Hmmmmm.....

We were late for school yesterday. More correctly, Porter was late for school; Dallin was on time courtesy of a neighbor. Believe it or not, this is actually a positive thing. Because the alternative might have been an all-out fight at 8 am. This was evidence- and not the first of it- that "plan B" is working. The details are as follows: if Porter is ready for school {which is a list of about 5 things} when it's go-time, he earns a Wii game of 5 on 5 football for the afternoon. And if he's not ready, he doesn't. And apparently the side note to that choice is that we will also be late for school. This is the first time we've been late since the plan was intact. I'm learning what compromise really means. Being on time is important to me. Playing the Wii is important to him. If we work together, we both get what we want. If we struggle, well neither one of us gets what we want. I guess I'm learning that, to me, it's worth it to compromise being on time for no yelling? Hmm, I didn't even know that about myself. Learn something new all the time. And there was no yelling or screaming {from either party} in the morning. And there was no Wii in the afternoon.

Now "plan B" was created after "plan A" had a miserable crash landing, possibly never even made it to take-off. Last week I was praying and strategizing- I needed a new way to handle/discipline/mother this Pistol Pope of mine. Things have been a bit on the rocks, como se dice. And in that prayer, a plan was developed. For three days I was going to remain calm in iffy situations and give Porter more leeway. And hopefully that three days would allow us both the opportunity to push the restart button for how we communicated. I felt like I needed to take more responsibility for my actions and have that be my focus. So with a plan in place, I was ready to go face my day.

Well I'll tell you what it wasn't 30 minutes into "plan A" before I found myself screaming at him {yes, you read correctly} and.......brace yourself.....hitting the bill of his hat. I know, embarrassing. Feel embarrassed for me and look away from the computer screen. I don't know what exactly was faulty in this plan- whether it was the plan itself or my aversion of commitment that took no longer than 30 minutes to kick in and send me flying off the handle in panic mode, claustrophobic by the thought of sticking to something for another full 2 days and 23 1/2 hours . Either way, it was about that long before I was back to square 1, and really less than square 1 if there were such thing cuz it usually takes a lot longer than 30 measly minutes into the day to get me that fired up. Talk about digging a hole....

So plan B was devised on the double and has thus far produced success on the good and not-so-good days. In fact we've actually had a really good week. I'll tell you what, this thing of trying to raise a kid that is JUST LIKE YOU is for the birds. Oh the parody.... how often that the child most like you is the one you have the most clashes with? What is the lesson in that?!! {The things that make you go Hmmmmmm.....} We're gonna make this work, I'm not giving up on you, Porter P!!!