Coping with hooligans

I sit and type this as my two boys eat their lunch. Neither of them were asking for lunch or even acting hungry, but for sanity sake we have a schedule where we try to eat lunch right around noon every day. As soon as the prospect of food is introduced both boys seem to lose their composure. Elijah deals with is a bit more maturely than does Judah, but both of them flip out in their own little way. It's as if they were starving, sitting around waiting all morning long for me to pull lunch stuff out and then when I finally do, it just wasn't quite soon enough. Death by starvation is looming around the next corner and lunch is surely not going to be ready in time. This is the precise reason I loathe fixing the boys lunch. It's never a fun time, or relaxing, or a time that I EVER feel like I can be creative and fun with their food. It's a race to see how much of their lunch I can get ready before they notice, in order to minimize the amount of time they are hanging on my ankles crying (mostly Judah) about how lunch is NOT yet ready. The mood you are reading is a culmination of my frustration with my job this morning. It's not complaining, as I see it, just coping with my frustrations as a mother through writing. It's the only way I can process through how the morning has gone, so write on I will.

Elijah has recently taken great delight in the pestering and aggravation of his younger brother. This has been utterly frustrating for me watch. This morning Judah was standing on a bottom brace of his highchair by the table and Elijah came up to hug him. I believe it started out as just a hug, but it quickly turned in to Elijah intentionally smashing Judah's face into the corner of the table and laughing hysterically about how distraught Judah was about his face being pressed into hard wood. I hate bullying! I was the one getting picked on, constantly, when I was little. It strikes a nerve that feeds my temper. It's really difficult for me to discipline and guide Elijah to do the right thing without an emotional explosion. I know it comes with the territory of being a mother to boys (or just being a mother of anything) and that it's natural for brothers to bicker, but it truly is, I can honestly say, the biggest challenge I've faced as a mother thus far. Elijah didn't hit when he was Judah's age (as most babies do for a time) and he's never been physically aggressive with his friends, so to watch the switch from that to him actually taking delight in physically hurting his brother has really been heart breaking for me. He's gone from hugging, kissing and loving on Judah to tripping, slapping, smashing or hitting him at any chance that seems worthy. (as I typed out that last part, I was SO blessed to see Judah run up and rub Elijah's arm and face after Elijah tripped and hurt himself. Elijah bent and kissed Judah's forehead and they both ran off to play - THAT is what a mama loves to see, but these instances seem so few and far between any more). I haven't a clue why God chose three boys for me to raise. It's hard for me to write out how excited I am to love on Joel once he's born, but 3 boys? Gracious! He knows exactly what I need (and what Josh needs) to be a parent to. I suppose it's a good testament to his sense of humor. I never would have pictured having 3 boys in a row! I thought surely 3 boys would be would be more than I can handle, God knows! I suppose God knows I'm wrong about that because come July there will be even more testosterone in this house...oh goodness! I wake up some mornings to Elijah slamming his door behind him after he's woken up and gotten out of bed, and then listening to Judah cry because the slamming door woke him up. These are just some of the mornings I just don't feel up to face the challenge that I'm called to face. Some days it just seems too much. (interesting how I have a hard time, sometimes, living my day to day life when I am more blessed than I could have imagined. Some women NEVER get the chance to grow a baby or even to be a mother, yet I am able to find discontentment in this blessing that God has given me. Humanness in it's purest form) Some days I even wonder why my boys even like me anymore. As I'm sure many of you can relate, there are days I'm just not a very nice mommy. It's hard to be nice, sometimes, when you spend day in and day out trying to train your children out of their "inherent evil" just to have them act like wild animals. These are truly difficult days for me to power through!