My life runs on a schedule. It always has, because I'm the type of person who thrives on a routine. I like to know what to expect. Spontaneity makes me anxious. I like clean lines. I like tidy. Things have a home, and they should return there. I'm still waiting for the second season of that Marie Kondo show on Netflix. I own both of her books.
Our family began family therapy together for the first time this past weekend. Our therapist met with me alone first to get a better sense of what I was looking for, and I explained that I just needed a place for me to have an outlet and strategies to make me a better parent. I needed my two oldest to not be at each other's throats from sunup to sundown. I wanted to want to do things with my kids. I wanted to not be afraid to take them places because of their constant fighting. I wanted to like who I was as a parent again.
She asked me what our day looks like and how I do things as a single parent of three. I told her that I run a pretty tight ship, and we each pulled our own weight in the house. With the new year came new changes for us. Screentime has been strictly limited and there are no video games or tablets during the week, and there's only an hour or so during the weekend, more if they decide to play something together. For a short period, I started using video games and tablets as a means for them to leave me alone in the morning. I quickly realized that I didn't like the results. The attitudes that oozed out of them afterward was unbearable. Upon further research, I realized why and changed the rules after a family meeting.
They do chores. A lot of them. We sat down at the beginning of January and talked about EVERYTHING it takes to have a house we are proud of. They then took turns picking what they would like to do in order to keep the house in order. They all have their First Things First (making their beds, brushing their teeth, getting dressed in the morning, and making sure their bedrooms are clean before we leave), and then they have their weekly chores, from cleaning the counters, taking out the trash, and vacuuming the floors. I hate doing laundry, but they hate it even more so that's one of my tasks now (as well as cooking, and then secretly cleaning up behind them if there's something they missed).
I hate token systems. I tried it. I sucked at it. I always forgot to give the tokens, I hated the list of things I came up with to redeem the tokens for. I forgot to give them out. Tokens were lost. I forgot to give them out. When the boys came, I knew there was NO way I would be able to keep up with a token system with three kids. So I scrapped it and started doing an allowance instead. I also never have cash, which presented its own problem, so I started using Greenlight (a kid's debit card system) to pay them. Every Sunday they get paid, as long as their chores are done. Part goes into spending, part into savings, part to a charity they get to choose when there is enough to give. If they do their chores without being asked several times, they get a bonus. If I have to ask too many times to do something, I just do it myself and if that happens too often, they don't get paid for the week.
I used to love to cook. Cooking for three kids has proved difficult, and I would often fall back on easy things to make. I used to love going to the grocery store, but that has become stressful as well. A few weeks ago I came across eMeals, a service that has new recipes every week to choose from. They then send the shopping list to Walmart's grocery service, they shop for you, you go pick it up, and then make it at home. I love it, and I'm actually enjoying cooking again, and they are easy enough recipes that the kids are involved in making them.
We've started using conversation cards at the dinner table, which we all eat around again. Each of us takes one and we use that to generate some great conversations. It has completely changed feelings at dinner and brought up some great topics.
Things are not perfect. We have a routine, but that doesn't mean that things don't get shitty, because they do...often. At the end of the day, it's not as much about running a tight ship but keeping your head above the rough waters. The angry moments are becoming fewer and fewer, but my oldest still spends a lot of his time focusing on L and being angry at her for things that have nothing to do with her. Tonight, after taking some time to himself after some nasty name-calling, I had a real and honest conversation with him about what his needs are. We talked about how each of the kids needs something different. How each of them has been through far more than they should have at their age. How L has gone through just as much as he has, and that his past is not her fault. We talked about how it's ok to be angry because he has a lot to rightfully be pissed off about, but that it's not ok to take it out on her.
My oldest has made almost a year's worth of progress at school. It's only January and he continues to grow. When L came to me I was warned that she would more than likely end up in special education due to her having missed so much school and being so far behind. She's now made over a year's worth of progress and tested into gifted programming at school. My youngest knew the letters of his name when he came, and now he knows almost all of them and loves being in school.
I don't even know what this post is anymore. I'm proud of my kids. I love them with every ounce of my being. After meeting with my kids without me, our therapist told me that she has been doing this for over a decade and that the three of them together was a lot, even for her. I felt so validated at that moment and I don't even know why. They are a lot. This is a lot, but they are worth it and we are making steps every day. Small, sometimes minuscule steps, but steps nonetheless.
After our conversation tonight, right before bedtime, my oldest knocked on L's door and went and hugged her, really hugged her, for the first time ever and apologized for his behavior. It was a private moment that I was lucky enough to catch a glimpse of.
Our ship may not always be one that runs tightly. More often than not, it's more of a shipwreck. But here we all are clinging to that ship and to one another in order to stay afloat.
There's nowhere else I'd rather be.