Attachment Challenge: Day 7

I need more practice.  That's my decision from this week.  I need to get better at it and I need to follow Christine's advice and deal with my own shit.  Which I have been and I probably always will be.  But, I definitely need to keep practicing this challenge WHILE dealing with myself.  Cause at about 8:30 tonight, half hour before bedtime, I told Zane, "I quit, I'm done, I'm not doing this challenge anymore and we only have 30 minutes left of it, but I'm DONE."

This is TOUGH!  I'm doing my best to not make this post into an all-out tourette's attack.  This was one of those days where I could have just SCREAMED and run away.  Good news is that my lack-of-Mom did that and so every time I fantasize I actually know the REAL pain of being that kid and the fantasy doesn't last long.  But, damn it hits me hard on these days.  There was yelling and there was running away and there was a dog who ran over my foot with his super sharp ass nails and later stepped on my friggin' head. U.G.H.

So, I guess I failed the challenge.  We did our 20 minutes of Zane time today which included sword fighting out front and I hugged him 7 times by the time I quit, but didn't do attachment-inducing fun.  Of course I have a serious problem going to bed on a sour note, so we spent the last ten minutes of the night playing Uno before our bedtime story and "goodnights" were given.

But, that "fail" is only a mere technicality.  Cause I'm going to do it again and next time my chart will be complete.  No matter what.  Cause you know why?  Cause I'm the grownup here and I can MAKE it happen.

I think the reason this challenge was so hard for me is because I take things personally.  When I make a meal and Zane refuses to eat it because it's not what he wants not only am I frustrated because he used to not be picky AT ALL, but because I know the life of not having regular meals and dammit I wanted them!  When I want to walk with him and Stori to the playground down the road and he'd rather play with his friends it hurts to feel rejected since I was so rejected by my own parents.  I'd have LOVED the opportunity to play with my parents.  Just me and them.  I wonder if the guilt story of many decades was actually true somewhere along the line, "I walked to school uphill both ways with no shoes in the snow."  I really wonder.  Because I think most of us parents do try to do better for our kids than what we got and when our kids push that away I think all of our inner-children throw tantrums inside our hearts.

Anyway, I'm glad this challenge is done.  And, I'm more glad to take the lessons I've learned from it and prepare for the next challenge and a change in my every-day parenting.  You can NEVER give enough hugs and no matter how many it felt like I already gave to my kids, neither of them were getting 10 every single day.  Which meant not only were they missing out on ten, but I've been missing out on TWENTY!

To end this on a positive note and stop the mope-fest I'm gonna put up some photos of times that I've been EXACTLY the Mom I'm meant to be, I want to be, and I think I should be:

We made donuts on Easter morning

Rather than yelling I grabbed my camera

I let Zane make his own cake recipe and bake it

I said, "Why don't we dip our toes before we go?"

and I thoroughly enjoyed mud play

So there inner-child Shannon.  You're an absolutely kick ass Mom and you can just carry on the way you carry on.  Good night!