just a few short hours later... Madison and her buddy had worked hard all day getting Madison's required cores done, so she could go spend the night. When the mom came to pick them up, I was reminded that I needed her to come home by a certain time the next day. Madison's whole affect dropped into pouty teenager. {the first mistake} Then I found out the girls had been planning to go over and do chores and get paid and go shopping. The problem with this second part is quite complex... we don't pay for chores, they are a responsibility as a member of the family, AND I had just taken the dynamic duo shopping the night before. But the biggest issue was the part where their whole agenda was kept secretive, Madison knew I wouldn't be ok with it so she didn't bother to tell me.

Consequence... no sleep over. This was a particularly difficult consequence for me to dole out as it had the potential to cause some tension and conflict, after all Madison's punishment doesn't just impact her.

And because the sky opened up today and decided to dump a bunch of s*** on me, this one little decision to not be upfront has done just that... tension and conflict has sprouted up in my friendship with this mom {who is a really good friend}, taking hold and settling in my stomach, I feel like vomiting {I don't like conflict AT ALL}.

The really ironic thing about this is Allison just blogged this about parenting, how we all have different parenting styles, and we should have a little more trust in our fellow humans. And since I am a big girl now I will need to buck up and handle this conflict rationally, sans emotions. Because, while my friendships are so important to me, my husband's opinion and support for how we parent is the only opinion I need to value.


Learned: In the midst of all this I really only needed to know that I had done what B thought to be right, as soon as he said he supported it it made the rest bearable.