I Am That Stark Raving Lunatic...

This is my life.  Mostly with my kids, though... at least my husband is a little more understanding.  The boys do not seem to respond to me unless I am screaming and flailing my arms about. Or possibly throwing things.  I constantly find myself in absolutely uncontrollable monster mode because I was ignored the first twelve times I calmly asked them to "stop."

I want to be a gentle mother.  I want obedience.  I want pleasant attitudes (mine and theirs).  I do not want my boys to look back on their childhood and remember their mother screaming at them.  But right now, I can't muster an ounce of respect or submission to my authority without going ballistic.  I don't want them to be scared of me... I just want them to know that they are to obey me.  Silly me, I was under the impression that kids were built to understand that their parents are in charge.  I mean, I feel like Michael and I have made this pretty clear over the past 8 years... but, they don't get it.  They continue to push everything past it's limits, to push ME past my limits.  And I feel like a parenting failure.  I keep thinking, OK, it'll sink in soon, they'll realize that they can't get away with this behavior because the consequences always catch up with them.  But, no... the very next day it's the same exact routine, they don't LEARN.  

As a homeschooling mom, there is no break.  I'm with them, basically, 24/7.  And that's tough when I'm spending about 12 of those hours each day saying "No. Stop. Don't do that. Come back here.  Put that down. Stop picking at each other. Listen to me. Pick that up. NO NO NO NO NO NO!" and they're NOT EVEN LISTENING TO ME.  I admit I am NOT the most patient person in these situations, but I try to give them a chance.  And they poop all over those chances.

From Preston (8 years old) I get: "But I didn't know" and "I tried to do the right thing."  He did know, and it wasn't the right thing in any way, shape or form.

From Callen (almost 4 years old) I get: "I'm going to do it anyway" and "No!" because he does not think I have the right to tell him what to do, apparently.

I've read a lot of things and I've tried a lot of approaches, but nothing has worked in gaining any ground in this fight.  Prayer, lots of prayers for patience, the right words and approach to use, that they'll somehow just "get it" and be GOOD.  

Why am I sharing this?  My children are not bad, and I am not a bad mother.  I have a feeling there are a lot of other parents in my shoes.  But I hope that one day in the near future I can look back at this blog and I will have figured it out and I can laugh at how silly I was for not knowing then what I know now.  And my two boys will be caring, respectful, upstanding, obedient men of God.  For now I will enjoy those moments where they do the right thing, where they snuggle with me for a few minutes, where they play nicely together, where I handle the situation correctly, where they learn their lesson and where I see that spark of hope that this phase of our lives will end.  I don't want to rush their growing up, I'd just like to be able to enjoy it a little more.

[Edit: Added 01/29/14] I just read these two articles.  Dear Lord, I needed these two articles!
5 Ways to Overcome the Yelling Mom
I Don't Want to be an Angry Mom, so I threw away my coffee pot