Since school started/This Kids/Rethinking all my life decisions

Since school started that's all we've done: school, piano, soccer, homework.  All that run-around-drive -you-crazy-I-wasn't-going-to-be-this-type-of-over-worked-taxi mom stuff that is tiring, sometimes boring, and gas-consuming but I think, I hope, is good for my kids and helping them become better people, disciplined with  a 10-mile long resumes so they can get into a good college, but more importantly build strong testimonies of Jesus (not sure how soccer accomplishes that).  All the routine that we lost when Zora was born that makes like feel safe and comfortable and in control, even if it's a chaotic control.  That's what I've been doing.

Henry, on the other hand, seems to be hell-bent on destroying my life and any sense of control I have.  In the past few weeks, he has

*chased multiple kids at the park with a metal shovel

*stolen another kid's shovel causing a minor freak-out from said-kid's mother (she over-reacted if you ask me and my friend who also saw)

*chased down another friend's child with the sole intention of pushing her until she fell

*torn every book off his shelf every day while he was supposed to be napping

*thrown a plate off the counter just to see if he could break it

*and in all other ways made me question all my life choices.

It was the day he chased poor Gwen down at the park just so he could push her over that I lost it.  I was feeding Zora, so Gwen's mom put Henry in time-out for me, but I just wanted to cry.  Why is Henry so bad?  Why did I bother even having children?  I would be richer, thinner, get more sleep, run more, write more, read more--do more of the things I like to do and stress less about the mess the kids made, about Henry causing bodily injury to other children, about them not being good at sports, watching too much TV, getting cavities--all that mom stress.  Wouldn't my life just be better without children?  

Oh, but I've learned so much from them.  True.  Especially this last week all my weaknesses have become readily apparent.  Thank you Henry.  So maybe I've been *blessed* with all the kids to teach me humility and to not judge and to be patient and to focus on the important things and all those other things that I'm really bad at.  Maybe women by nature are just more wicked than men, as the early Catholic's thought.  Maybe that's why women are the primary nurture-ers of children, because we need the humility more than men.  Maybe we can judge the righteousness of a woman by the number of children she has--more kids=less righteous.  She needs more kids to teach her more lessons on how to be a good, self-less person.  Looks like I need about 10 more kids based on all my weaknesses Henry's pointed out this week.

The next day we went to the library and I checked out a few new books on parenting and discipline.   One, The No-Cry Discipline Solution, is all about positive parenting, basically how to trick your kid into doing what you want as well as the constant reminder that although 2-year-olds seem to be the most malicious and devious creatures on the planet, they really lack the mental capacity to do things in any sort of pre-meditated way and they are just really selfish and lack a concept of future.  It reminded me of all that stuff that I knew but have forgotten as I parent more children.  But I've tried to be more positive in my parenting with Henry lately and remember that he is just doing what seems fun at the time and he's been much better behaved this week.  He's stopped yelling so much and is just more pleasant to be around.  I think he was internalizing how much he got yelled at for all the naughty stuff he did.  He still hits and kicks and pushed the neighbor a few times on Saturday (she may or may not have deserved it), but he played with Alice and Rex for a few minutes today before destroying their game.  Things are getting better.

The other book, The Collapse of Parenting, is making me question myself and my parenting.  A lot.  I've implemented the 1-hour of outside play for 1/2 hour of TV on week days and 1 hour on weekends.  The kids hate it.  After watching Alice not be able to run down the field at her soccer game on Saturday, they need it.  I'm also questioning my approach toward after school activities and school in general and basically all my life decisions.  I wish raising kids was a little more like math and less like a formal analysis from a post-colonial point of view of Heart of Darkness, if you know what I mean.

On Friday, Henry decided to ruin my day by waking up at 6 am and then falling asleep in the car on the way to Alice's 10:30 am dance class.  No nap that day.

He covered himself in mud one day

I was trying to get the house clean last week, but Henry was a tornado in the wake of my cleaning so I just carried him around for a bit.

This is what he does during naptime instead of sleep.  I'm trying to decide what to do instead of nap time/quiet time so that I get a few minutes to myself in the middle of the day.

Henry does love to help my cook and I usually appreciate the company.