A Loose, and Early Review of "Love and Logic"

I am writing this from the floor of my living room. I am too tired to sit at the kitchen table without some way to recline and rest. And yet, the couch cushions have been taken off and piled up into some sort of military fort covered in trucks and trailers. I told Jake he could keep it like that. We do own a recliner, but Rush has claimed that. So here I sit, on the floor. Today has been a difficult day, for some reason. I am aware so much that as a parent I am continually dying to myself. It is a give and take because as Mom, I still need to remain partially Summer. Still, changes must occur. And boy do they!

Parenting is hard. So yes, I read 50,000 parenting books trying to figure out what is going to work for my family. And so many of them I am left with holes in my thinking…hmm, what does this mean? But what about bedtime? What about spankings? What about a million things that I deal with and I can’t fit it into the framework of this book? I read Loving Your Children on Purpose by Danny Silk and I enjoyed it. But I had that framework issue yet again. So recently I purchased Love and Logic for Early Childhood. I feel like my greatest challenges as a parent are: 1) getting frustrated, 2) getting overwhelmed, 3) getting angry. These are the things I want out of my life because each one, in my opinion, is rooted in selfishness.

Number one happens when I am trying to clean the kitchen and Jake screams out “THAT’S MINE, NO YOU CAN’T HAVE THAT, SONORA!!!” I mean, how do I solve that? Currently I have him ask her for it nicely. I have to find out if he was even playing with it because sometimes she’ll innocently carry something from the room and he’ll decide, even though he wasn’t playing with it, that she cannot have it. Paul read in a John Eldredge book that men need to have domains, kingdoms that belong to them. Therefore, Jake has about 10 toys that are not to be touched by Sonora Grace. So once we figure out if any of these by-laws apply to the situation, he asks for it nicely, she says no, so I have to take it from her. Then she screams at the top of her lungs so I drop her off in the bedroom. And then it’s back to handle Jake because he didn’t exactly respond lovingly to his sister. So once we get that in order, it’s back to get Sonora in the bedroom to see if she is ready to act nice. Since she is still screaming at the top of her lungs and pounding the floor I hold her in my lap and rock her until she calms down because somewhere, in some parenting book I read it said that she needs to learn how to handle these emotions in a healthy way. So I sit with her and rock her and help her calm down and make her give me a hug and say she is sorry before she can get up. Then it’s back to the kitchen to finish what I started, if I can even remember.

Number two happens in the grocery store.  Jake and Sonora cry and whine and try to commit suicide by jumping out of the cart until they are both walking with me. Then they are running away, and darting in front of other people. I have learned that if I continuously allow myself to get overwhelmed, and therefore do not handle the little hooligans in a controlled, confident manner than I really have no right being a parent. So I do gather them up, put them back in the cart, or have them hold my cart and we live by the rule that obedience to “mommy law” brings freedom. So if they want to listen they can gradually make their way away from me again, only a couple of feet or so. And no running, please none of that! But then someone has to go pee pee. And my cart doesn’t fit in the bathroom, nor is it allowed. So I’m watching Jake pee in this disgusting public toilet while barring Sonora out of the room with my knee that is holding the door open because one germ infested child is enough for me. Just as I come around the corner someone I know congratulates me on having a third baby and I think to myself, I can’t even shop with two of these guys following me around, throwing cheap pastries in my cart while I’m not looking, and making my nerves fry as I watch their fingers graze the cart wheels and I've warned them to "BE CAREFUL!" ten times. ARRRGH!

Number three happened today, although I behaved myself I have to say. Part of Love and Logic parenting is just being nonchalant, “you’re playing with your food, I guess you are done eating,” and away goes the plate. But today I was eating a big salad. I made my kids big salads too.  And while Jake ate well on his own, Sonora somehow crept her little sticky self into my lap. My kids are always sticky. No matter how many times we wipe their hands and faces, they are sticky little beings. And we have two dogs, which means that sticky hands are magnets for dog hair. So Sonora sits on my lap and neglects her own plate, picking what she wants off of mine with her doggy hair, sticky-with-I-don’t-know-what fingers and every time she pops a veggie in her mouth that she does not like, she leans over my plate and spits it out on my salad. So every bite I take I am inspecting for dog hair, and/or veggies that have been pre-chewed. I’m thinking, must die to myself, but I’m feeling like I might explode when little ones dig their hands into my food. Does Michelle Duggar ever get to eat? Because my plate hits the table and everyone is convinced that I have something better than they do.

So Love and Logic is helping me a great deal because it is encouraging me to sort of chill out (already sort of a goal of mine).  At the same time, it’s encouraging me that my kids need limits and boundaries and if I’m not going to enforce them, than who will? My kids need me to do that for them. It’s not that I don’t, I’m just pretty sure I heard advice to only address moral or rebellious issues in strong kids. But Sonora Grace is taking over my life. My hips were hurting because I could not make her get off of me this morning. So when I finally put her down in the kitchen so I could make lunch (and I’m creeping up on feelings number one, two, and three) she turns on the dishwasher. So I say, “no we don’t do that.” And she does it again, right away.
“uh-oh, Sonora can’t play in the kitchen now.” *SCREEEEEAAAAAAMIIIING”

“oh-oh, Sonora can’t be sweet, she has to go into the bedroom.” *SCREEEEEECH-SCREEEAM*

Back to the kitchen to finish lunch. Screaming subsides and my little justice hound comes to find me, “Mommy, you might want to go to talk to Sonora now about being nice.” Thank you, Jake.

“You ready to be sweet?” *nods sweetly, holding her hands up* I’m thinking, dang it, how am I holding her again? I just put her down!

Back to the kitchen where I put her down and she walks over to my bulletin board. It has tacks holding pictures of our family and friends on it, and she rips two pictures off and tacks go flying, and just as I step forward to pick one up, my foot lands on that it is needle point up. “OOUUUUUUUCH!!!” (At the top of my lungs. My kids were thoroughly frightened!)

So now Jake has rushed into the kitchen to see what is going on, and Sonora is staring at me and I’m realizing that lunch is not made, and I have a tack in my foot, and two small children are now crowding my tiny kitchen. “Uh-oh, no one is allowed in the kitchen right now while Mommy is doing lunch. Thank you.”

Sonora falls to the floor and has another meltdown. “uh-oh, Sonora can’t be sweet, she has to go to the bedroom.” And I carry her back to the bedroom and plop her down on the bed. She slams the door.

So my favorite thing about this book so far is that I don’t have to lay down my life for my kids, 100% that is. Changes have to be made, but I don’t have to give up everything that makes me who I am. And I enjoy eating my own food once in a while. And I definitely do not like holding Sonora on my hip so much during the day, ouch!  I just felt like the book really set me free that yes, I need to die to myself for the sake of my kids, but an important element of me being a Mom to my kids is that it’s me. I’m going to be miserable if that foundation gets squashed for the sake of avoiding tantrums.

Parenting is just plain difficult sometimes. As soon as I opened this book, I knew that Sonora was one that I would have to be fighting. But Jake is doing great. Today I said, “You pick up your trucks, or Mommy?,” and he said, “I think Mommy.” So I responded, “Ok, I will but you’ll have to pay me. Hmm, what can you pay me with? How about this jeep and monster truck?” You should have seen him drop the toys he had in his hand as he ran to pick up his things! He picked up every single toy, and when he was finished he said, “Now I don’t gotta pay you, huh?” Worked like a charm.

So there is a loose review of the book, I haven’t finished but I am enjoying the attitude that it is instilling in me. I feel much cooler and laid back and in control knowing the boundaries to lay out. I know that NO parenting book is going to do it all for me. Ultimately, my foundation is wisdom from God, but it helps to have some guidelines that I can apply on a day to day basis. Oh, how it helps.