handling anger...

anger...it's something you sometimes stamp down...push it down into your gut...stuff it down until you can't hold it any longer and burst out often hurting those around you in some manner.
yup, i flipped my lid...this weekend the kids were refusing to help picking things up and i found myself yelling and screaming i could hardly make sense of what i was yelling about let alone expect my 5 year old sons to understand it. then i realized that pushing all my emotions down for years holding on to past negative experiences stuffing down piles and piles of feelings was making me bitter and angry and resentful, not all of the time, but at certain moments, often when i feel stressed, these negative emotions and all the anger burst out and i freak out...screaming like a mad woman...and the tears that i really needed to release started flowing...i was mad that i was yelling at my kids...angry at myself and sad for them that i had done so, and i was also weeping for other reasons...you see, i used to cry a lot, sometimes i didn't even know why i would cry, but in the last 7 or 8 years, i have cried so few times...yes i cried easily when my boys were first born, but i've done a lot to build a fortress around myself...i've been hurt a lot and stuffed it down and stuffed it down...i stuff down so many feelings that it's not surprising i'm having a hard time loosing weight. i hold all these emotions on my physically as well as the internal damage they have been wreaking. while i was crying and coming to these realizations a little body wrapped around me and i heard declyn's little voice "mommy, i love you! it's gonna be o.k., we're gonna be o.k. you just need love." and i hugged him closer and cried even more...he was right...i try and try to keep from loving and being loved because of the pain that i have suffered, but what i really need is love. i don't remember when i stopped loving myself or when i started stuffing my emotions down, exactly, but i sure as heck am going to switch gears...how can i teach my kids to love themselves and to handle their emotions and express themselves if i am not doing so??? (i even cried while writing this)i cried until i finally felt i could stop and handle the situation calmly.
about a month ago i decided to start being more true to myself and stop feeling the need to defend and explain so much of what i do and immediately ran into a wall... and as usual figured i'd better do as everyone wants/expects...but you know what, it gets me no where. all the explaining what and why and arguing with people who will never understand me or my point of view...so i am taking baby steps..working slowly at being more fully expressed and not taking crap for my decisions...i'm sick of trying to please everyone else and walking on eggshells. i'm sick of hiding my emotions and living up to other people's standards and expectations rather than my own. does this mean i'm going to yell and scream some more, possibly, but i'm hoping to manage to find more constructive ways of handling my negative emotions...i've done it before and can manage to do it again.
anger is a difficult emotion...first there is sorting out the real reason for it, if there is any and sorting out why you are feeling that way and who it is directed at versus who you are really angry at, but if you don't handle it it eats away at you and you stuff it down anyway you can until you can't contain it anymore...i used to write poetry and draw or paint to handle whatever emotions i was feeling...i can never get the time to do those things, nor the money for the supplies these days, but i have to somehow. that and getting back to a regular daily meditation practice...anyway, this is probably not the best post i've ever posted and has more to do with my emotions than it does with parenting, but it's what i got for the moment.

simplifying...

i won't lie...sometimes i loose it and i find myself yelling "how many times do i have to tell you not to jump on the couch!!!!???" later, i always feel bad, but take note of ways i could better handle the situation..we learn from out mistakes and i could blame it on PMS or the pain i'm in or the stress i'm under, but rather than do that i think "how can i do this better??? how can i get the kids to do what i want without yelling or being negative? how can i put a positive spin on the situation?" some answers are easier than others and it often depends on the situation and kids being kids are not always going to respond how we want, so you have to let go and learn which things need pressing and which things need to be let to slide...often discussing why jumping on the couch (or peeing out the front door, or whatever it may be) is going to possibly effect things helps..."if you pee out the front door it makes it smell icky when people walk up. do you want it to smell icky? would you like to sit in a yucky smelling garden and drink your tea?" so far it is helping some, but jumping on the couch seems to be harder to deter...so i keep working at simplifying my approaches and letting go of whatever doesn't work for us, maybe they won't ever stop, until they are much older or someone gets hurt badly, but yelling does NOT work (it just makes my vocal chords sore). i've also caught myself doing something my mother and grandmother do much of and always have...i never thought of it as "shaming" until reading an article about it, but talking about something the child has done that was "wrong" in front of them or talking loudly to them in front of a group of people about what they did "wrong"...it's something i see a lot of people do and i always just kind of thought was normal, but then i think of how my relationships go and how i feel and that "un-loveable" feeling mentioned in the article crops up in my mind. my grandmother has improved some in this but my mom does it sometimes even today with me and i've caught myself doing it with my kids...so now, i try to make myself think twice about what i say and how i say it...i sometimes slip up, but really, kids feel bad enough if you have to pull them aside to talk about their actions, they don't need you talking loud enough for everyone to hear, nor do they need you announcing to everyone what they've done, while they sit by...so i'm simplifying things...i'm only saying positive things as often as possible, especially if the kids are in earshot and working at less demeaning ways of talking with/to the children if their behavior needs addressing in public. i often feel like everyone around me is judging me and my parenting style and sometimes i feel quite incompetent as a parent, but if i actually let those feelings interfere with my desire to raise well adjusted children who know they are loved and loveable and know how to make decisions and think then i am compromising myself and my children.

i was going to write more about other areas in which i am simplifying, but i don't want to make a 3 page post...so again simplifying a bit...just a quick note on the other things i am doing. i have been cleaning out and organizing the house, getting rid of things that no longer serve us or just add clutter. also, anyone who knows me knows i have some digestive issues and struggle with my weight and also that i've been a vegetarian, vegan, raw vegan, eaten paleo, tried south beach diet and numerous other things and really i am sick of all forms of dieting and fads and super restrictive eating, but something i have picked up is that real foods are always best and while this blog is about parenting feeding your kids and providing good wholesome nutrition is part of parenting so on that note i may be sharing some good real food and whole food recipes from time to time in the future. ok...back to cleaning the house before the kids come home and myattention goes to spending time with them.

Dealling with a Bully !!!

so...i haven't updated in quite some time.things have been kids aof a wreck...acid reflux and gallbladder issues for me and connor's teeth...he just had 3 pulled and some caps and fillings, the good news is that some of the changes that i made such as eliminating floride and adding in grassfed butter to his diet haulted the decay on 3 teeth or he would have lost all 4 front teeth not just 1 in the front (which was mostly as bad as it was due to a chip he got over a year ago). also, i haven't really been sure what exactly i wanted to write about...i had ideas, but ws really up in the air.


well, i've decided to write about 2 issues...bullying and LGBT rights/issues. why??? well because they are dear to me and because they are issues that our family is dealing with at the moment.


it's hard to write this because only about 3 or 4 people really know this others may have guessed at it, but i'm bisexual...i think i've always known, yet i didn't really fully know or understand until i was about 16...i've mostly dated men because it's easy and expected, but i have dated women and sometimes, especially lately i wonder "why do i even need a man in my life?" i mean i have the kids i always wanted and i find so few men attractive, but there are some here and there that are very attractive..so i just don't worry about it...i think the focus should be more on the soul of a person...finding a soulmate, not being held back by gender barriers. but, that's only the tip of the iceberg...here's what it really gets down to...i try not to read anything into my kids refering to thier best female friends as girlfriends and declyn's refering to his best male friend asa boyfriend..they are only 5 years old and they have very simplistic and innocent ideas about marriage and love and relationships...also my sons have no father...they have never met thier father and thier father has nothing to do with us, that is, so we have a mom who isnot sure if she'll ever marry or if it does happen weather it'll be a male or female and 2 little boys who have lots of friends with a mom and dad...meaning they are really wanting a dad...that's not all...one of the kids at school teases them about not having a dad and declyn makes up stories and now connor is starting to about some imaginary dad. this same kidtold declyn when he said that he wanted to marry his friend (a boy), because "two people who love eachother get married" that boys can't marry boys...in MA, where we live "boys can marry boys" as long as they are both consenting adults, and i explained that..but this bring me to the bullying, but first let me say that my kids already know that some boys love boys and some boys love girl and some girls love boys and some girls love girls, tec...i have even had to find simple ways to explain transgender to them, which isn't as hard as it sounds, because of one of my cousins teenage children being transgenedered so they have a pretty good understanding...they think it's kind of funny that a boy might want to be a girl, since they love being boys, but they accept that some boys feel like girls inside and some girls feel like boys inside.


we have had some mild bullying for years all the kids in our neighborhood insist on calling connor and declyn "Zack and Cody" no matter how angry it makes them, so they don't get to play with the nieghborhood kids much, but now we have a whole other level...thankfully this kid that is a problem will not be in thier school next year, but as someone who was bullied no matter where i lived or what school i was in i can't stand that it seems like my kids have targets painted on thier back as well.last year at school there was aboy who was a little bit of a bully, but by the end of the year both connor and declyn had befriended him and it turned out that he was just needing a friend and feeling a little jelous, but the kid we are dealing with this year is different...he told declyn at the beginning of the year that he couldn't be freinds with another little boy who declyn had been freinds with last year "because he's black and that means he's too different from us. he's weird." declyn and i discussed this extensively and i sent notes to the teachers and eventually declyn came arround, then declyn mentioned the marriage thing i mentioned above and i started thinking "this kid has to get this kind of racist, biggoted thinking from somewhere?", but it's not all...there is the "you don't have a dad!" thing and telling connor "you have abig head!" and "you are nothing!" and "you are a bully!"...all of this came out this week...connor has been holding it inside, but having a week at home with me he has been talking about it, crying about it...and everytime i raise my voice and yell (still working on not loosing it when i'm at my wits end) he breaks out with "i don't think you love me! i'm nobody!" i immedeatly take him in my arms and hug him and tell him how much i love him and how he's a very special little boy. i told him to tell the teachers when the other boy says things, but he says they just tell him to walk away from the other boy. right now i'm trying to decide how to breech it with the teachers myself, but it has to be adressed!


reading this aritcle (http://benandbirdy.blogspot.com/2012/04/why-be-normal-when-you-could-be-happy.html) from ben and birdie i did discover a cool resource that i can't wait to order from that may be of some help with all of the above situations http://www.reachandteach.com/content/index.php they have some great anti-bullying stuff and eco friendly toys and things and books and coloring books about all kinds of issues near and dear to me.