How much is enough?

I should be doing schoolwork. I should be cleaning the kitchen, vacuuming the floor, getting a decent night's sleep, filing almost a year's worth of paperwork, and about a million other things. I realize I'm not the only person to feel this way.


So why don't I do it? Dunno. Probably because I don't want to, which leads me to think about an aspect of my personality I'd really rather not...my secret tendency to rebel. I think it's an internal war of have to against want to, and I'm still childish enough to mentally stamp my foot and silently scream, "NO! I DON'T WANT TO!"

Today, I got my issue of Good Housekeeping (I think it was the March issue) and I was reading Geneen Roth's monthly column. Geneen deals with emotional eating and related issues. In this issue, she was talking about how she counseled a Mom who was concerned about her daughter's weight and eating habits to completely fill a cabinet in the kitchen with chocolate. The Mom was to tell her daughter she could have any and everything in the cabinet whenever she wanted. The Mom was to keep the cabinet full without any comment or judgement for three weeks. The Mom, understandably, was not thrilled about this but did it anyway. At the end of three weeks, the Mom was surprised that her daughter had stopped eating the chocolate. Not because she got sick or ate too much, but because her daughter felt that her Mom was okay with however much chocolate she ate or didn't eat and loved her the same anyway.

Huh!!!!!

I feel like I am always worrying about the potential psychological damage I'm doing to my kids. I don't want them to inherit my issues - food or otherwise - but I also know that kids are pretty darn smart, and they pick up both the said and unsaid that they live with. So if the key, then, is that they feel accepted and loved no matter what, I might just have a fighting chance of not ruining them completely.

Since I've been putting consistent, every day effort into remaining calm and not flying off the handle, I've noticed a HUGE change in T. HUGE! Reading Geneen's article was like a smack in the face - the kids don't care how clean the house is, whether I'm trying to beat a deadline with a paper or assignment for school, they just care that Mommy loves them and thinks they are great. Which they are. Even when they have days like today at the grocery store where R had to stay in the car with them while I did the shopping because they were fighting over everything - probably even the air they were breathing.

Mine!

No! Mine!

It's MINE

NO, MINE

You get the idea - I can talk all day long about working out problems, handling conflict, expressing anger in an appropriate way, and blah, blah, blah. But in two and four year old land - they could care less. It will eventually sink in, it will eventually get better. And I have to admit that there are days when I'd love to throw in the towel and tantrum along with them.

I NEVER want my kids to feel like they don't measure up, aren't good enough, or can't ever please me. Despite my best efforts, it might happen anyway because I'm battling demons of my own in those areas, but I'm going to take my best effort and then double it to prevent it from happening in our house. And if it takes a cabinet full of chocolate to prove it, so be it.