Lots of little Ah-ha moments!
Tina Tarbutton
The last few days have been filled with wonderful little moments.
I realized, when Draven offered to pump the gas for me, that he does quite a
lot of helpful things without being asked . . . all of those things I've
never forced him to do. He offers to cook meals when my sleep schedule is
all wacky from overnight shifts, he offers to swipe the debit card, he
offers to pay for and pump the gas. He used to offer to clean quite often,
until I started making it his "job".
I mentioned before that we have an 18 y/o staying with us. She is wonderful
about jumping in to help when we're doing something, but hasn't taken
the initiative to start any cleaning on her own. At her moms house it
sounds like she was the unpaid maid, so while on one hand I completely
understand her lack of interest in washing dishes, but on the other hand I
was very frustrated that neither she or Draven had been doing much around
the house while Parker and I were working. Yesterday early morning when I
got home from work I did a ton of dishes, washed them all and stacked them
to dry on towels covering most of our counter space and the top of the
stove. I started to leave a list for them to take care of during the day
(taking the trash out, putting away the dishes) while I was sleeping, but
then decided I was setting myself up to be even more frustrated if the
didn't see or didn't do what was on the list, so in place of a list I wrote
"I love our little family". Last night before I went to work Parker
started gathering the trash and asked if anyone would be willing to help,
both Dollie and Draven cheerfully said they would, and the three of them got
all of the trash out and down to the curb. An hour or so later I was on the
phone with Parker and she said she heard them putting the dishes away while
laughing and joking, she hadn't asked them to. This morning I came home to
see all of last nights dishes had been washed and set out to dry.
No disappointment, no frustration, no bickering, just a family making sure
everything gets done.
When I got home this morning on my desk was my son's DSI, with a post it
note asking me to listen to some of the sound files and signed I <heart>
you. Spread out over 4 sound files was a wonderful little song he sang
about our family (including his father). I liked finding that so much more
then I would have liked finding a list of things to do. I'm glad I left a
loving note instead of a list before I went to bed.
A few days ago Parker and I were cuddling with Draven and it turned into us
tickling him, he started fighting back violently, which was normally the
time that I'd stop tickling, even though for awhile now we've had stop as
our boundary word when he really does want something to stop. This time
instead of assuming we needed to stop because it was getting violent, I
asked him if he wanted to stop, he didn't, so I asked Parker if she was okay
with him fighting back like that (she was at his feet and he was kicking
quite hard), we were all fine with it. So, we continued tickling and he
continued "trying" to kick and punch at us over it, and we held his feet and
blocked his punches the whole while laughing and giggling and barely being
able to catch our breath. He occasionally said stop so he could catch his
breath, and eventually started adding rules (you can tickle me here, but not
here) and even later explained that he couldn't really control his kicking
when we tickled in certain spots and he didn't want to hurt one of us. It
sounds pretty violent when I type it out, but it wasn't a negative thing at
all. After we finished he went back to playing one of his games and I
noticed he got a lot less frustrated when he had a hard time. Ah-ha! He
needed the rough play to get some frustration out. Over the last few days
he's been less frustrated in general. You know, he didn't have frustration
and anger problems when he was younger and we used to mock fight on a fairly
regular basis . . . wish I would have put those two together a lot earlier.
I'm also noticing my view of things changing. Not just at home, but at work
as well. I'm doing a much better job of accepting EVERYONE for who they
are, and not expecting them to be who I want them to be. I'm appreciating
the job my coworkers do instead of getting frustrated that they didn't do
what I expected or wanted them to do.
Parker is getting a lot more on board with this too. A few days ago Draven
asked if he could play Grand Theft Auto, something I've NEVER let him play
before, and it's only in the house because Parker used to play it. I had
already said yes to Devil May cry, and stopped restricting how long he could
play Halo . . . but Grand Theft Auto . . . I completely freaked (internally,
externally my response was "let me think about it, and I think I need to
talk to Parker about it too". So I called her, and I asked her, and she
said we should say yes, and that if I thought I could do it without
freaking, I should probably sit with him and see what he likes about the
game and what he does with it. It is a pretty violent game, but I think he
had more fun playing with the cheats (invisible cars and flying cars seem to
be a favorite) then he had beating people up. I think it'll be okay.
It's been a good week! We've had a few bad moments, but lots of good ones,
and we're all getting better at this whole concept, day by day.
Tina
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
I realized, when Draven offered to pump the gas for me, that he does quite a
lot of helpful things without being asked . . . all of those things I've
never forced him to do. He offers to cook meals when my sleep schedule is
all wacky from overnight shifts, he offers to swipe the debit card, he
offers to pay for and pump the gas. He used to offer to clean quite often,
until I started making it his "job".
I mentioned before that we have an 18 y/o staying with us. She is wonderful
about jumping in to help when we're doing something, but hasn't taken
the initiative to start any cleaning on her own. At her moms house it
sounds like she was the unpaid maid, so while on one hand I completely
understand her lack of interest in washing dishes, but on the other hand I
was very frustrated that neither she or Draven had been doing much around
the house while Parker and I were working. Yesterday early morning when I
got home from work I did a ton of dishes, washed them all and stacked them
to dry on towels covering most of our counter space and the top of the
stove. I started to leave a list for them to take care of during the day
(taking the trash out, putting away the dishes) while I was sleeping, but
then decided I was setting myself up to be even more frustrated if the
didn't see or didn't do what was on the list, so in place of a list I wrote
"I love our little family". Last night before I went to work Parker
started gathering the trash and asked if anyone would be willing to help,
both Dollie and Draven cheerfully said they would, and the three of them got
all of the trash out and down to the curb. An hour or so later I was on the
phone with Parker and she said she heard them putting the dishes away while
laughing and joking, she hadn't asked them to. This morning I came home to
see all of last nights dishes had been washed and set out to dry.
No disappointment, no frustration, no bickering, just a family making sure
everything gets done.
When I got home this morning on my desk was my son's DSI, with a post it
note asking me to listen to some of the sound files and signed I <heart>
you. Spread out over 4 sound files was a wonderful little song he sang
about our family (including his father). I liked finding that so much more
then I would have liked finding a list of things to do. I'm glad I left a
loving note instead of a list before I went to bed.
A few days ago Parker and I were cuddling with Draven and it turned into us
tickling him, he started fighting back violently, which was normally the
time that I'd stop tickling, even though for awhile now we've had stop as
our boundary word when he really does want something to stop. This time
instead of assuming we needed to stop because it was getting violent, I
asked him if he wanted to stop, he didn't, so I asked Parker if she was okay
with him fighting back like that (she was at his feet and he was kicking
quite hard), we were all fine with it. So, we continued tickling and he
continued "trying" to kick and punch at us over it, and we held his feet and
blocked his punches the whole while laughing and giggling and barely being
able to catch our breath. He occasionally said stop so he could catch his
breath, and eventually started adding rules (you can tickle me here, but not
here) and even later explained that he couldn't really control his kicking
when we tickled in certain spots and he didn't want to hurt one of us. It
sounds pretty violent when I type it out, but it wasn't a negative thing at
all. After we finished he went back to playing one of his games and I
noticed he got a lot less frustrated when he had a hard time. Ah-ha! He
needed the rough play to get some frustration out. Over the last few days
he's been less frustrated in general. You know, he didn't have frustration
and anger problems when he was younger and we used to mock fight on a fairly
regular basis . . . wish I would have put those two together a lot earlier.
I'm also noticing my view of things changing. Not just at home, but at work
as well. I'm doing a much better job of accepting EVERYONE for who they
are, and not expecting them to be who I want them to be. I'm appreciating
the job my coworkers do instead of getting frustrated that they didn't do
what I expected or wanted them to do.
Parker is getting a lot more on board with this too. A few days ago Draven
asked if he could play Grand Theft Auto, something I've NEVER let him play
before, and it's only in the house because Parker used to play it. I had
already said yes to Devil May cry, and stopped restricting how long he could
play Halo . . . but Grand Theft Auto . . . I completely freaked (internally,
externally my response was "let me think about it, and I think I need to
talk to Parker about it too". So I called her, and I asked her, and she
said we should say yes, and that if I thought I could do it without
freaking, I should probably sit with him and see what he likes about the
game and what he does with it. It is a pretty violent game, but I think he
had more fun playing with the cheats (invisible cars and flying cars seem to
be a favorite) then he had beating people up. I think it'll be okay.
It's been a good week! We've had a few bad moments, but lots of good ones,
and we're all getting better at this whole concept, day by day.
Tina
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
plaidpanties666
Tina, that's gorgeous! Thanks for taking the time to update us all. Do you mind being quoted elsewhere? Its such a wonderful story.
Meredith
Meredith
Tina Tarbutton
I don't mind being quoted at all. I hope it can help someone else.
Tina
On Mon, Apr 12, 2010 at 3:13 PM, plaidpanties666
<plaidpanties666@...>wrote:
Tina
On Mon, Apr 12, 2010 at 3:13 PM, plaidpanties666
<plaidpanties666@...>wrote:
>[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
> Tina, that's gorgeous! Thanks for taking the time to update us all. Do you
> mind being quoted elsewhere? Its such a wonderful story.
> Meredith
>
>
>