Attachment Challenge Day 1

Attachment is not a straight line, it is jagged and crooked and sometimes it doubles back on itself.

I started Christine's attachment challenge today, for me the biggest part of challenge is being an intentional parent, taking a deep breath and not engaging when my son is trying to engage me in a battle, taking time with them, being the mom that I know that I need to be for them.

I did not count the hugs I gave my boys today, I did not count the minutes that we spent on each activity but I did make a conscious commitment to being the best parent I could be and remaining as calm as supportive as I could.

Let me tell you about our day...

It started with Fudge asking questions about birth mom again that resulted in him crying and needing some serious cuddles, the cuddles resulted in Calvin getting jealous and then we had to deconstruct the feelings he was having as he lashed out at Fudge for wanting and needing me and having to share me. Calvin was pissed because he was feeling sad about his loss of his birth mom and the fact that I cuddled Fudge first just about sent him over the edge.

The rest of the day went ok. We went to church, they played,with the other kids,  we had picnic with friends and then came home and the boys and I built a campfire circle for out last cub night tomorrow complete with benches. We all really enjoyed working on it together.

It was going to well.

When it was almost time for dinner I told the boys to turn off the TV and set the table. Fudge reached up and turned it off and Calvin hit him. Calvin did not hear me or was ignoring me and so he hit Fudge for turning it off, Fudge got to turn the TV back on and Calvin had to set the table by himself, he was pissed. I stayed calm and talked to him and then gave him a hug and we moved on. He got mad again over something else before dinner but P did not engage either and again we moved on.

Clearly this was not okay with Calvin, no one was getting angry. We usually stay pretty calm when we are both here to support one another and I was making a point of it today so Calvin was getting very little in the way of negative reactions and in fact things had been backfiring for him.

After dinner he had a shower. After he was done he headed upstairs and started to brush his teeth, I thought all was well until Fudge called to me from the the bathroom and said " please tell me that is mud". I paused for a minute because I really could not believe he had done but when I went to look he had indeed done it.

Yep, there was poop all over the lower half of the shower walls and floor

Calvin claims it was an accident and given the amount of peglyte we give him everyday he may of just not made it out of the shower it time. Peglyte tends to cause you to get a bit explosive at times and does creat a lot of gas. I am going to believe him on that one  but he left it there and it clearly happened once the shower was turned off or just about off. He did not do anything about it and that is was the main problem, plus the the fact that it is gross and it is also not my job to clean up poop.

The whole thing was dealt with as though it happens everyday. I called Calvin to come back downstairs and he did acting as though I had no reason to do so, he still had a toothbrush in his mouth and acted all shocked that I was calling him down. He was brushing his teeth with Fudge's toothbrush (a first) because his was missing, I found it for him later(mom's are amazing like that). I told him to wait in the bathroom while I got Fudge's bath running and I left him standing in the bathroom. Fudge and I went upstairs, got him in the tub and I went back down to set Calvin up with a bucket and a sponge. I sprayed the shower with cleaner and told him to get to work. To make a long story short he then tried every trick he knew to get someone to yell at him and no one did.

He tried really hard though.

In the end he did clean the shower but he missed out on listening to me read Percy Jackson because he would not deal with the water and sponge in the bucket. After much stomping and yelling and being an angry kid I informed he was done with this behaviour. He would listen to me and he would do it now - he would deal with the bucket, run 2 laps around the house to cool that anger down a bit ( I did threaten to spray him with the hose if he did not run them though),  give me a hug, apologise to P and give him a hug and then I would brush his teeth and put him to bed. He complied but he was not to happy about it. He does like it when I brush his teeth though so I thought it might be a good peace offering.

He was stuck between pissed and relieved that I gave him an out without having to rage. I put him to bed angry but calm.

It was a long day but I would say a good one in the world of attachment. I am going to bed now. Tomorrow is a new day and we can all do this, they need it and so do I.

I don't need the poop in the shower though... I can do without that.