Tough Love

Sometimes being a parent flat out sucks.
I hate the discipline aspect of it.

Sometimes the kids do something wrong and I know I need to yell at them, but only after I laugh first and grab the camera. Like a few years ago when I was folding laundry and watching Super Nanny in my bedroom, and they decided to make it snow in Ben's room.





Powder mixed with lotion is not a good combination. I'm still finding powder in nooks and crannies of some of Ben's toys.

Today was the opposite...
Today David and I were furious.

We've had issues with Emily coming out of her room at night forever. It wasn't bad during the school year. I think because she was so exhausted that she didn't wake up. Earlier in the week, she woke David and I both up twice for no reason. Well, she makes up a reason, her leg hurts, she wants to sleep with her Dad, her nose is stuffy. It gets pretty old.

After almost a year, Noah is finally sleeping through the night and now we have our 5 year old to deal with. After the last time, we told her we were going to start taking stuff away. My friend took a parenting course at our church and they told her that you have to get serious. Taking away little things won't cut it. It's called impactful consequences, aka hitting below the belt.

She woke us up twice last night, and I couldn't go back to sleep because I was thinking up impactful consequences. I've learned with Emily, stuff doesn't matter to her. I need to take away an experience. It's hard when you have another kid (Ben) who didn't do anything wrong. I don't want to punish him too by not going somewhere fun. We had plans to go to the movies today as part of the summer movie program. So, David worked from home until noon and I took Ben to the movies.

She had to stay home.

The tears. The pleading. Oh gosh, I wanted to cave, but we held our ground and she stayed home while I went on a date with Ben. The baby stayed with David too since it was his nap time.

I was a little giddy. The movies were supposed to be hectic, juggling a baby, feeding him, praying he falls asleep, refilling popcorn for the kids... It turned out to be nothing but peace. Ben and I enjoyed Ice Age Dawn of the Dinosaurs and ate our popcorn and milk duds in peace.



I think we drove the point home this time.