Mama's confused

Dear blog readers, feel free to weigh in here, because I am sorely confused.  I am almost ashamed to admit the source of this confusion, but here goes: often I cannot tell the difference between a "temper tantrum" and a passionate display of genuine grief.

Here's what went down in our home this evening:

One little boy, exhausted from waking at 5:30am and not taking his afternoon nap, became very angry at his brother over a spatula that he was not sharing, and screamed and cried himself to sleep on the couch.  This is not the incident I want to highlight....  I started waking him up around 6:30 or so, knowing that if he continued to sleep, he would not only miss his opportunity to eat before bedtime, but also be too wide awake to go to sleep at bedtime.  Waking a tired toddler at 6:30pm is not easy.  So we eased into it; I sat with him for awhile, then let him wallow on the couch while I played memory with his brother, and he eventually came over to watch and even made a few matches of his own.

So I did the unthinkable: I offered him dinner!  Big mistake.  This boy was not ready to talk about dinner.  Until I mentioned that other brother had eaten jelly bread along with the offered ham and sweet potatoes.  Jelly bread sounded good, so I offered him a plate with all of the above.  This is where the train derails.  The boy indicated, to my understanding, that he wanted his bread folded in half.  No problem, I can accommodate that.  The folded bread popped open a bit, causing severe distress, so I refolded a little harder.  Somewhere in here, some unforgivable error was committed, and boy began to scream and cry and push his plate and food away. In a tear-blurred attempt to right the wrong, he ripped the bread, causing greater screaming and crying. 

This is where I am confused.  Is my son genuinely grieved that his bread is not the way he envisioned it; is this grief that must be acknowledged and comforted?  Is my role as his mother to stand by him in his suffering and offer support and consolation?

OR

Is this a big fat ol' tantrum over a piece of jelly bread?

I know what my grandparents' generation would say: It's a tantrum, walk away from it.  Don't feed into it, don't give it attention, etc.  I get this.

I also wonder if some of the more recently popular parenting philosophies might encourage me to stand by him, console where I can, encourage him to express his emotions appropriately, and make sure he knows that I love and care about him.  I kinda get this.

I understand frustration and sadness.  I don't want my son to feel abandoned and alone when he is frustrated and sad.  Whether I think that the source of his sadness is legitimate or not is not the issue; one can be just as sad over a piece of jelly bread as I might be over the scene I found in their bedroom earlier. [That's a story for another day when I can find some humor or truth in it, but I'll admit that I did cry and I don't think it was a tantrum.]  I want my children to know that they can express their emotions to me; I want our home to be a safe place to be happy, sad, confused, and more.  A place where we can show our emotions and support each other through all of it. 

So, help me... a tantrum or genuine grief?  Is it just two ways of naming the same thing?  And how do I respond?

Tonight I chose to "ignore" the "tantrum."  Now, you all know you can't really ignore a tantrum.  The best you can hope for is to pretend to ignore it.  I offered choices:  You can come to the table and eat when you are calmer.  You can come upstairs and get ready for bed with us or you can stay downstairs and cry.  Yes, this lasted for a very long time, off and on until bedtime at 8pm.  At one point, the boy was sobbing on my bed while I got their room fixed up from the earlier not-going-to-talk-about-it incident, and the other brother told me, "I'm going to go to .... (brother)."  He went into the other room and attempted to console his brother.  I was humbled.  Here I am, expecting a toddler to pull out of his grief without any help from me, and his brother is lovingly working at cheering him up and trying to put a smile on his face.

One last thought before you weigh in: tonight I forgot my most effective strategy for situations like this.  One of my favorite ways to handle these moments is prayer.  I pray out loud with or for or over my son.  I name his grief to the God how knows and loves him and ask for comfort and grace.  Very often this calms the torrent of tears and screaming; almost always it helps to calm my own heart. 

The new math

Here's the old math:  2x2
Two (boys) x Two (years old), hence the title and inspiration for this blog.

Here's the new math: (2x3) +1
Two (boys) x Three (years old) + One (on the way)
Starting to look a big more complex, isn't it?

 
Today I had an amazing moment with all of my children.  Titus and Micah caught me mid-change with my big old baby belly showing.  They loved it.  They were especially fascinated by the outtie belly button this new baby has caused.  But after poking at that, they both wrapped their arms around my belly, laid their heads against "baby" and cooed.  They have a sound they make for the baby, a sort of "eeee-eeee" squeal-coo kind of noise, a cutesy kind of baby talk.  They also say: "Ba-beeeeee."  They save it for their little sibling.  I almost melted.

As I saw all three of them together, God showed me how easily love multiplies.  It doesn't divide.  Adding a baby to our family does not mean that my time, energy, and love will now be divided three ways.  It does not mean that Titus and Micah will be missing out.  Rather, the love multiplies as there is a new family member to be loved by and to love.  They have the opportunity to know and love a new sibling.  They will be recipients of more love because of this baby.  That's multiplication! 
 
Instead of 2x2=4 we have (2x3)+1=7.  And, in case you're rusty on your math, seven is bigger than four.  It's a very good number.  Maybe I should rename my blog seven.

And that's your math lesson for today. 

Bring on the brokenness

I am learning to walk in brokenness.  To see myself as I really am.  To cut through the illusions and wrestle with the reality of myself as completely broken, hopelessly sinful, with no hope of changing.  I'm learning this after what I mentally label "a year of loss."  Maybe you know some of the events that contributed to this: a miscarriage, loss of vocation and ministry, loss of friends, and some more nebulous losses, like losing the roles that defined us.  I'm not intending this to be a pity-party.  Far from it.  Because this has also been a walk of grace.  

I have lived so long as a believer that I started to think I had something to bring.  Surely I should by now?  Compassion for others, a servant's heart, a gentle spirit.  I played (poorly) the role of pastor's wife: inviting people into my home, listening quietly, supporting my husband and making sure he was well-fed, dressed, and encouraged for his hard work.  I played the role of devoted mother.  The role of Christian friend.  Only to find that those roles can be taken away in a moment, can be brought into the light and revealed for their failures.  Broken.

This stripped away, I eventually concluded that the most I could offer was an eloquent prayer of repentance, a picturesque model of faith and submission, a devoted disciple of Christ.  Instead all I saw was a face blotchy and red from crying and a blank stare when asked how the gospel applied to my situation: "I don't know."  Broken.

I am defining myself in new roles: poor in spirit, a mourner, hungering and thirsting (see the Beatitudes, Matthew 5).  Broken.  But these roles are not something to avoid, to regret.  Rather they are accompanied by promises so full of hope: the Kingdom of Heaven, comfort, filling.  Grace. 

This walk of brokenness is a walk into grace. 

Some days I wonder if I have ever understood the gospel at all.  Twenty plus years of this journey and I never understood?  Some days I wonder if I understand it now.  That this grace asks nothing.  That, in fact, it demands that I hold nothing, that I am broken.

Without brokenness there can be no grace.  

And I finally begin to see how much I need grace.  Bring on the brokenness. 

Change!

Change: love it or hate it, it will find you.  I tend toward the "hate it" end of the pendulum.  You know, rather deal with the devil I know than the one I haven't yet seen, and all that. 

Being a parent, along with life in general, is slowly teaching me that fighting change is a waste of energy.  For example:

• Oh, yay, you're pregnant and you're so happy you're past that first trimester, when wham-O, at 19 weeks you get a new onslaught of nausea and must-eat-only-pretzels.
• Yes, you know a newborn doesn't sleep much, but this crying til 3am will never end, will it?  Wait, is he asleep?
• Ah, blessed morn, when you first wake after a full night's sleep as your twins boys finally learn to sleep "through the night."  Only to find a week later that they've hit a growth spurt and are starving at 3am again.
• Oh, you thought buying the house meant you would live there the rest of your life?  Silly girl!
• You think this "No" phase is here to stay...  he sounds like a teenager, doesn't he?... and your techniques to discipline are completely ineffective.  But suddenly you're husband says, "Hmm, I didn't give any time-outs today," and you realize you didn't either!
• Deeply entrenched in the stay-at-home-mom, storytime-at-the-library, making your own yogurt from scratch, mommy-blog-reading routine, you find yourself suddenly considering an abrupt shift to "working mom." 

And so on.  Some changes seem bad... okay, let's say it - they stink!  They keep you up all night nursing a suddenly sick kid or leave you wondering how you will pay for your prenatal appointments.  But some, some are good.  Your baby smiles at you: it's amazing!!  A first step, a complete sentence - wow! 

Sometimes change comes in the form of a spiritual shift.  A new way of seeing something.  A light turned on.  Can I call this hope?  Sarah Groves sings "Hope has a way of turning its face to you just when you least expect it."  Yes, I've been surprised by hope in the strangest of places and the most confusing of times.  I didn't even know to look for it; and there God finds me.  

Ups and Downs

Today was not our best day.  Sorry to say, I failed to mentally record a cute conversation or moment to share with you.  And I just looked at the clock and suddenly remembered my "23 days of posts" challenge to myself.  So here's some ups and downs from our day:

UP: Micah woke up DRY this morning and stayed DRY all day long, even with a long morning outing!
DOWN: I planned too many errands into our morning, and after shopping at Aldi's, browsing/running around at ACMoore, and looking unsuccessfully for a good deal at Old Navy, there was some unwarranted snapping from me at a boy who was just tired and ready to go home.
UP: We tried painting for the first time today, and it was a hit! 
DOWN: Someone cried when I too harshly corrected him for dumping out more paint when I was in the bathroom washing the other boy's hands.
UP: They liked the homemade tomato soup (yay, avoiding all the sugar in that canned stuff).
DOWN: We dropped a full bowl of it on the floor.
UP: Both boys napped and practically put themselves to bed half an hour earlier than usual.
DOWN: Someone has developed a new SCREAM of outrage... it's seriously bloodcurdling.  It is used when he is not happy with how things are going.  This cannot continue.
UP: Looking at pictures from Daddy's trip and the boys asking to see more pictures of him, saying "My Daddy!" at every one.
DOWN: to daddy on the phone: "I think you should come home now."
UP: We checked off another day on our calendar... closer to daddy coming home. And I even completed another day in my challenge.

Goodnight!

More identity conversations

Conversation as we got ready for bedtime:

Me (to Micah who had draped his blanket over his head): are you a ghost... or a shepherd?
Micah: Mary!
Me: Oh, Hi Mary, where's your baby Jesus?
Micah: I don't know.  (looking around) In here. (pointing to my belly)
Micah: Who can be Joseph?  (looking around, indicating me) You're Joseph!
Titus: NO!  You can't be Joseph.  You're a girl.  I'm Joseph.
Micah: I'm Joseph too, I'm a boy.  Joseph is a boy.  A boy is a boy. (to me): You're Mary.
Titus: Mary is a girl; you're a girl.  Joseph is a boy.  Micah and I are boys. 

Looks like we have another identity puzzle piece in place. 

Twin Identities Not-in-Crisis

Today at lunchtime, we played a rousing game of "favorites."  My sons are deep in a favorites phase, where they have made strong attachments to particular things, and are learning to identify themselves with these things.  The most obvious one is favorite colors (see this post).  

To keep the fun times rolling, we worked through a few rounds of favorites.
Colors: orange/ red
Food: bread/ apples
Toy: trucks/ ambulance
Song: Jesus Loves Me/ Jesus Loves the Little Children (it has the word "red" in it)
Person to kiss: Mama/ Josh and Pete (haha)

Person to talk to on the phone: Nana and Papa/ Pete

Store: Shoprite/ Target 
Stuffed animal: tiger/ walrus 
Etcetera

They even threw some good ones at me, like what is my favorite room and my favorite fish.

I was amazed at the fact that their answers never overlapped, even when in reality, I'm sure they both love the Lord of the Beans DVD equally.  It's as if, once chosen by a brother, that item is off-limits.  We have a Dr Seuss book that asks "would you rather be a .... or a ..." on each page; they always choose opposing answers.

I take this as a good sign that we are NOT having a twin identity crisis at this phase of life.  They are developing into two distinct people with clear opinions and personalities.  I love this!  

The other week I looked over their Sunday School papers, and found one labeled "Micah" and the other labeled "Titus, definitely not Micah!"  I can only conclude that there was some uncertainty about names which Titus cleared up with some passion.  Good for him.  

Here's some of the things we do with the boys to encourage their individuality:

• Call them by name (almost never "the twins," though I do slip and say "the boys" often; see this post!).  We've done this since day one.
• Ask them individually: Do you want milk?  Would you like more broccoli? Which book would you like to read?  even when I know the answer.  Give each a chance to answer for himself.
• Encourage turn-taking.  "It's Micah's turn.  When he's done, it will be Titus' turn."  Asking them to share or play together is not helpful.
• Take pictures of them individually.  (This is pretty much unavoidable; good luck getting a picture of them together.) 
• Wear different clothes;  have different blankets; etc.
• Follow their developmental cues: I currently have one partly potty-trained and another not even working on it. 
• Surround them with people who love and value them as individuals (big shout out to Papa and Nana, Yaya and Elliott, Ms Linda, Pete and so many others here).