Pick your battles.

As we speak, my 2 year old is eating chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream with mozzarella sprinkles for lunch. The other two are happily eating their Pb and J's and mandarin oranges. Ben, who did not want breakfast, suddenly decided at 11:00 that he needed a hot dog. Yesterday they had turkey bratwurst for lunch. Guess who ate two? Guess how many are left? That's right. None. Enter giant tantrum due to lack of said hot dog. I showed him everything else for lunch in the house. He sobbed "h-h-hot doooog!" Then he saw the chocolate sauce in the fridge and wanted it on his Spiderman Popsicles. Hmm. Not a good choice, so I pulled out the ice cream, thinking at least he'll get some dairy. NONONONO. We went through the whole kitchen again. He stopped when he saw the cheese, when I was showing him there were no hot dogs. He pulled out the shredded Mozzarella. "Do you want grilled cheese?" No, and he points to the ice cream. Ew. But I opened the bag for him and let him do it. He asked for seconds.

This makes me seem like a giant pushover. ~sigh~ Not my intention, but I have been struggling with patience for a while so I've decided to try some different tactics. Screaming, punishing and frustration did not seem to be working. Patience, love and acceptance doesn't either. But I'm sticking it out for a while, hoping something will change. Ben isn't quite as bad as he used to be. I let him play on the computer this morning with a promise that as soon as he was done we'd get dressed. We he came up a little while later, he got dressed no problem. I used to insist that he do what I wanted right now but I realized I can be more flexible, and we can have less fighting. We'll see. It's hit or miss.

Then there's Maddie. I intrust to her a marker for writing her Valentines yesterday. This morning I discover she's streaked her hair blue. I'm so disappointed in her! I didn't punish her, but I told her how upset I was. Since then, all I've heard was "I'm being good, aren't I mom?" Ug.

All of this makes me feel like a giant failure. It doesn't seem to matter what I do, who's advice I take, none of it works. They don't listen when I want them to, they throw fit's when we need to leave, cry over nothing. Is the definition of "good mother" how well your children behave? Isn't that a reflection of your skills? Or is it just, 'Well, they're alive, I'm doing great!' ?