You Take the Good, You Take the Bad

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Remember this?


I thought of this show and it's theme song today while having a "Bad Alahnnah Day." She spent more time in her room today than she did downstairs with the rest of us. I decided that removing her from the situation in addition to counsel is the best thing to do to deter the behavior .

Spanking her has never worked. Taking away a favorite toy, restricting access to TV or computer at her designated times, time out, stern words, screaming and hollering...none of that has ever proven to yield any other result than MY utter exhaustion.

She hates to be separated from the action. So - that's what I did. She spent from 9:30 to 11:00am in her room for screaming at her sister (I mean SCREAMING). It was going to be a 15 minute "cool down" stint, but she rolled her eyes at me and told me that "wouldn't work anyway."

*head exploding*

This afternoon, she and her brother were doing chores - she in the bathroom and he in the toy room - and she threw a shampoo bottle at him. Now, I'm not saying that her brother was innocent...no, no, no...but reactions like that are violent and unacceptable. That got her sent to her room for for what started out as an hour - but since the fighting didn't stop and continued while I was on the phone - she was up there til supper.

Time for the good.

Cameron was an absolute delight today. I'm still seated much of the time, and that baby brought me books to read to him, sat next to me on the couch to have his snack and just crawled and loved all over me. There were moments when I felt like the sun had broken through the roof of the house and shone the brightest on he and I alone.

This evening we had a family talk. We used "I feel _______ when..." statements, and in the end Alahnnah actually told her brother that she loved him. She apologized to me and we were all able to start over.

Peace. Being loved. Feeling all is right with the world. Thank you Lord for showing me some of the good qualities in my children while one little stinker was showing me the bad.

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