I feel your pain. It has been difficult over here as well. I have noticed the kids act how I act though. If I am stressed, they are brats. If I am happy relaxed mom, they listen better and have better problem solving skills (sharing and nice to each other).

Over here things got knocked put of the norm with Wyatt getting his tonsils out. The other two got a bit big in their britches from having a bit more freedom and so I have been dealing with that lately. I had to get my L&L book back and reread most of it and I feel like just in the past couple days, my kids are doing MUCH better with the consistency that book reminds me to use.

When mine started saying "NO", we would correct them by saying, "no, thank you". They still said no thank you ALOT, but the thank you takes the sting out of it. It lost it's power and appeal for them since we weren't reacting to the nos, we were correcting for the thank you. Does that make sense?

It is freaking hard. I know we all had the answers before kids came along and now that we had THREE, we don't get the opportunity to try all the great solutions we had and are stuck not knowing which way is up sometimes. And that makes us feel bad and guilty. We all have those days, don't be hard on yourself.

I hope it gets better for you soon.

Laura & Don
BBB 5/05
www.ourbighappy.blogspot.com

"