I think I've come to a good compromise with the boys. It's been a strict rule of mine not to have toys in the living room. It drives me crazy to have toys everywhere, and I don't deal well with chaos of messes. I know that it seems weird or mean that I won't let them have toys upstairs, but it just becomes too chaotic for me to have stuff everywhere. Plus, I have clients that I train here at the house and I was driving myself crazy constantly cleaning up toys from all over the living room. So to keep Mom's sanity, no toys allowed upstairs. The boys have a very large space in the basement that is all fixed up and filled with so many toys that it's a little ridiculous. But....... The boys are terrified of the basement. They will not go down there without me or Craig. One time I tried to bribe them to go downstairs (I desperately needed just a short time to myself) so I gave Christian a kitchen timer, set it for 20 minutes and told them that if they went downstairs and played all by themselves until the timer went off I'd take them to the store and let them pick out a small train. Yeah.... that didn't work. It did for a few minutes then something made them panic and they lost it and were back up stairs screaming and crying. I think it's the fact that if they are downstairs, they can hear me walking around upstairs, and that noise freaks them out, but that's the only logical thing I can come up with.
Anyways, we've fought this battle of them needing to learn to play on their own, without me being right at their sides, for several months. It's hard because they won't leave my side. They lay around in the living room or hang onto me. They don't want me out of their sight. And it's hard to explain without making my kids sound like brats or badly behaving children, because that's not the case. Noises in our world just scare them and I think they like to keep me close in case they hear something and need to dart to Mom. But this entirely wears me out. I have a lot of patience, but sometimes all the patience in the world isn't enough to have your children crying and whining all day.
This week I finally decided that I NEED them to play on their own at some point during the day. I can't sit by their sides all day long, and they can't lay around all day. So, a comprise was made. I took the boys down to their playroom, gave them each a large plastic tote, and told them they can pick the toys they'd like to have in their bedrooms. They boy scattered around the room picking up their favorite toys and started filling their totes. We then carried their totes and put them in each of their rooms. And all afternoon, they played together with their toys. My rule is that toys have to stay in the bedrooms. And they've been OK with that so far. They are learning to play together, and independently, and I'm getting some much needed time to myself to clean and have my quiet time in prayer. The crying over noises has also seemed to decrease, and I think that it's because they are so distracted by playing together. Let's see if this continues.... we might be onto something here!!
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