New Years Eve Stew

I'm spending my New Years Eve, stewing. Unlike Mrs Biddlebox, I didn't wake up on the wrong side of the bed on a dreary day. I have a cozy bed, and today was beautiful. We watched The Little Mermaid, went out and enjoyed our bicycles in the sunshine, had a Pho family lunch, naps, and even a promising Family Home Evening lesson, complete with cheesecake bar treats.
Life is good, eh?
Except for the complete meltdown from the seemingly non-stop arguing, bothering, aggravating, name-calling, whining, crying, miserable two boys of mine. I must have told Joel to "respect Jamie's space" a hundred times today. Joel's not the only culprit.
Jamie wanted a snack. Simple enough, right? But after complaining about every suggestion I made, I let him rummage through the cabinets himself to find what he wanted. Since I was unwilling to call candy a suitable snack, we couldn't come to an agreement. Jamie doesn't eat with us at mealtimes because he only is hungry for snacks. Even at breakfast, he'll eat 3 bites of whatever he said he wanted and was served for breakfast, leave the table "Full", only to cry for a snack 10 minutes later because he's "hungry" again. Then I get to listen to 3 hours of whining and crying if I want to insist on him having an appetite for something other than fish crackers.
Even separating the two of them wouldn't work, today. I felt so completely helpless when I realized that they WANT to make each other cry. Even when they are forced to be on separate floors, they wind each other up verbally, and they don't even stop once one of them is to the point of crying.
Lately I've been noticing that Joel tunes out any corrections or timely interventions. Maybe that explains the 100th "respect his space". When I say "no" he just argues. Jamie just turns on me and yells "No" right back. It sounds like I've lost the parental control. Maybe they're just in a phase of testing my limits. Maybe it'll all work itself out in a couple of months or years. Maybe every parent has this problem. Maybe I've been too easy on them. I truly thought I was a strict parent with firm house rules. But I'm starting to consider adopting more severe consequences for lack of respect towards elders, brothers, environment, etc. What if I put all their toys in boxes and donated them all to Goodwill? What if they were only allowed to play outside, rain or shine? What if they only had chores to do? Any ideas?
When "no" didn't mean anything, that's when I left the house to drive around the block and have a good, long cry and talk to God. I came back with very little to say. Harlan had a chance to talk to them and make them considerably kinder to me when I got back. Thank goodness for him.
So, they aren't all bad. And I don't want to suggest that they are. The day started out shiny and new like most others. Joel had this really sweet moment reading books to Jamie before his nap today. Most of the time when the kids are in public settings and not around me, they blossom into these angelic, sweet boys that I dream of having. So what is it with me? Am I supposed to be satisfied that they are learning good values to take out into the world, but at home they're going to make me crazy? Not what I had in mind when I dreamed of having kids.
So, do the offenses really just accumulate until the breaking point near the end of the day? Should I just plan on putting them to bed when I notice I'm nearing the end of my day's quota of bad behavior? What if that happens at 11am? (Naptime) or 4pm? (Is that too early to put kids to bed?)
I seem to go through these periods of excessive frustration followed by abundant satisfaction. If this is consistent with the rest of the patterns in my life, there's a huge life lesson that I'm on the brink of learning. And if this is just a lesson about forgiveness, I'm going to be really dismayed. I can't believe I'm having to learn this lesson all over again. I thought I had that one down. Nope.
Happy New Year.

Proper Penmanship Followup

Since most of the responses were of concern about controlling my temper, I wanted to follow up on the rest of the day.

Joel ended up spending a good deal of time wiping up the ink. It didn't come off without baking soda, so we let him get pretty frustrated with it not coming up before we agreed to help. I was pretty mad about the marks, but I recognized that the table's just "stuff". Wiping up ink for a while seemed an appropriate consequence. Plus, the time it took to do that gave us plenty of time to talk to him about our primary concern that he know that we have zero tolerance for lying.

We had a big discussion about lying and how important trust is to us. It seemed too early to discuss the concept, but last night he brought it up. He said he wanted to earn trust with us and wanted to know how. It was a prime opportunity to do a better job of explaining it, and so it went.

I seem to underestimate Joel consistently. I think concepts are too advanced for him and then he surprises me with an understanding of them. Over and over, I simplify things and find it was unnecessary. Two steps forward, one step back, for me. It's a parenting thing every parent has to go through, I guess.

Anyway, after a little more investigation, it seems likely that both boys were guilty vandals. So, Joel might not have been lying as much as I thought. There's another parenting lesson for me.

Proper Penmanship

I have a question. Consider this an open discussion, so please post your answers.

What would your parents have done to you when they came home from work and found that you had etched a big figure 8 and scribble marks into the new dining room table with ball-point pen, and then you lied to them (at least 5 times) insisting that your brother did it??

White Christmas

When I told Joel it was Christmas Eve, he immediately ran to the window and looked out. "Was he looking for Santa? or Nonny and Pa?" I wondered. No, he was looking for snow. All the descriptions he knows of Christmas have snow in them. It wasn't snowing, and I could see his gears turning: "Maybe mom meant it's almost Christmas." The faith of a little child is impenetrable.
Christmas morning, Santa had come and presents were unwrapped. We had Christmas music, and Christmas Strata. It felt like Christmas to me. Joel again ran to the window and looked outside. I explained that it doesn't have to snow on Christmas for us to celebrate. I felt like I was taking a big, ugly, black marker and drawing all over his visions of sugarplums. We got dressed to go to Jefe's house and Joel starts announcing "It's Christmas! IT'S CHRISTMAS!!" It was snowing big, fluffy flakes just like we all dream about. How amazing! I have to wonder if Joel's faith made it so.
Because of this one day of snow, the "magic" will live on another year in our boys' heads, and I will have a story of faith to tell forever.

Merry Christmas!!

Product Placement: Negative

Product Placement: Positive