staying calm

It's day 3 of this lovely virus that my monkeys so kindly shared with me and I am tired and wheezy, not fun.

I realised on Tuesday night after I was done yelling at Fudge over some annoying habits of his that I was sick and stressed about all the stuff around Calvin and school. I took it out on Fudge, poor little guy - I still feel bad about it. However realising that was what was going on for me helped me to stay regulated yesterday when Calvin had a full blown meltdown before dinner.


I think that he has sticky fingers, all sorts of stuff keeps coming home from school that is not his and upon confronting him he denied it. I later was on talking to him about lying to me - his go to response in most cases is to lie first - and brought up the toys he comes home with. He was adamant that he did not take it but acted like he does when he is lying. I decided not to push it and had him sit down at the table to write lines ( something we often do when he seems as though he is close the edge) yesterdays line was " My Mom loves me and I do not need to lie to her any more" I thought it was a good one. Well he quickly refused to write them and then changed them so they said "My Mom does not love and I need to lie to her all the time"

It did not work to bring him back yesterday though, he stated escalating, throwing stuff and yelling at me. I escorted him out the front door until he could be calm enough to pick up all the stuff that he threw and write his lines. It took a few tries and a number of hugs but he finally pulled it together and sat down to write. Instead of writing the lines though he started writing me notes instead.
They went like this, I answered them all verbally and then he would go and write me another note

I love you to the moon and back
Thank you for the pretzels
Do you love me
Ok, but why
Lucky me, huh
Do you love me more than the dogs

I answered each comment as you would expect, reassuring him that I loved him no matter what. He sat down at he table wrote some lines and then put his head down and fell asleep - raging at your Mom is hard work. I did hear some more talk about how awful school was and that was the reason that he was so miserable ( his word) but I never did get a straight answer about the toy.

Before bed he drew me a picture, he usually needs to do something to feel like he has made amends for his anger. I'm not going to say no to that.

It is always so much easier to get through those days when I can remain calm and know that there is glass of wine waiting for me when all is said and done!
In other news

Fudge got a reward yesterday for being the 2nd best speller in his class - this was huge for him as he often feels as though he is not as smart as the other kids ( it made Calvin really angry though as he was in that class last year and never won anything)

And the school finally agreed to a meeting after a long conversation about trying to be proactive and make school good for Calvin. They don't get attachment disorder and kept saying that we couldn't sit down and make a plan until they saw the behaviour, I kept telling them that would be to late and they finally heard. me, it won't be for 2 weeks but it will happen.