What day is it? What month? What did I do yesterday? It just feels like the longest Saturday of my life and I’ve decided that Bill Murray’s character, Phil from Groundhogs Day really has no where to complain. Phil didn’t have 3 kids to take care of nor did he have any special needs children to figure out… You know, among everything else involved with living through a pandemic.

I don’t think I’m going to walk away from this shut down thinking about what I accomplished in terms of yoga, reading lists, weight loss or academics. I actually hope it’s going to be more of a list of things I successfully didn’t do- but in a good way. Like we successfully distanced from others, we stayed inside- but got fresh air, we didn’t give our kids reasons to fear, my husband and I didn’t turn on each other, and mr. L didn’t regress into daily meltdowns.

Lately the biggest emotional obstacle for me hasn’t been wanting to get out of my home, but instead it’s been working mr. L through his stress, anxiety, frustrations, and de-escalating him to avoid a meltdown. While avoiding that melt down, being able to balance his siblings needs/ emotions, maintaining being the boss (sharing this title with husband), making sure my husband is feeling respected and not losing my cool. It’s like this big, huge, circus, balancing act, stuck in a little townhome. I can’t just do whatever would make mr. L happy to avoid him losing it and I can’t spank and toss him in his room either.

Because every parent that has been stuck in their home with their kids for weeks listening to them play, yell, scream, complain, and just be kids, wants to stop another argument by stopping what they are trying to get done, calmly walk into the room, address the other children calmly, and then scoop up their screaming child and calmly talk them down…. and not pull their own hair out eventually 🤪

So instead of turning his yelling into a screaming match I try to talk calmly, yet firmly. I try to stay consistent, and take turns with my husband tagging out if one of us needs a break. I’ve chose to hug him over lecturing, I’ve tried to step in before things get out of hand. I’ve tried to redirect his siblings from agitating him, I’ve tried to keep changing things up so my kids don’t get stagnant and stubborn. But sometimes I have had to just remove him or objects from the situation until the dust settled. You can’t always reason with a kiddo.

The biggest thing is being proactive and catching triggers before they ignite I guess. Because I can’t tell you how many times over the last 3 weeks have my husband and I turned to each other and asked, was that a happy noise? Or have they started to fight?

At the end of the day I just have to keep reminding myself I know how to do this, and if I keep at it, his chances of regression are much less.

Ps I know my pictures don’t always line up with my writing. Like today’s post has been talking about my son being frustrated, it’s been about yelling, and things being stressful. I very rarely take pictures of that, and I swore before I had children that I wouldn’t post pics of them screaming, crying, or potty training… Or basically any pic that I would be embarrassed if it was a pic from my childhood. Children are people too, I wouldn’t want pictures from my worst days on the internet, so why should I do that to my kids? I hope that makes sense.

Have a good day everyone and don’t forget to like, comment, and share ✌️🌷