recommitting to being recommitted

Seriously. Are you sick of me yet. I quite am.

I just need to get my act together and BLOG. I am missing so much documentation of my life, my children's lives. The trouble is there are pictures to upload. I  don't know why that is the trouble...post with pictures are great. But it seems to be my Goliath when it comes to blogging.

The thing is, is I need this outlet. To record my happy and sad moments.

For example, if I may get more personal than I have been in quite some time, my son, Beckham, the 7 year old, is struggling. A lot. There is a lot of disrespect and blatant disobedience and blaming everyone and everything under the sun for the consequences except himself.

I feel I am at a loss. Kevin and I are very consistent parents who follow through with the consequences and still he continues to choose behaviors he knows will, in the end, make his life harder and then he has, as he puts it, "the worst summer ever all because of YOUR stupid consequences!"

Now I am not so old that I cannot not recognize that much of that statement was said for the shock value. And yet I am shocked. Shocked that there could possibly be a being that comes from me, that has been raised by me, that does not take owner ship of his own actions. Both Kevin and I are very clear about that topic with our children. It's fine to feel anger. It's fine to feel sad. It's fine to feel mischievous. It is even welcome to express those feelings if you are in control of yourself and respectful when doing so. But we have taught our children to take ownership, or so we thought, of their behaviors if they choose to loose control. And we expect them to loose control to an extent. They are after all only children. That is fine. Just take ownership, learn from it what you can, apologize, and grow.

Underneath all this anger and disrespect is SUCH a good kid and he is very, very loved. We try to show that love a lot. He has so much potential and a heart to go with it. I'm not sure where the anger is coming from. He is mostly well behaved when we are away from home. Which I am thankful for. It gives me hope. When he is home it is a different story.Everyone is always wide eyed when they learn of some consequence Beckham has earned. I've seen the questions in their eyes about whether this isn't too much of a consequence. But I can't be worried about what anyone else thinks. Only what Beckham is learning....or not learning it feels like.

Mostly I am just terribly, terribly sad. He's only 7 for goodness sake. Shouldn't this trial come a bit latter? Shouldn't you feel at a complete loss in the parental department when you have at least 13 years of happy relationship building to fall back on?

I'm hesitant to post this incase you get the wrong impressions of Beckham or our family life. We really do have it great, today just seemed especially.......character building shall we say. Doesn't me we still can't find joy, it may be a bit more hidden, but it's still there.