The Trenches- Battling a Strong Willed 1yr Old with an Even Stronger Willed Momma

(We are going to call this Part 1 since I have a feeling these “battles” are not going to be few and far between.)

I’m going to try and walk you through our three day weekend trip through *you know where* while never leaving our house, condensing it where I can, but truly it would take all 72 hours to explain it all.  So here’s the cliff-notes version….

Friday Day 1

Pick Liam up at Ita’s and he refuses to go with me. Fights me when I pick him up, runs back inside the door to stay with Ita, and finally after taking a few swings at me to get me to put him down, Ita has to escort him to my car and help calm him as I buckle him in.

Head home and Liam starts to scream in the traffic—I want to scream at traffic too, instead I call my hubby who advises that he will stop, he is probably just tired. He doesn’t stop.  The entire drive home Liam continues to scream until I pull into our driveway. 

Get inside try for a nap (which we clearly need) and no luck.

Liam refuses to eat dinner, settles for animal crackers and then fights tooth and nail to stay awake as Brian and I alternate rocking and sitting with him until 11:00, when, finally, he crashes out from exhaustion.

We head for his room to tuck him in bed, go over all the normal routine—pray over him, turn his music on, night light, then lay him down into his crib where, instantly, his eyes pop open.
The next few minutes are full of frantic crying, terrified screaming, pointing to his closet in the dark until finally Brian and I break down and turn the lights back on trying to find what is wrong.  His passy has landed in front of the closet in the floor, which he is staring down at now.  Then commence the next hour of singing and cooing to try and get him back to sleep again.
After midnight Brian and I finally drag ourselves to bed, beat down with fatigue and too far gone to even remember to turn out the lights through the house and lock all the doors.

(This is when I remember something from my childhood…. My sisters and I would say “dad did you check the locks?” And he would answer, “ what are you afraid someone is going to come kidnap you in the night? Because I already put the sign on the front door that says first hallway second door on the right.”
We used to think he was kidding, just full of it, but now I realize he might have been on to something!)

End of night 1—Victory definitely goes to Liam

Saturday Day 2

Brian leaves for work at 6:30 waking Liam and ruining my chance to get him to sleep in.

We spend the morning half playing and doing some of Liam’s therapy up until lunch time. He takes his morning nap for THREE hours—which he slept on my chest on the sofa and would not let me put him in bed, but at least he is sleeping so that I can read a book. (Insert Momma Win HERE!)

Lunch time.

Liam refuses again his food and begins to repeatedly toss his sippie cup at me because it was filled with whole milk instead of formula. (We recently started switching over from whole milk instead of formula and he is not taking it so well.)

This goes on for more than an hour so I finally give up and take the cup away from him. When he is thirsty he will drink.

After I remove the cup we go back and forth with his fruit cup which he begins to toss in the floor in his lap and at me while I was doing some dishes that were piling up in our sink.

When he wants to eat he will eat.

So I remove him from his highchair and he begins a two hour tantrum throughout the house. Smashing things on our bookshelf, throwing his toys around the room, sitting or laying on the living room floor crying and refusing me when I try to pick him up or coddle him in any way.  I try every method removing the objects, distracting him, replacing the objects with other ones, spatting his small chubby hand…none of this works.

It’s almost the end of the day, time for Brian to be home, when I begin to ignore Liam’s little tantrum and start to unload the dishwasher. I turn to find that Liam is in the mood to help me, only the first object he grabbed out of the dishwasher is a knife. I panic and remove it carefully from his hand and then turn to spat his hand to ensure he knows that this is definitely a NO NO. But at that moment I stop myself, realizing that I am so worn down from the entire day and so tired of listening to his tantrums of screaming and squealing that I may hit his hand too hard with a little pent up anger and frustration behind it, so I resist all together and decide to redirect him once again, knowing he will only be back another day.  

By the time Brian is off work and we make it to our church (we attend Saturday night services when he works in the summer) we leave Liam in the nursery after worship.

We check in on him and of course he is screaming being walked around in the hallway by a nursery aid and looks like he will hyperventilate at any moment.  Church service is spent with me chasing him around the lobby listening through the speakers.

We leave to meet Aunt Lala and soon-to-be Uncle Seth to get some flowers (wedding prep stuff) from Lala’s car. Commence crying non stop through Hastings while we wait to meet Lala and Seth, and through the entire drive home.

Repeat of Friday night bedtime routine and 11:45pm we are finally in bed.

End of Day 2---Liam definitely wins this one. (And in case you’re keeping score, that’s Liam 2, Mommy 1)

Sunday Day 3

Liam wakes again at 6 when Brian leaves for work.

Refuses afternoon nap and eats small amounts of veggies for his mid-morning snack.

Another hour begins of screaming and crying and lying down on the floor dragging his blanket until he finally begins to fall asleep in my lap. This is when Brian suggests that I check his mouth for teeth or blisters….gotcha….one new little tooth has just broke the surface of his puffy gums and he is wailing as I check for more.

Begin dosing with Tylenol.

Finally nap time.

We spend the day back and forth with tantrums and napping until Brian gets home. Luckily, I now know the reason behind his tantrums and whining fits so I refrain from punishing him and instead just try to soothe him. He turns cuddly for a few hours and then goes back to bashing toys and books about the house again. By the end of the day my nerves are fried and I have to walk to get the mail just to have a few moments of peace.

We head to town to meet my friend Rachel and her newborn babe Ewan for dinner—Brian is called to meet me there to pick up Liam and bring him back home to get dinner and into bed so that Rachel and I can catch up. Instead the dads both end up joining us and we all six sit for dinner. Big mistake.

Liam begins climbing up and down from his booster seat (which has no straps to keep him in place) and in and out of the booth. A million macaroni noodles coat the booth’s floor. Finally Brian leaves early to escort him home to his bed where he falls asleep before I join them thirty minutes later.

End of day 3….or so I thought.

As I lay in bed I begin to sob. I cannot handle another day like today, like yesterday, or the day before. I need a mental health day after this. But I look forward to the weekends, my days full of Liam time and yet I just wanted to run far far away.  I find my hubby in the living room doing homework and unload all my frustrations and tears on him. He takes a few minutes to hug me and soothe me with his advice and kind words. Then he begins to pray over me for God to give me peace and grace with our stubborn strong-willed child.

Finally end of day 3, crawling in bed, too tired to even cry anymore.

Liam wins.

After all the weekend was said and done, Monday morning comes and I’m beyond exhausted. A one way ticket to Mexico (or further) was looking pretty good from where I sat 9 hours ago (at 4 am when he woke us up). But looking back on this weekend only gives me determination for the next. It’s a cycle of trial and error (this weekend being the error) and hopefully we will hammer out the path along the way. As I gathered my beaten self for work this morning, I realized I’m not only going to need my hubby praying over me when I FINALLY break down, I’m going to need his shower of prayers daily, along with a lot of grace when we/I screw it up. So we will take it step by step and come up with our own methods…eventually we will find one that works for us and Liam. I develop a new prayer as I drive back to work from visiting Liam at lunch time. (My way of making up for wanting to get away from him over the weekend. Cuddles and French fries at lunch time.)
So my NEW revised prayer.

Dear God-
Help me look forward to “good morning” more than I do “bedtime”

To kiss and hug more than I have to redirect, spat, or wag my finger at him

To let the messy house go more often

To pick my battles wisely

To give him grace when he is sickly, teething, or in new environments

To learn to live on 4-5 hours of sleep when I have to

To be the mom that occasionally spoils him with snow cones and ice cream

To be the mom who doesn’t care who’s watching our meltdown in the grocery store

The mom that knows when to walk away for a breather or call for back up when she needs it

The mom who doesn’t debate bothering her husband with her tears but goes to him before she hits the breaking point

To take a personal health day when needed, and not feel guilty for doing so

To be the mom who does not care who stops by when the house is a mess especially not if they are family

To be the mom who gets in the sprinklers even in her work clothes because he wouldn’t let go of my hand

To be the mom who doesn’t mind the sticky hands and finger prints

And the mom who Liam wants to spend more time with than he does away from.

 Amen
MEMO TO MOM: Tomorrows another day......ps you prayed for strong willed children!