This is soooo Taylor some days...
Sunday night arrives, eve before back to school, and Taylor is crying herself to sleep because she doesn't want to go already. Ugh... yet another part of her personality that makes things so different than her sister. While even though Plexus Slim has helped her, she does still have some struggles. Overall, she's improved by 60% from last year. I know each year she will improve it's just the matter of staying organized. Last night was partially my fault for not reviewing her work she brought home until after church, so she was tired and that's when she tends to get frustrated more easily. We all know how busy life can be, I really try to make things easier for her by planning her day, and organizing her tasks in efforts not to overwhelm her, but there are just those days...
My 19 year old, Alley never had these issues. She was your average A/B student but she was always on top of things. So having days like Taylor's is a struggle for me too; how should I respond? I would say 50% of the time I don't respond well, I may jump too soon at her and then later have to apologize, but there are a few times when I'm actually understanding of her and try to apply empathy to the situation. But where is the fine line of applying empathy and spoiling her? It's tough. I think my husband is less understanding and sometimes thinks I'm more on the spoiling side. We do pray about the situation together. I do pray he becomes more understanding. Prior to Plexus she would get so frustrated with herself that she'd actually make statements like, "I hate myself." "No one likes me." This started about age 6. Now, those statements are gone, but occasionally she does still say, "I'm so mean or rude." She really does struggle with her behavior so I do see this to be a true issue. I pray Plexus continues to decrease her struggle as well as her faith in Christ.
Next steps,
1) Increase her Plexus, I need to be more constant with her nightly ProBio5.
2) Get back to being more organized.
3) Find a way to encourage her weekly with school work. Any suggestions?? I used to let her get a game on her Kindle for good behavior each week, but that was just more of an incentive. We need something to celebrate each week's achievements or improvements in school work.
She also get's stressed when there is too much going on, for example, today she has school, after-school tutoring (for STAAR test- a whole different conversation), then softball practice. So she was dreading day 2 :/ I tell her things like," be sure to find the good in the day and share it with me later." I hope this encourages her to see those things.
Ugh...so tough, so different. Praying everyday!!
So today I took a day off to spend with Ms. Taylor, however I am way behind on many things and a new project to get started on. Some times I wonder what I get myself into and why isn't there enough hours in the day.
We are stepping off into a new adventure...international student exchange program. We are super excited! We are only in the application phase, which hasn't been actually turned in yet, due to required pictures. However, there are steps to be taking before we can take these pictures. We need to get Alley's (my college kid) room set up to accommodate an extra bed, possibly dresser and a flat screen TV to mount on the wall. With all of this said, our funds are extremely low and it's going to take God's confirmation of this process to proceed.
Day 1: Looking for a bed: I made one post to Facebook requesting anyone who may have an extra bed and dresser for sale, within 1 hour we had a free bed and dresser offered!! Praise God!
In addition, Alley started cleaning her room. If you know her, this is a miracle...lol (good-bye Whataburger and McDonald cups)
Day 2: Determine how to come up with extra funds for TV: We decided to start selling a few items; Alley's current TV (her old, HUGE flat screen), an old monitor I have, and now looking at taking old books, tapes and VHS movies to Half Price books tomorrow. I have $50 on our Wal-Mart Savings catcher account (which I originally told my husband would be for our living room TV- oh-well), and $80 in savings (that I don't really want to use).
Alley started rearranging her bedroom!! Whoop whoop!
We are picking up the donated bed and dresser on Friday so that by Saturday we can have her room staged for the pictures. I will definitely share once they are done!
Needless to say I did manage to get about 50% of that list done, however there are just times when God has other plans. I like to think these are how He reminds us that each day is His and not ours. We ended exhausted but blessed....oh and my day started at 6:30 am :)
Thanks for stopping by my blog~
To introduce myself a bit, I've been married to my wonderful husband Terry for going on 14 years, we have 2 girls in our family, Alley who is now my stay at home college kid, 19 years and Taylor who is my 4th grader, 10 years old. Yup, say it, "wow! that's a big age gap!" I know, I remember when Taylor started Kindergarten a said, "ugh...I'm doing this again?"
Needless to say by the time Taylor was 3 I remember thinking, "What am I doing that is so different from how I raised Alley at this age?" With Alley I was a single mom during those years and I don't recall much if any struggle from her. She was and still is what I call, "my compliant child." Taylor on the other hand was 3 years old the first time she stomped to her room and slammed her bedroom door shut. That was the eye opening moment! I then realized we officially had a strong-willed child.
It wasn't too long after that I thought she was going to get kicked out of day care due to totally not cooperating during potty training. Ok, when I say not cooperating picture this...the teachers bring all the children to line up and sit on the potty one at a time. Now...Taylor sits, doesn't go, then stands and GOs!!!! Oh yeah she did, not just one day, but many days!! It's only by the grace of God she decided to turn around and take the potty step at her will a week or so later that saved us! Wheew...I tell you!
It may seem like I'm picking on Taylor at this point, but I'm surely not. I share this because I know there are other moms and dads out there who are going or have gone through this same battle with strong-willed children. We all know they have their own battle going on within that they truly struggle with and I will be sharing more on that as this blog grows.
Alley, remember my compliant child? Yes, she still is to this day! I'm super proud of how self-disciplined she is in her school work, job and church leadership. Does she have her own battles? Absolutely!
Me? Well, yes, I'm that multi-tasking mom with one full-time job, and 2 part-time jobs, plus a MLM job with Plexus Worldwide. I love sharing my faith, being with my family and being and example on fitness and health. Through this blog I will not only share my life stories but also my faith stories and pleximonies (testimonies with Plexus). So I hope you feel free to comment with any questions you have or even share your multi-tasking madness with me!
Yes, it is madness!!
