Mama's or Papa's, yes you are Super Hero's all of You!

I have seen some good postings lately about challenges with their children and often we do not express that there are times when, let's face it, being a parent is the toughest job.

I sometimes sit down to watch Louis C.K. at night after the boy has gone to bed and for most of you who know us, most likely that time is around midnight as my son has a sleeping disorder (hoping temporary but has had it since Russia 2yrs ago). He gets to see a specialist soon.

Back to my thought, Louis says it right as he has children and has no hesitation saying it the way it is, but sometimes the best break is when you buckle them in their car seat on your way some where, shut the door and then I take one minute to sit, breathe and look at the sky. Why? Well, if you knew just what it takes to get out of the door! Lol. Usually a long negotiation using all of the tactics I had when I was working with children with behavior challenges and what happens? I throw him over my shoulder and carry him out of the doorway. What is he doing? Laughing or kicking, one of the two.

Having said that as my mother who had a 10 day visit, who I brought up to observe Alexei as she is a child development specialist, crisis and trauma counselor and university professor (work a holic, can you tell?) said "You are very lucky, he is extremely smart, attentive and you are raising an adult". Huh? Yes, he is an adult for the most part with child like tantrums hehe. He eats salami and marinated veggies and would rather drink my iced tea or sneak a sip of coffee when I am not looking over drinking his juice or soy milk. Yes, he asks for goat cheese, very specific. Loves anything with garlic. So, he has an advances palette, however try having a long conversation with him on why he should go to bed, or why he believes it is important that he be the barista every day pretending to make me coffee or why he would rather shop in the clothes stores over playing in the children's areas. Yup, that's right. He will go in there, 5 minutes later, "mama or papa, will you take me to the store?"

At other times he is pretend playing super hero's, pleading to watch Dr. Who, uh, yeh don't think so unless it has been pre-watched by me or he is dressing up in costume or doing a monologue on our bed with his hands in the air as if he was doing a Shakespearean play.

All in all my child has more energy than 3 adults, does not need naps as he says, doesn't take them and stays up until midnight, even to just talk in his bed to the silence in the room for an hour. He is in love with the moon and looks for it every other night yelling, "the moon!" "the moon!"

I suggest if there are heightened behavior issues up or down, have the child checked for anemia. This was in fact our issue and he is now balancing out behavior wise a bit more.

Every where I take him, we stop and he will have a full conversation either with the doctor who he promptly could not handle him telling him he had to sleep because for the rest of the day he was in a slump, emotionally upset and worried that we would enforce what the doctor said about his sleeping habits. On the bright side, he puts himself in time outs lol.

3 years old and yes, there are challenges up the wazoo! Mama lives off of espresso and is looking forward to adding on more to this fun family of 3 plus four leggeds so she can really test out her energetic ability!

It is OKAY to feel spent.
It is OKAY to feel impatient.
It is OKAY to need a break.
It is OKAY to want to scream in a pillow.
It is OKAY to laugh hysterically while your child asks if you are okay.
It is OKAY to sit down and tell your son, I need a time out for a minute or two.
It is OKAY to be you, to be the most incredible, energetic fun loving parent who must be on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It is okay to be paranoid at times about your children and to just stare at them for an hour at night while they finally sleep. (A miracle in our house).

It is OKAY, hell, they do all of the above, why can't we?

I love my son more than anything in this world, he is my everything and he is also my biggest challenge and one day he will be my biggest success.