Fall has Fallen!

Instead of every two weeks, maybe I'll try posting twice a month. I'll get busy to do two posts for October. What has happened?
Enjoy these fall photos, before reading about my ongoing parenting freak out.

Fall Harvest Festival at church (so fun!)

Four is a hard year. I thought it was just Adessa, but let me remember for Annea: four is hard. Let it be noted! Maybe because four year olds can do so much, there are whole other sets of boundaries to push? That seems to be true for us. Eliana is testing the boundaries, doing exactly what we say she can do, sneakily or otherwise. And Eliana has difficulty in such loud ways, so very loud and sad. She cries and is admirably persistent in her determination to cry, no matter what, even if the solution to her problem arises or the sorting out has happened. She feels so wronged and self conscious, I think, that she just keeps finding things to cry about. She's also lovely and loving, gives great hugs and kisses, and has a pretty developed sense of humor. I've been making her homework sheets (matching, rhyming, counting) so that she can do her homework while Adessa does. She loves homework. :)

Adessa... loses focus in the mornings, that's for sure. It's unbelievable to me the things I find her spending time on when she's supposed to be getting ready. Looking under the bed with a flashlight for a penny she dropped weeks ago, things like that. She loves her first grade, but is already not liking homework (there seems to be a lot!). She gets pretty grouchy these days, without a nap, which makes homework extra hard. She drew this little "poem", which her classmates and teacher liked. She was proud.

Annea is 18 month on October 29th. So full of words and fun, and contributing a tremendous screech to the ruckus of daily life. When she doesn't have the words and isn't getting her needs communicated, there's a serious screech to contend with. She has a "bad" face, too, when she pulls hair or hits (not often), but it cracks us up, you know she's going to be bad. She scowls and grimaces and then hits or pulls hair. She is echoing our words and saying her own, probably 35 or more words (I haven't sat down and counted).

I feel like I've been yelling for months. Maybe I've been yelling for years. I've been going to bed earlier, which helps greatly. But I have so little patience, somehow, even when I'm intending to be patient. So that's frustrating. As are mornings, trying to get out of the house. And anything else requiring getting someone under seven to listen to me. Mothering is superhuman. Parenting is. Age of correction, I get it, just I'm going to create these little uptight freaks kind of like me. They may feel like they never do anything right. And still, at the end of the day they hug and kiss me and want to snuggle. So that's good, since all day I can't imagine wanting to be close to someone like me. My apologies always turn into a preaching session about why I yelled, which doesn't a sincere apology make. I like to ask things one time. I think I'm batting about 20% with obedience. Achild of mine doing the thing I ask the first time happens barely one out of five times, through my whole parenting career, and still I somehow expect it and am pipe-y when it doesn't happen. So there I am, hard on these sweet little girls who are hungry or tired or sticky, or whiney for some other very good reason, surely. And they are sweet. So precious and actually well behaved most of the time, and sometimes they do listen, and don't get waylaid while intending to brush their hair with two minutes before we need to leave because they are singing a song into the hairbrush. I see now how that could be slightly endearing, at least when reading about it, but when it's the eighth time I've asked and while the hair isn't brushed, neither are the teeth, neither is said singer wearing any shoes or a sweater, neither is her backpack ready for the day. It gets personal, my yelling, I mean. There are questions proposed about sweet singer's abilities to function in society, there's some incredulous shaming. "Surely you are not singing into the mirror right now!? What are you doing!? What's wrong with you? What are you thinking is about to happen, when we pile in the car and you are not ready!!??" I don't call names, but my tone is derogatory, to be sure.

So, there it is. I have work to do. And amongst the disappointment in myself and the shortness with my kids, I am reminding myself all the time to be thankful for this life, it really is just what I wanted. And I don't need to be convinced to be thankful, I am! I just need reminding.