Samantha had her 8-year well visit check today. I sat in the waiting room beforehand filling out the general "well-visit" questionnaire, for lack of a better term. I was checking off the discussion points I'd like to have with the doctor:

• anger
• behavior
• development
• sibling issues

I'm sure you can see the pattern. I realize kids fight and siblings get in each other's face--I was the older kid, too. I just don't remember spewing so much venom and hate--maybe it's because we were the opposite sex. I can feel Alyssa's hurt and it bothers me. 

Just yesterday Samantha mumbled that she wished she was an only child. My issue was that Alyssa simply climbed into the car for school, unprovoked. And it's like this most days. I'm sure it's all normal, but my parenting brain is telling me to find a way to calm Samantha, to guide her in the right direction. 

When we were in the exam room the doctor came in and talked about what makes Samantha happy and what makes her angry. And instead of looking away, Samantha looked him in the eye and told him about how she gets angry and how sissy doesn't give her space. And the doctor talked about negotiating with Alyssa rather than just slamming a door in her face. They had a hypothetical conversation about how Samantha could say, please give me some space now and in an hour I'll color with you. He asked her how she'd fell if the tables were turned. 

I sat back the entire conversation and said nothing. I watched Samantha, suddenly very grown up, discussing her feelings and emotions with the doctor. And she understood what he was saying and later told me that she'd give his methods a shot. 

I came out feeling very encouraged and amazed at this child sitting across from me. Lately all the frustration with sibling rivalry and dealing with hurt feelings has been overwhelming and consuming. I've failed to see this child in front of me growing and changing, trying to keep up with the changes inside her and around her. 

Today, thanks to our wonderful and encouraging doctor, I was able to take a breath, step back and see this amazing child I helped create. She's thoughtful, curious, and very articulate. And I'm so proud of my Bug.

As we get ready to go back to school for another year one of those inevitable parenting realities has begun to hit me--my oldest will be 18 in ten years and possibly off to college, away from home.

The last 8 years have gone by so fast that I'm sure I'll look back on 18 and wonder how it happened. But in the meantime, I've begun to feel sad about it.

I want my children to grow up, don't get me wrong, but there is part of me that wonders if I'm still missing out on what is in front of me. Am I too busy? Do I pay attention? Should I care less about the other things in life like laundry, home repairs, etc., and more on coloring and barbies?

I suppose some of this is natural, but much of it is coming by the way of self-inflicted guilt. As my kids grow and change, I feel like spending time with them is more important than ever before. When they're toddlers they're happy generally anywhere, doing anything--at least my kids were. And they loved their daycare provider and felt just as happy there as they were at home. But the reality is I am missing them and missing out.

It's not a matter of job before family because I have a normal work schedule, but it's a matter of focusing on them when I'm off the clock. It's about making time for them whether it be dancing in the living room or playing dress-up for hours. It's about making dinners a little less complicated to spend that extra hour playing tag. It's about sitting down and listening to them; really listening and not letting my mind slip into thinking about the dirt on my kitchen floor.

This year, I'm going to try and refocus on my children so that I don't feel I'm missing out. I'll stay and watch them at ballet practice. I'll read to them every night or have them read to me. I'll play tag and we'll eat macaroni and cheese and hot dogs for dinner. But it will be okay, because they'll be happy and so will I.

Sometimes you find books at the thrift store that you wouldn't normally seek or that you didn't know existed on subjects you didn't know you wanted to read. Case in point--parenting books.

I have "How to Talk So Kids Will Listen," but it's a bit to philosophical for me. I haven't been able to stick with it for the five or so years I've had it so I doubt it will do me any good. But my mom handed me one that had me giggling in the first five minutes: "How to Behave so Your Children Will, Too!" (Hey, the kid peed in the fridge!)

I've been trying to change my own pattern of yelling at the kids and succeeded (once) for two weeks. Big feat! I can certainly do better.

Some days I'm so tired and I give the kids instructions like "Go put your pajamas on and brush your teeth." Ten minutes later they are giggling and half undressed and still haven't brushed their teeth. I don't want to get up to walk across the house to sternly tell them they should be doing X or Y. I just yell, "Hey, you aren't doing what you are told." It's a pattern and it's not pretty. I'm sure the neighbors get sick of hearing me. I don't yell anything cruel or mean or angry, it's just annoying. And if I'm annoying myself . . .

And then there is the discipline part that is challenging. We have the most behavior problems with Samantha because she pushes the limits with her little sister (as all kids do). We often resort to taking away technology, but that is starting to feel ineffective.

I thought about putting a consequence jar together so that the punishment would be that they'd have to pick a simple chore--sounds good.  But then I thought that maybe we should be reinforcing the good behavior with a reward jar instead. I already expect my kids to help with chores like cleaning the bathroom and folding laundry. Of course, I haven't implemented either.

I did notice, however, that when I was able to stop yelling for those two weeks, my kids were more gracious toward each other, they were more loving and helpful all around. So we'll see what this book has in store. If I get one simple, even minuscule, thing out of it and it works in my house then it will be worth the read.

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Coincidentally, I ran across this article just after writing this post . . . "Noticing the good in our kids"
              

Thrift stores can be awesome and my family sure loves them. We visit our local thrift stores at least once a month. We have two locally that we support: the hospital thrift store and our local community pantry thrift store. We donate and we buy (a lot).

My parents love to shop furniture because they like to refinish the pieces for resale. I have a small house so I buy what I will use. But we buy books mostly. And truthfully we have a lot unread; but when I ask my kids if they want to go to Pat's they get so exited. They don't care about anything else in that shop except for the books.

Our little library

If we're lucky we find old library books or an entire series. I picked up 32 Magic Treehouse books over two months and recently the library a county over gave up a series of Cynthia Rylant early readers: Poppleton and Mr. Putter and Tabby. I think I picked up about 15 of those.

Samantha tried reading the Magic Treehouse series, but it just didn't interest her. So when I found out that one of Samantha's classmates was having difficulty learning to read I gave his mother the entire series with the hope that it might interest him. One day he came up to me and told me how much he loved the books. At first his mother read them to him and slowly he started sharing in the reading until he was on his own. He couldn't wait to read through them all.

Alyssa is at the cusp of learning to read so early readers like Biscuit are becoming very important in our house. And reading an entire series of books that have a common character appear to be what will interest Alyssa the most.

My husband used to moan and groan about the constant influx of books, but he's finally given that up. He sees the excitement in the girls' eyes when they surround themselves with books. And when our interest has waned we bag them up and donate them right back to where they came from.