So there were a few weeks at the end of May and in much of June that were really tough with sibling fighting and mommy exhaustion to boot! I was about to start sending the kids separately to grandparents just for our survival. They just couldn't stop arguing ABOUT EVERYTHING. And the arguing always turned to wrestling and pushing and yelling. :mommy bangs head on the wall: I really don't get all the fighting either. My brother was 6 school years younger and I loved 'mothering' him about so I never really had this level of fighting before in my life. Closely spaced brothers is both wonderful (can I tell you how awesome and creative their playing is when they are playing?!) and it is also challenging (physical arguments) is all I can say.
On top of that, little brother Jonathan found his 'just turned 3 year old self' having to share mommy full-time all day long (since mommy was constantly refereeing the big boys) and went on a good behavior strike...and that is the nicest possible way to put it. He pulled out the 'screech' and the 'whine' and a lot more. Oh my! Little sis decided she was going to make-up her lost attention/mommy time in the middle of the night and late evenings exacerbating mommy's ability to plan anything that would get us all out of the house consistently much less sleep. It was bad enough that I was dreading Mondays and having a hard time sleeping Sunday nights!
Then, we kind of found a rhythm after vacation bible school and art camp. The big boys seemed to finally realize they were on summer VACATION after their two weeks in a row of morning time-apart...er...activities and the littles got some of their mommy time back for a little while. (Last year was so stressful with Rosalind being so miserable, not sleeping, traveling, and my mom's progression that I wonder too if we found ourselves without our usual school routine and still trying to decompress from all that.)
I happened to read a few good books (ok, I was desperately reading all parenting books I could find to fix the situation) and had a friend who also strongly suggested that spending 1 on 1 time with each kid would help the behavior. And IT DID!! Intentional time. Even short amounts of time. With 4 kids in the house...it's hard to do...but I cannot tell you how much this helped!!! I mean the really bad behavior and arguing disappeared overnight after Nathan started taking the boys out in the evenings from time to time.
Then, our rhythm became more fluid through July with more fun in general. Finally, at the end of July, I hit on the jackpot. It was what I was missing all summer long. It was a way for the big guys to have some time to themselves, the little guy to have some quiet in the house and get to watch TV he really wanted (his brothers hate his fav show), and mommy gets a little break time. This 'rest-time' was just not working for us before because sending two squabbling kids to their shared room to 'play' or 'read' quietly never seemed to have the same pull as just going ahead and fighting some more...loudly...in the room next to their sleeping sister. Gahhh! Sending them to separate rooms (or outside) always had one mad and feeling like he got the short end of the stick.
I finally figured out how to use their school library cards to download audiobooks to my phone....and I found all the kid audiobooks I knew must be out there! We started the summer having about finished all 53 Magic Treehouse from Jan-May (CDs from library). We are members of a very tiny library and the CD availability is really small but the boys actually each got a membership to the Chattanooga library system through school enabling us to start them on the Boxcar children!! (There are so many more I've looked for too and there is no wait! Yay!) If only I had figured out the apps to do this sooner...why are library apps so...counter intuitive??!
So, the way it worked is that when I was going in to put Rosie down for her nap, I sent the boys to their room to listen to an audiobook and I let Jonathan watch 2 episodes of "Mighty Machines" on the main and only TV (via netflix). The big guys LOVED it! They started out in their beds chilling and listening and basically 'being by themselves in their own designated spaces in their rooms' but by the end (sometimes they listen to a whole two hour book before coming out) they were happily playing pretend games with action figures and whatnot while also listening to the book. :) WIN!
Meanwhile, Jonathan is getting a big brother break and getting to watch something he loves. I usually set him up with a pile of wooden blocks and some trucks to play with while that show is running. He has favorite episodes and I kid you not he has probably seen them like 50x! I like that it is not fast paced nor a cartoon show and that it shows him 'real life' stuff. He has become a 'truck-boy'. I find that so funny as Samuel was a 'cars-boy' and Benjamin was a 'train-boy' so they are all different and of course they each loved all three but there is a preference. I mean, Jonathan has spent 45 min in the sandbox nearly every day we were home this summer playing with daddy's old toy trucks. He loves to fill and dump those trucks with anything he can find (his favorite thing is sneaking his brothers' legos...they do make a lovely clinking sound as they pour).
And mommy? Well, mommy gets a break. Sometimes I get food started early, sometimes I take a 20 min nap to make it through the day, sometimes I pick up toys that are all over, sometimes I get chores done, sometimes I just sit there and surf on my phone. AMAZING what a break like that does for all of us though and I am NOT KIDDING!!! After that we usually went and did something in the afternoon and that made things fun too!
I plan to continue the audiobook thing when the boys get home from school this year. It's partly because Samuel tends to try to do everything perfectly at school and then he comes home and combusts...every....single...day. TV alone chill time only helps a little and heaven help me if I try to get him going on homework right away. So, this may be our solution for him. I really hope so!!!!
As to the chores this summer? Well, the boys are consistently unloading the dishwasher in the morning and fairly consistently putting their clothes away once a week. I had higher plans than that but be that as it may it was an improvement! I have more plans for bigger improvements coming their way!!!!
Hm...what else? Well, I never did get the rooms rearranged. It was just too hard to focus for long enough to make a big dent. I did get the legos organized enough that Samuel could rebuild some of his older creations. The closets were rearranged...so they all have clothes in different closets than where they used too! I read the Marie Kondo book "The magic of tidying up" and got a lot of ideas and inspiration from that...especially pertaining to using drawers well!! I read a lot of audiobooks in general because that helps me de-stress while I do chores and cook and whatnot.
We really did not invite any friends over and I wish we had but I was kind of too worn out and stressed to take on MORE kids. See, I have discovered that inviting one friend over creates a group of three older kids and at this point, that is a problem. The kid with a friend over leaves out the kid without a friend (which I understand) and it eventually turns into a mess. So that would mean we really needed to invite TWO extra kids over. The house was an absolute disaster ALL of June and I just couldn't do it. Sorry boys, next summer will be different. :)
We got to about all the summer activities I had hoped to do and only traveled once which was our goal. Rosie has improved greatly on her traveling but not on her 'sleeping somewhere besides her own bed' situation. So, we just decided no trips this summer which is okay. So we did the zoo, warner park, outside aquarium play, hiking, more parks, Creative Discovery Museum, and so much more I can blog on. And yes, I got the confidence to manage all four of my kiddos by myself in active and even crowded places. (It's a little different with four sets of running feet than when you are wearing a newborn like last summer.)
The big boys both learned to swim this summer!!! Yay!! Samuel already knew - but he wasn't very confident and this summer made him really confident! He even passed the swim test in the olympic pool by swimming two full lengths of the lane!!!!! And Benjamin one day just suddenly realized he could. That was all it took....hours in the pool and finally it just clicked. I will have to do a whole post on that. :) They also took Taekwondo all summer and are testing for their yellow belts tonight!!!! This is very exciting for them!
Here they are waiting for the bus on their first days of 1st and 2nd grade!!! (Not the best pics tho...the both look a little weird like...yea, I'm gonna smile really big mom that you are sending me BACK TO SCHOOL!!!!)
Woot Woot! Whatever will I do with myself? I have a HUGE list to keep me and the littles busy. :)
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