Introducing… the Super Moons!

Ladies and Gentlemen … I would like to take a moment to introduce the brave, the fearless, the AMAZING… “Super-Moons!” The Super Moons are a family of four crime-fighting, people-loving superheroes who are a little known secret in this world. They each have different super-hero abilities, but are all learning to use their strengths to combat evil and build a strong family unit. Let’s meet them.

First, meet the youngest of the group — “Super Jonah” (also sometimes called “Super Jo”). While Super Jonah is a mere 24 pounds at 14 months of age, his superhero abilities are undeniable. Super Jo is the climber of the group. He uses his super-climbing skills to retrieve dangerous remote-controls and cordless telephones that have been hidden on the backs of couches everywhere. He also possesses super-tap-dancing-abilities. When he hears evil approaching, he quickly climbs atop an end table or coffee table and begins to tap. The pitter patter of his feet alerts everyone around of the imminent danger. Though his climbing and tapping skills are second to none in the superhero world, Super Jo is still refining his aquatic capabilities. He fearlessly leaped into the Super-Moons’ training pool one day last week to show off an underwater flip. Thankfully, Super Dad and Super Mom were both there supervising this dare-devilish stunt because little Super Jo isn’t quite ready to fight solo in an aquatic attack, though he is fearless.

The second superhero of the clan, “Super Jay” is the real aquatic adventurer of this group. Super Jay, at 42 pounds, three-and-a-half feet tall, and three-and-a-half years old can out-swim the fastest of villians. Any evil that approaches Super Jay near water will be quickly defeated with his power-cannonball. However, if a stealthy attack is necessary, it’s not a problem for Super Jay. He simply fits his super-big-brown-eyes with his super-goggles and dives underwater to catch his enemies. Super Jay’s real secret weapon, however is his mind. He has an amazing ability of memorizing. Once, when an evil villian, “The Potty Trainer,” was upon him, he was able to remember and quote a line from a movie, “SIEZE THAT CREATURE!” Amazingly, the Potty Trainer doubled over in laughter and was unable to force herself on him. On another occasion, he was able to use a memorized movie quote to fight off “Super Dad” in a training session. When he declared, “You are a sad, strange little man” to Super Dad, the super-parents decided that  superhero training for the day was finished. You see — they had just discovered that Super Jay’s secret weapon was truly his gift of memorization. Since that time, the super-parents have trained Jay in memorizing the books of the New Testament (he had accomplished this at age two-and-a-half) and several Bible verses. They figure that if all his memorizing is put to good practice, Super Jay will grow up knowing just how to use his super powers for good.

“Super Dad” is the level head of this superhero family. He is a strong leader, a compassionate spirit, and a people-lover. He uses his super-weapons, the baton and trombone, to fight off the evil villian “intonation” in most of his daily battles. However, Super Mom says that his  most pronounced super-skill is his magnetic strength. He uses his magnetic ability to lure in people everywhere — and people everywhere love Super-Dad. Super-Mom likes to say he just has a “magnetic personality.” 😉

“Super Mom,” being the only female in this superhero family grows in super strength by seeing her boys learn and grow. She delights in uncovering the powers and abilities of her super-children and rests easy knowing that Super-Dad is the family leader. You see, being the only female in a family of superheroes means Super Mom feels pretty safe and protected. However, if need be, Super Mom can take on the strongest of enemies. You see, Super Mom has a Super God that she turns to for wisdom and strength. Super Mom’s God promises that she can do anything, “through Christ who gives [her] strength.” That’s pretty SUPER if you ask me.

Strong-Willed Jay: Shape it — don’t break it.

As a working Mother (of the two most precious baby boys on the planet), I have experienced a whole roller coaster of parenting emotions — and I know many of you can relate. Guilt, jealousy, pleasure, excitement, stress, pride, gratitude, and most importantly — love have all been mine throughout this working-mom adventure. As a teacher, I have been blessed to have summers at home with my babies, as well as long holiday breaks throughout the school year, so I’m not a stranger to the stay-at-home-mom lifestyle. And as much as I enjoy my days at home, I look forward to and thoroughly enjoy my working days, too.

The biggest decision for we families who have two full-time working parents lies in childcare arrangements. Matt and I have been blessed tremendously with wonderful parents (his and mine) who have gladly fulfilled our childcare needs throughout the school year, along with our third adopted parents, Bob and Nana (dear friends from our church who also give of their time to care for our boys). So, in our family the time that Mommy and Daddy have been working has been special bonding time for our boys with their grandparents (all 3 sets!). We have been blessed beyond measure to have such wonderful childcare arrangements.

Around the time that Jay turned 3 (last November), parenting became increasingly difficult. I have mentioned before about Jay’s strong-will, but I don’t know if words can adequately describe his level of “willfulness.” In retrospect, I know that my little Jay was doing a whole lot of learning about life around that third birthday (about 6 months after his new baby brother joined our family). Thinking from his perspective, here are the questions he was dealing with around that time:

Why is everyone (my caretakers and parents) holding baby Jonah so much? Why do I need to try to be quiet when the baby is sleeping? Why do I have to try to take a nap — I’m not tired. Why doesn’t anyone like to change my diapers anymore? Why am I supposed to stop playing to try sitting on the potty? Why doesn’t Jonah have to sit on the potty, too? Why do I have to share my toys with the baby? Why can’t I wrestle Jonah like I wrestle my toys? Why can’t I pick Jonah up and carry him by myself?  Why does my Mommy have to feed Jonah all the time? Why doesn’t Jonah just eat at the table like me?

Yes, 3-year-old Jay did a lot of learning around the time that his brother came into the world. And being such a strong-willed child, Jay met the frustrations and changes coming at him with strong reactions. Okay, let’s call it what it was — temper-tantrums. Arms flailing; feet kicking; throat screaming; fists punching; head butting. Our super-sweet, smart, and lively Jay could throw a fit that Mommy physically could not restrain — and heaven help anyone who would try to hold him down in a tantrum. In desperation, I began researching, reading, reflecting, and closing off my world as much as possible from others. You see, it’s not “cool” to be the parent of the kid who has tantrums. For some reason, our society has taught us that “good parents” have children who sit quietly in church, who share their toys, who potty train early, and respond with sincere tears when they are disciplined. My child didn’t display any of these qualities, so my self-worth as a capable parent quickly went down the toilet. The truth is, “good parents” meet each obstacle with a determination to succeed.

Since that time, I have done a lot of reading about coping with and parenting strong-willed children. One thought that resonates with me came from Dr. James Dobson’s book, The Strong-Willed Child. While I am parenting my strong-willed child, it is important that I help shape his will, not break his will (my own paraphrase). After prayer, research, a child psychologist consult, pediatrician visit, and more prayer, Matt and I decided that the best change for our Strong-Willed boy would be daycare. This was a drastic change for all of us, but I wholeheartedly believe this was the answer for which I had prayed.

I could go on and on naming the wonderful things that Jay has learned and experienced at daycare, but I’ll just list a few:

• He quickly potty trained (seeing the other children go had much more convincing power than any sticker chart or prize for my strong-willed fellow)
• He distinguishes most all of his geometric shapes (including pentagon, octagon, and rhombus — this math teaching Mama is happy)
• He is learning phonetics (yes, I can work on this with him at home and I do — but he LOVES doing this at “school”)
• He recognizes all capital letters and most lower case letters
• He can write his own name (okay … three letters … but still — he’s just 3 years old)
• He has learned to SHARE HIS TOYS (this deserves capital letters because it is huge for him)
• He pretend-plays with other children
• He has learned about rejection (when another child didn’t “like” him — it was a struggle, but we’re all stronger after going through it)
• He has learned to eat a better variety of foods (it’s amazing what they will try eating when they see other kids trying it — especially for strong-willed kids)
• He has learned to take a consistent nap (okay — he does this consistently at “school” — he still won’t nap regularly at home)
• He has learned that he’s big enough to have his own little social agenda (he LOVES telling Mom and Dad about his day at school — he’s so proud)
• He has learned to ride a tricycle
• He has improved his coordination with a ball

I could go on and on, but the best thing he has learned is how to control his temper. Jay rarely ever has a temper tantrum now. He has seen other children sit through time-outs in the red chair at school without throwing a tantrum, and now he is able to mimic that behavior — even at home.

Strong-willed Jay will always be strong-willed,however. Yesterday, he had a little slip up at daycare. He pushed another child and so, was placed in the red time-out chair. This is a rare occurrence. Jay rarely ever does anything at daycare that requires a time-out and for whatever reason, he was determined that he would not be put in time-out this time. When I picked him up, his teacher described an arm flailing fit that he had thrown when she told him to sit in time-out. She didn’t have to go into great detail. I knew exactly what that fit looked like. I’ve seen it many times (though it’s not been around much in the past few months). Jay and I quickly left and we had a long talk on the car ride home. By the time we got home, Jay was apologizing to me for behaving badly (it was sincere). He and I together decided the right thing to do would be to do his 3-minute time out as soon as we got inside since he didn’t do his time-out at school like he was supposed to (side note: part of successfully parenting the strong willed child is letting him have ownership in the idea — so… learning to manipulate the situation when necessary to make him think the punishment is his own idea). After he finished his time-out, I went in his room to talk about it again. I asked him what he thought he needed to tell his teacher when he saw her again. He said, “I need to tell her I am sorry for pushing and I am sorry for throwing a fit.” I agreed. Then Jay said, “Mom, I need to go tell my teacher that I’m sorry right now.” So … we loaded back up in the car, drove back to the daycare, and I led him back inside to make his apology. He walked up and apologized like a big boy, then asked his teacher where the little boy was that he had pushed — he wanted to apologize to him, too (I didn’t know he was going to do that). Though the other little fellow had gone home for the day, I’m sure Jay will properly make amends the next time he is at daycare. What a proud moment for me. I’m not glad he threw a fit, but I’m certainly glad to have reached his heart in teaching him that what he did was wrong.

It is truly amazing how a fit that would have left me feeling powerless a few short months ago has turned into such an awesome parenting success story today. If there’s anything I’m certain of about parenting, it’s that I don’t know it all — especially about anyone else’s children — but I’ll work my very hardest to know what I need to know to do the best parenting possible for my little Moon men.