Kids need a good spanking...or not

I was recently hanging out with some friends, none of which have kids yet, aside from ones in utero, and it took me back to before I had kids and my common idea of “Kids need a good spanking. Time outs and redirection are stupid.” I remember saying things very similar. And then… I had kids. And so, when I walked away from that conversation, I felt bothered. I felt like I should have spoken up more, but then I felt they wouldn’t understand until they had kids of their own.

With kids of my own, especially three in 35 months, I discovered that each child is different, and each action that requires discipline is different. Spanking is not the end-all answer for discipline. I have never been anti-spanking. However, before my husband deployed, I did not spank often because I didn’t know how. My spankings were weak, and my children did not care one bit if I gave one. (Granted being very pregnant also made spankings difficult.) My husband and spankings, I remember those being a different story.

But in the past year, my children have gotten older. They have a lot more learning, a lot more disobedience, and require a lot more discipline. These are forming years for them. I’ve realized that when I use discipline, I want to help them understand what the right thing to do is. I want them to learn that X is wrong, and instead we should do Y. Spanking doesn’t necessarily facilitate that. Spanking says “You did X, it was wrong, here’s a punishment.” When do you teach them that they should do Y instead? Also, what do you do when in public? I want consequences to be equal, whether at home or in public.

I’ve also learned that many of the times I spank, I do it out of anger, and sometimes take it too far. I feel that spanking is completely wrong in those situations. Therefore, I feel, for me, I should not be spanking as much as I was.

And the ultimate reason I’ve started spanking less? My kids laugh. Or they scream until I walk out of the room, and then they immediately stop to tell each other to get out of bed. In other words, spankings are doing absolutely no good in our home as of lately.

And all of a sudden, being in a conversation with a bunch of non-parents, I was laughing thinking back to how I use to say “Kids need a good spanking” and then realizing that I’m rarely spanking any more.

I think the right phrase is really “Kids need loving parents who use discipline to help teach their children,” as discipline can come in many forms.

So I’ve been searching out other methods to add to my parenting toolbox…Which I will explain in future posts, as this one has gotten pretty long already :)

Kid funnies

With one child just 4 months shy of being four, and one child just over two and a half, i hear some pretty funny things. If you follow me on Facebook, you may have read some. And I have to warn you that some of them may be slightly TMI, but out of the mouths of babes makes everything funny.

Hannah brought me some (pretend) breakfast. "Here's your breakfast mommy! Abby chewed it up for you" Oh... nice

I was using the bathroom at home and my son hands me the box of tampons and says “Here mommy, these are for your poop.”

Zach-Mom! I almost fell in the toilet! That would be bad... because then we can't have another kid.
Me- WHAT?? Why?
Zach- because you'd flush me down the toilet! ( In other words, we'd be MINUS one kid. Him falling in has nothing to do if we can have ANOTHER one. I was trying to understand how he knew about more kids)

Hannah was wailing. I went in and she's holding herself down there. I asked what was wrong and she said she hurt her butt. I asked her how and she said "I bounced" I had to stifle a laugh as I wondered how she ‘bounced’.
I said “You bounced?”
Yes, i bounced.
Come to find out, she JUMPED/Bounced off her bed and hurt herself.

My son had had a sore penis recently. A few nights later, my 2.5yo daughter is in the bathtub grabbing herself and in a pretend whine, saying “My pinky hurts mommy”.

Me: DO you have to go potty?
son- no
M- then stop playing with yourself
son- no, I'm trying to get my candy! It's in my pocket.
Sure enough, he had an unwrapped tootsie roll in his pants, right next to his boy parts!

We were praying the Our Father and Zach was saying it with me. We say "And lead us not into temptation" and he stops me to say "Mommy, I don’t know what that is."
I ask “What? Temptation?”
Him- Yes...
"Well, it's when someone tries to get you to do something you shouldn't, like when Hannah tries to get you out of bed."
son-but why?
Because they're trying to get you in trouble"
his reply? “Ok.” And we finished prayers.

Very similar to the fact that now at meal prayers, I get requests for which prayers we’ll say. If it’s Our Father, or God Our Father or Now I lay Me Down to sleep or just “Thank you Jesus for this food.”

You can learn a lot about your parenting skills and those around you by listening to your children. Hannah likes to tell her brother and her bear “I’m going to spank your hiney, you hear me? Stop talking. Sit still. I’m going to put you in the corner if you don’t behave bear. No you can't watch TV” (I tried to figure out where hiney comes from then discovered my dad says it) She definitely feels like she's in charge. I'm nervous about what will happen as Abby gets older

I know there have been more stories and humor in my life lately, but right now, these are the ones I'm still laughing about.

Not what I expected

It's been a month since i posted this post. I have to admit, I did not receive the reply I thought I would. The only reason I'm bringing it up is because the end of that post said "I'm interested to see the results in a month or so." The result? God is still telling me to wait. Doesn't He understand I dont do that well? I know in the Army, this is typical. But my husband is Air Force. The last time he deployed, we knew by this time when he'd be home. I find this frustrating.

But, it's not as frustrating as the fact that we've somehow gotten scammed. We've had something in a pretty small amount show up on our bank statement the past TWO YEARS. I thought it was his video game, he thought it was something I pay for online. Today we discovered, it was neither. Rather, when googled, it's something hundreds of people have complained about in a similar fashion. So for the past TWO YEARS, we've been throwing away almost a total of $300. And of course, the bank will only reimburse us for the past 60 days. I am trying not to think about it too much, but it makes me sick, sick, sick to my stomach. Tonight involved a phone call to our bank and a canceled card. Tomorrow will include lots of phone calls to companies that have that card on file. And this, like the the first thing, was not what I expected today.

Saying Goodbyes Hurt

Today, mass was really neat. Our priest is a brand new priest. His (younger) brother is the Vocations Director for the diocese. Today, the two brothers presided over mass together. It was very neat to see/hear two brothers sing the prayers over the Holy Eucharist. My eyes watered a little and thought Wow, what amazing parents they must have had and how pleased their parents must be. The brother, as Vocations Director, was also happy to announce that a young man from our parish was just accepted to the seminary to become a priest and what a joy and excitement that was. He said we should continue to pray for the young man, and pray that there may be another young adult next year.

It's Ascension Sunday. (Although some dioceses celebrated it mid-week this past week). Ours celebrated today. Our pastor was talking about how at the end of Pentecost, Christ ascended in to heaven. He mentioned that we all hate saying goodbyes and that they hurt, but that even the disciples had to say goodbye to Jesus.

This really touched me, especially as I am about to say goodbye, yet again, to my family, some of my best friends, and others in the area. Plus we'll be traveling back to where we use to live, saying goodbye to those friends, and goodbye to my husbands' family. I HATE HATE HATE goodbyes. I'm sure he didn't mean it in this context, but I also thought about how 11 months ago, I said goodbye to my husband. Thankfully, one day, just like the disciples and us did/will see Jesus again, I will get to see my husband again. Of course, I'm hoping it's here on earth that I get to see my husband again. ;-)

Then I also thought about other times he said goodbye. He traveled a lot, probably made friends, and had to say goodbye. Unfortunately, they didn't have email and Facebook, so their goodbyes were not like ours. But that brought a glimmer of hope to my soul as well. It was comforting to know that yet again, something we have to go through, Christ himself went through.

I've also come to realize that while we're called to be humble, I have a lot to learn in that area.

Recently I was in the military passport office applying for ours. The desk lady shared with me that she was recently helping another mother. She was pregnant with her 4th, all under the age of 4. Her husband was already overseas in another country (I believe Germany as well). She had to stay in the states because she had a complicated pregnancy. She was going to eventually have the baby without her husband here (I can relate to that one), then fly with all 4 children alone. I CANNOT imagine that one.

As Catholics, we believe in taking our struggles, and using them as prayers and offering them up for others in similar or more difficult situations. I have tried so hard to remember this stranger in my prayers when I'm struggling, or remember single-moms who won't get the other half of support back in a year. I know there are families out there going through much worse. Yes, every person's cross is their own cross and can be rough, but really, I don't have it that bad and I can take these opportunities to think and pray for others.

But this is where I struggle with humility. I don't always think of others and instead think "Woe is me, poor pitiful me." and whine to someone or to facebook or to my blog. I pray that I can start thinking of others in my struggles.

Temptation

My brother-in-law (husband's brother) will soon be ordained into the priesthood. He's been writing daily little emails (Also readable on his blog). The one Br. Nathan wrote yesterday really spoke to me, as he said:

It’s at times like these, especially when you are working alone,....that temptations increase. Have you ever experienced that yourself? When the devil uses your difficult moments and tries to pry into your thoughts with temptations of division, envy, negative judgments or plain old self-love? “How come it’s always me? Don’t they realize? This isn’t as easy as it seems?” etc. etc.

I hadn't thought about it like this, but I feel exactly like he said. That Satan has used my difficult moments of doing so much alone lately, to tempt me, to make me mad, anxious, jealous, and all kinds of other sins. Sins I hadn't even realized I was doing because I was so deep in to them, and so deep in doing all the work alone. And yes, self-love. I try to be humble about most of it, but I am one who needs words of affirmation, and therefore self-love definitely sneaks in.

Last night, as we were saying bedtime prayers, my son, three and a half, was actually reciting the Our Father with me (pretty rare). We said "And lead us not in to temptation..." and he stops me. He says "But Mommy, I dont know what that is."

"What? Temptation?"

"Yeah"

I try to explain to him that it's when someone tries to get him to do something he's not suppose to. Like when his sister tells him to get out of bed when he's suppose to be in bed.

He looks at me, and says "But why?" (We're going through this "why" phase)

I said "Because they're trying to get you in trouble."

He says "Ok" and we continue our prayers. You could tell the rest of the prayers, he was still thinking about this big word, TEMPTATION.

I think I will be thinking a lot about temptation in the coming days, and the words of the Our Father will resonate in a new kind of way for me. I have just over a month of doing it on my own. Lord, please lead me not in to temptation, but rather help me stay clear from it.

My newest craft projects

As I said before, I'm really in to crafting lately. It helps relieve my stress I've realized. So I was browsing the internet. While I like crafting, I'm not very creative, so I have to find ideas from others.

So I found this article, and made these for my girls! :) I love them and can't wait to hang them in our new home in a few months! These pictures would be a lot better if they were hanging, but I'm not hanging them to take them down within a month.

Then I found this post and thought "I could do that for all my ribbon!" So, I admit, I began looking at people's trash as I'd drive past, looking for a drawer. I must have looked for 2-3 months, and then, one day my dad was taking out the trash, and saw our neighbor throwing a dresser away. Here's the original:
And here's the redo! :)
And you can tell the only problem right? I need to buy more ribbon haha!!

Medical stuff done!

I feel like I reached a huge milestone in preparing for our move. After a doc appt for all of us, an extra one for me, 2 dentist appointments each for my older two and myself, a form for oldest kid through school, tons of medical records, and some additional phone calls, forms, letters, and faxes, I have mailed all of our documents off to the closest AF base (3 hours away!) I have an appointment set for 2 weeks away. THEN we can get our official orders. THEN we can do everything else. But for a few short days, I sighed some relief and over the Memorial Day weekend, thought very little about our upcoming move.

Instead, we enjoyed our annual family reunion at the beach. We had a lot of fun and I was amazed how much all three of my kids, even the 9 month old, loved the beach.

Last week was sad and emotional for me. My older two had been attending a preschool two mornings a week at a local church. They were too young for Pre-K, but they had a 1 and 2yo class. I put both of them in the same class. My thought was they needed an opportunity to have friends, since I wasnt involved in a MOPS or anything like that. Also, I needed a small break to run errands, etc with only 1 child around while my husband was gone. I LOVED their preschool and so did they. Unfortunately, last week was the end. Now begins the real challenge of getting ready for a move and running all errands with three little ones under foot. This too, I can do. It's just a slight challenge. ;-)

My husband and I spent the day emailing back and forth. There's SOOO much to do to move overseas. It's overwhelming when you are stationed at an AF base, have a squadron and a husband around, but if you take all of that away, well, overwhelming becomes an understatement. There's so much information out there, and sometimes you get the wrong info. For example, I thought we had 2,000 lbs of unaccompanied baggage we could send (Stuff that we'll be shipping from here) No, today I found out it was 1,375. No idea where the 2000 lbs came from, so now I must figure out what I'm going to ship, and what we're going to carry in the van and/or ship to Colorado. We also found out a few things we thought we could do now, indeed, cannot be done until we have official orders. So now, we just sit and wait for my medical appointment in the next two weeks, then we wait after that for orders. Until then, we continue to do research and make tons of lists. It will all happen, right? I mean, it has to.

Crafting

I have begun to learn that if I am doing some kind of craft, it really helps alleviate my stress and helps me to not feel so overwhelmed. I had decided a while ago to make the girls matching red, white, and blue dresses, for Memorial Day, 4th of July, and daddy's homecoming. I finished Hannah's last week. Here's a preview of it.
Here is a picture of the detail on the front, a flower.
And here is the back detailing, a cute star button.
And finally, my newest project I just started. Anyone want to take a guess at what I'm making? :)

Germany better be worth it

I recently sent an email to my best friend, and realized why I feel so stressed. Since this pretty much all pertains to being an Air Force wife, I thought it'd be appropriate to share here. As I told her, I'm so stressed i could curse til the cows come home and drink til my liver failed, but I know neither would help!

Jon's job has become much busier all of a sudden, because they've given him a second job. This is bringing on longer hours, and him not able to communicate while at work on email. This comes at the same time that his roommate is gone, so while we thought we'd get to talk more and do more video chat, we aren't able to.

He originally thought he'd get to come home any time in July, now it's not so. (He left July 28) Now he could stay even in to Aug maybe. We have absolutely NO CLUE when he will come home. July/August-ish. His sister is getting married in Aug, so hopefully he'll be home by then. This also means that until I get those dates, I can't set up anything for meeting movers in CO and in FL, hotel plans, plans in general for traveling.

Then move on to the fact that there's tons of paperwork i have to get filled out for our military medical clearance. I got a lot of it done, felt good. Then there was a dental form for me and a medical one for my diabetes. The diabetes one I faxed 4/19 and spent all last week back and forth with the office, resulting in me faxing it again this week. The dental one, I went in this week to get done, got my cleaning, but my dentist refused to sign it until I get 2 fillings I need, which wont be until the 26th because that was the earliest available. Then the military person told me that the form I have to get filled out for my diabetes, I also have to get done for all of us since we're going over seas. So, I dropped them off at our primary doc this week, but they refused to even take them, and I had to make an appointment for all of us, and now have to drag all 3 kids to the doc next week right during nap time. I think I have been to the doctor more in the past year just to get forms filled out than I have for a real medical reason!

THe problem is, AFTER I get all these forms, I have to make an appointment, which is only done on Mondays, at a base 2.5 hrs away and take all 3 kids and myself up there. I MAY be able to have this all done by the first Mon in June (My husband was hoping I'd get it all done by the end of Apr/beg of May), but that Monday our son has a followup on his removed tonsils, so we can't even get our medical appt until June 13! Until that is done, husband cannot get his official orders, and until he gets his official orders, we can't get anything else done, set up movers, set up shipping our van, get on the housing waiting list, etc.

Plus throw in little things like the Post office cant seem to deliver mail I've been waiting for and seems to have lost TWO things Jon's sent me...like I went to take Z to swim lessons Monday night only to get there and find out they cancelled them without calling me, or that they had the wrong number typed in and didnt make any other efforts to call me, as they do have my number right in other places...or like the fact that I got chewed out for not flossing this week, that I have gingivitis, and two cavities (my 2nd and 3rd ever)...or like trying to plan the little bit that we do for Rome, trying to communicate with BIL (the future priest) and the travel agency that is not so great at getting back to us in a timely manner, or cashing our check we sent 3 weeks ago. Or that they did email me last night with a rude email, or that our warranty on our van expired 2,000 miles ago and we needed a wheel bearing replaced.

I feel like I've just become an absolute b!tch and any stranger just makes me mad. I have no patience for anyone, nothing nice to say to anyone. I'm grumpy, moody, mad, frustrated, stressed, etc and if anyone passes me, it's soooo evident. And I'm not even PMSing! (actually, fertility returned for one cycle, and nothing since then!) And I'm sometimes unintentionally taking it out on my kids. Yes, I need a 'girls night out' or a mom's day out or a massage or whatever, but I know that wont make it any better. I still have all of this behind me to take care of.

Wow, seeing this all in writing puts it all together and makes me realize why I feel like I do! AHHHHHHHH! No wonder I feel like crying every time something else goes even slightly 'wrong'. (Not looking for anythign, just ranting, venting/whining.)

Two Separate Prayers

Tonight I realized that I'm at a tough spot in my life. A spot where one thought is consuming me, and I am getting hung up on this thought way too often. And the thought is "When exactly will my husband be home?"

Granted, any normal person would say "That's to be expected. I would be bogged down by that thought too." So, maybe I am normal. But tonight, God reminded me to be anxious for nothing and to cast my cares on Him. It hit me that I haven't been reminded of these truths in a long time. And it's clear that Satan has begun to use that to his advantage.

I feel like it's been a while since I was close to God. My kids have been my focus for the past year, and I haven't really had the strength and energy to focus on God. Even getting to mass has been extremely hard, but I've been going for the most part, feeling that I'm barely hanging on, and that's the string keeping me hanging on.

But tonight a thought crossed my mind. Whenever I start worrying about the date, I'm going to turn it over to God. I'm going to say "Lord, you know this is bothering me, please ease my worries, and give Jon a date soon." Those are two separate prayers. (1) Ease my worries and then, aside from that (2) give us a date soon. But first, I want him to ease my worries. I know that maybe this is a test in patience (WHY? I didnt pray for any!) and that we will know eventually. This is just a huge struggle for my personality. However, I do want him to get the date, and God tells us to ask, so I will. I'm interested to see the results in a month or so. Until then, I'm falling asleep typing. Goodnight.