What a month!

Wow!  What a week it's been since I last wrote!!  To keep with the spirit of authenticity that I believe in very strongly, I must admit last week was a roller coaster ride of highs and lows.  It was in fact, one of the hardest weeks I've had.  Bryan was finishing his last week of September School.  He was quite literally gone almost every day from morning until late night.  Even under normal circumstances this would be challenging for any parent.  With the circumstances of Noah's recent transition issues, last week nearly took  me down.

Wednesday started off very well.  Noah started at his new preschool.  It is called NeHi Christian Preschool and it's in the same building as a local Lutheran elementary school.  I took him by myself and was unsure about how he'd feel about me leaving.  After about 5 minutes, he gave me a hug and sent me on my way.  When Bryan picked him up after lunch, the report was excellent and we were relieved.  In the past Noah had almost never struggled at school with behavior issues but in light of his recent behavior, we were not sure what to expect.  We did suspect though that he was craving structure so it made sense that he was himself at school.  I'm sure a break from home where he has been experiencing many consequences and much discipline lately helped also.  Bryan headed off to write papers and I took over.  From that point on,  Noah's behavior went way down hill.  The main source of his frustration as it appears on the outside is Taylor (although she rarely does anything to antagonize him).  He constantly has been trying to control her every move and she gets mad and lashes out and then he ends up hurting her.....then he gets in trouble.....then he is frustrated that he's in trouble....then his consequences increase...then I get frustrated...then eventually everything finally calms back down.  This is the cycle that has been repeating over and over and over since about 2 weeks before we left.  Two things make it so crazy.  First, it is so frustrating that Taylor is getting picked on constantly when she does not usually bring it upon herself.  Second, is the way that Noah has been reacting to his consequences.  At first when this started, we were experiencing spitting, punching, sassiness, toy throwing, door kicking, etc.  With extreme behavior like that, we made the decision to stop spanking for now.  Spankings were only escalating the behavior and we were getting so angry at him that we felt it was not a good idea to try to spank.  Over the weeks, the episodes have been fewer and those really strong reactions have been more rare.  However, dealing with even 2 or 3 of those big episodes each day along with the many times that he gets in trouble and doesn't explode is still crazy hard!!  So on Wednesday the kids were fighting quite a bit.  I was watching a neighbor's little girl and my kids were fighting almost nonstop.  When her parent's came, Noah freaked out (not sure why).  He started being rude to me and hitting me.  He wouldn't let us have a conversation.  Although I 've been doing a decent job of not owning his behavior, I became very embarrassed, especially because they were going to be watching both of the kids the next morning.  I asked Noah to go down the hall and apologize.  While he did technically do so, he turned around and punched the glass wall afterwards.  That did it for me, I was done.  I scooped him up and took him to his room and shut the door.  All I could do is sit in the livingroom and cry.   Bryan happened to stop by for a few minutes which was helpful but I was exhausted.  Poor Taylor just came over and hugged me.  It was hard.  Very hard.

Thursday morning Bryan and I went to our 4 hour assessment tests that the school provides to help you learn about yourself, your preferences, possible ministry ideas, etc.  As I was doing that, two things were happening.  I was worried about how the kids were being for our friends...and I was trying to not skew the test results with all of my recent circumstances.  One question read "Are you losing your mind?"  At that moment, I felt the answer was at least a maybe!  To my relief, when we returned, the kids got good reports.  The rest of Thursday and Friday were filled with ups and downs.  Basically if Noah is on his own and Taylor is not around, things are calm but the second she enters the room, he changes.  We assume that he is trying to control her because he feels so out of control right now.  Anyway, more and more battles as the week dragged on, wore me out even more.  To make things worse, the kids were having trouble getting to sleep at night which they rarely struggle with.  Several nights in a row I planned to go running after they went to sleep and then leave the monitor with the neighbor......each night that window came and went and I grew more frustrated.  You can see this isn't going any place good, right?

Saturday morning started with Noah in time out less than 5 minutes after he was out of bed.  That is never a good sign.  Bryan had to be gone until mid-afternoon and he'd be officially free for 3 days but at that point, mid-afternoon might as well have been next summer.  Stupidly, I decided that I'd take the kids to Michael's (store) because I needed to drop some things off and then go to the library to pick out some movies and books.  Normally, this would not have been a big deal.  Normally.  Since the morning had been filled with fighting, I told them they could get a prize for not fighting in the store.  Didn't work, 3 fights later, I am walking out of the store with a screaming 4 year old clinging to my leg.  Ugh!  We headed home because he'd also lost his library privileges...it was a hard hard day.  By lunch, I was so worn down, I finally snapped and lost my temper with Noah big time when he decided to talk back to me in a disrespectful manor.....there was screaming, yelling, door slamming, food thrown away, etc.  Not pretty stuff or stuff that I'm proud of.  But I had had all that I could take at that moment.   Again, I sat in the living room and broke down.  It was at that point, I knew a change had to be made.  I needed some tools to deal with this behavior and some tools to help me keep my emotions under control.  I did not want to be modeling the exact behavior that I wanted to teach him not to do.  I talked with Noah and then with Bryan when he got home.  I didn't know what I was going to do differently but I began to brainstorm and pray about it.  I opened my journal for the first time in a month and recorded my pledge to make a change.  Made it through the rest of the day and our neighbor came down to stay with the kids so we could go out for a late date.  We ate at Ruby Tuesday's and drove around downtown Minneapolis.  It was a much needed break!!

Sunday was a new day.  We got up and attended Eagle Brook church where we have been going.  Our next door neighbor (and by next door I mean her front door is about 12 inches from ours) Kara went with us as she's been doing for a few weeks now.  (she was the one who told us about the church)  The sermon was awesome!  It was on making hard decisions and being sure you stay within God's will as you make them.  We were all inspired.

When we got back, the kids got into a big fight on the way inside and Kara helped me with them (Bryan was on the phone).  This sparked one of those long and life-changing conversation.  Turns out Kara is wired much like Noah.  She has also worked with preschoolers and has a heart for pastoral care.  She had some wonderful ideas to help me as I deal with highly emotionally situations.  She also had some great ideas to try out with Noah.  I was so blessed by our talk and truly thank God that she is right next door.  Later that day I had another conversation with a mom from the next building who has a daughter that is spirited like Noah.  I was reminded about an earlier idea she'd shared about behavioral change that had worked with her daughter when she was Noah's age.  Later in the day I escaped for some much needed quiet time and began a study of Proverbs.  The pastor had suggested a one month study of Proverbs so "soak up" God's wisdom in order that it be readily available as you make daily decisions.  I grabbed some Starbuck's, caught up on my journalling and read Proverbs 1.    It was a good new day!

Monday morning I took Noah to preschool and headed home to hang out with Bryan and Taylor.  We worked to decorate Noah's room and surprise him.  His room was the only one we hadn't gotten put together yet since I needed Bryan to help hang stuff.  It turned out really cute and we had a nice time spending some alone time with Tay.  Bryan headed out to pick up Noah and do some errands so I finished picking up the house and played with Taylor.  Kara brought over some homemade cinnamon rolls along with one of the sweetest and encouraging cards that I've ever received from a friend.  I put Taylor down for a nap and enjoyed some peace, quiet and reading time.  When Noah got home, we showed him his room and it was a huge hit so that was really rewarding!

The biggest news of yesterday, however, was the launch of our new behavior reward system for Noah.  I bought several small, cheap but fun prizes and put them in a big basket.   We drew 3 smiley faces on the dry erase board on the fridge and set the time for 2 hours.  Fighting with Taylor results in losing 1 smiley face.  When the timer goes off, if he has at least 1 smiley face left, he earns a prize.  We laid out the new system for him and then I headed out on some errands by myself (love that!).  Bryan called me with the report 2 hours later.  Noah had not fought with Taylor even once and he was going out of his way to be especially kind to her!!!  We were so excited that something was helping!!  Now I know this will not last forever but it's a step in the right direction and providing some much needed change.

Today has been another good day.....I'd even say wonderful!  We've all been able to hang out, finish up Noah's room and just relax.  Bryan has his first class this evening.  A longer break would have been nice but I'll take what I can get.  I am hoping to start temp work next week some time.  I applied for a job here on campus which I am really really hoping to get.  Not only does it look like a great job but Bryan's tuition would be free after 2 years and mine would be free after 9 months (if I want to take some classes).

So to conclude my very long post, we made it through the hardest month our little family has ever been through.  It got pretty crazy and emotions ran high.  We made some mistakes but learned also along the way. .....and today we have a new sense of peace in our home.  For that I am  thankful to our Father above...as I have clearly seen him do an amazing work in our lives over the last few days!!