The Other Side of the Battle

Did you ever wake up one morning to find that you were now on the other side of a battle and you aren't really sure when that happened? This is what happened to me this morning! I think it is my many children's way of "keeping it real" for me. I mean after all just because I am about to welcome my fifth child into the world doesn't mean they should let me believe for a minute that I have even one thing about raising kids figured out.

When I just had the two boys, I loved to dress them. Not that their clothes were ever as cute as what I can find now for Aubriel but I loved to have their clothes somewhat matching and looking nice. I wouldn't dream of bringing them out of the house in a striped shirt and plaid pants no matter how bad they thought it matched and even if both were their favorite. I had spent far too much money buying them cute stuff that coordinated nicely and made old ladies comment on how adorable they were.

But then after realizing this was just one more thing added to my long list of battles each morning I started to think better of it. Plus they were reaching the point where they were exercising their independence, finding themselves as we all do and I for one did not want them thinking poorly on themselves for what obviously made them feel good. So whether I liked it or not I learned to let go of this need to control this part of their lives. After all isn't there enough other stuff I do need to control for safety reasons. Mismatching ones clothes is not going to hurt them in anyway and it is an expression of who they are as individual. The same individuals I fall more in love with each day so I even learned to love this expression of themselves as well.

I love that Gage likes to wear knee high black socks with his shorts in the middle of summer and that Kain will wear all the same color in different shades because he likes to have themes to his clothes and Aubriel will wear a belt with her clothes even if she doesn't have belt loops and even that Brody will sometimes run around in only a diaper and baby legs on his arms and legs. So learning to embrace this part of my children has been fun to watch and at times challenging when I have heard people comment "you are so cute... even though your clothes don't match."

And then I woke up this morning to having no energy and just trying to get the kids ready to go out and suddenly Aubriel decides she no longer wants this gift of not trying to run her life by making her wear what clothes I want her to. I return from dropping the boys off to find Aubriel still in her jammies instead of dressed for gymnastics. So I ask her once again to go upstairs and get ready to go while I run around trying to get myself ready. But no she wants help, so I run in her room and take out some clothes for her. But those are the wrong clothes, so I find something else and it still isn't "right." So I once again leave to let her pick out her own clothes. Well, now she wants me to dress her because she is "sick of dressing herself" (yes, I can only imagine who in the house is "sick of doing everything" that she would have heard this from, probably a tired worn out pregnant mom) as David laughs in bed. So I run back in to help her get dressed but then I had put the wrong leotard on and it is too small and she wants to change which we have no time for so I tell her tough.

But then she has to pee... "are you kidding me!" So all the clothes come off and she pees and I send her back into her room to find a leotard SHE likes but again she wants me to pick it out. RIGHT, this didn't go so well the last time we tried this. By now I have taken off my shoes and laid back down in bed with Dave and simply gave up. I told her we no longer had time to make class and she proceeded to scream in her room about how she hates everything she owns. Isn't this suppose to happen at 14 not 4? So after about 15 minutes of carrying on like this, which is on top of the 20 minutes of whining that has happened before this (my boys give up after about 10 minutes at the most) she finally decides to actually speak to me instead of crying. So she gets herself dressed and we leave with 10 minutes to get to class... we were about 15 minutes late but at least for the next 30 minutes she was someone else's problem of which she was a perfect angel of course.

So as I laid there in bed trying to ignore the screaming from the next room I wondered how did I go from one extreme to find peace to then go to the other extreme in what seemed like the very next day? I suppose it is all part of the parenting game we play each day, we have to find the balance of giving our kids the freedom they need, with the rules they need and both with the loving approval they very much need.