Tough Love

When I thought about having children I remember people telling me how hard it was. How it was mentally, emotionally, and physically draining. How my whole world would shift and my priorities would forever change. Now, I believed them. I knew in my head that it was going to be hard and that there were going to be sacrifices made, made the reward was so much greater. One thing they forgot to mention is all the heart break you go through as a parent. I remember the first time I dropped him off at daycare and how I pretty much cried every day that week. How every time he gets sick I wish I could take it all away for him. Then there is the heart break because of the lessons you have to teach your child.

About a month ago we really started having some issues with Brandon. He actually almost got himself kicked out of school, and now we are still on probation. This is preschool people, so it wasn't like he was setting things on fire on Science class...at least not yet anyway. To me it was much worse than that. My son had no respect for authority. None. Which as a parent is one of the big lessons you are suppose to teach your child and I thought I was doing that. I guess I was wrong.

So about two weeks ago we had to take things to the extreme and for the first time really knew what tough love was. Even though I thought tough love was for when they are older and you have to send them out into the world and let them try to figure it out on their own, I was giving my four year old a different kind of tough love. We stripped his room. He had nothing, no toys, no stuffed animals, no books, no pictures on the wall, and no bed frame. His room consisted of the essentials...a bed on the floor and a plain white t-shirt and some plain shorts for him to wear. Yes one outfit that I had to wash every night. No more desserts and no more going out to eat. He did receive love and care, food, baths, you know, the stuff we need to live.

Once we took everything away and he saw what we had done, well the inevitable happened...a holy temper tantrum. One of epic proportions. A few hours to be exact. We explain what was going to happen, but he didn't believe us of course, until he saw his empty room. So after he had his melt down and I had mine we had a talk about why things were happening and what behavior is expected of him. We also explained that if he behaves the way he is suppose to then each day he can earn one thing back of his choosing.

Okay, some of you might be thinking I am crazy and that this is too harsh for a four year old. I want to remind you I still loved on him, feed him, and gave him baths and clean clothes. He just didn't have the fun things we give our children today. He had what is all some kids have in this country. He needed to learn that things in life don't come free. That with the right behavior we can earn things that we would like to have. Simple building blocks that some of us never learn and expect the world to hand us everything or that we are owed something. These are lessons that our parents instill in us from the day we are born.

Granted, I was worried about it not working. That we were going to go through all of this and we would still have the same behavior from him. Well, I must say, the first few days were rough...and he didn't earn anything back. Then there was a shift. It was like he got it, finally. He realized that if he just respected his parents and teachers and did as needed than he got good things. Now don't get me wrong he still has a few hiccups in the road, but after two weeks of tough love I think we are getting somewhere with him.

My heart was broken through this process and I cried almost every night wondering where I went wrong. I though I was a bad mother, and I wondered how God could trust me enough with raising another one.

Now I sit here this morning feeling like we did the right thing and that sometimes the hardest things for a parent to do is the best thing for their child in the long run. No matter how much your heart breaks through the process. Especially when the reward in the end is being able to enjoy your son and all his wonderful qualities :)

It is a parenting thing...

I have been feeling lately I have nothing to blog about because my blog is suppose to be about my journey through life as a young widow. Well, since my husband passed I have been through a lot of bad times, trying times, desperate times, and after a while good times. I am not remarried and am expecting my second child with my now husband.

So, what do I have that is relevant to being young and widowed? After months of thinking about it it dawned on me...my life didn't begin when my husband died and my life didn't end when I fell in love again. It is all relevant because it is all part of my life. Maybe my story is no longer a tragic one, but I am who I am and I am where I am because of all of the events in my life.

With that being said, here is what I am blogging about today. My son.

My son is an amazing little boy. He is full of wonder and excitement. He is very mischievous, strong willed, loving, and hard to handle all wrapped up in one wonderful little boy whom I love with every bit of my heart. After my husband passed and I pulled myself out of my fog he became my reason for being. A lot to put on a child if you ask me, but he loved the attention. Which also proves my theory that he requires A LOT of attention. Maybe I created it, or maybe it is just who he is, but either way attention is all he needs.

Recently my husband and I have been struggling with behavior issues with him. Which in turn provokes a lot of opinions from surrounding people on why he is behaving the way he is and how I should deal with it because apparently I am not doing a sufficient job.

Some people say, "Oh he is just being four." or "He has been through so much." Then there are the suggestions on how to punish him, like "He just needs a good beating." or "Have you tried taking things away?". Then some people say, "You just need to talk to him." Than when I tell them what I am doing I get the disagreeing faces and how I could do things different and apparently in their eyes better. Like I don't feel insufficient enough as a parent already.

Here is a little background on me...I HATE confrontation. I hate yelling, hitting, I hate anything negative. I LOVE love. I wish I could just hug it out of him some days, okay, all days. So discipline is probably my weakest attribute when it comes to parenting, but I give it my best.

Believe me, I know my son has been through a lot of changes in his life...but I would like to think most of them are positive changes. At this point I would like to add that he did not have to go through the experience of loosing his father because he was only one when he passed. So there was no real grieving process that he had to go through. He has however experienced a father-figure entering into his life that later on became his daddy. Positive in the fact that he now has a loving daddy in his life a change in the fact that it was no longer just mommy and Brandon. I got married, again positive and Brandon saw it as just a big party and nothing else. I am now pregnant. This again can be a positive and a negative to a child because they get excited about having a sibling, but also worry about the split of love and attention...please refer back to paragraph four. Lastly, we move into a new house next week. This Brandon has only seen as a positive because now he gets a house with a pool.

Children all deal with change differently I get this, however, through life children need to know respect. Respect of their parents, teachers, and well...all adults. This is something my son seems to have not learned or forgotten, one of the two. He thinks he is the boss. He thinks he can just throw a temper tantrum and kick and hit and he will in the end get his way. He thinks he doesn't have to listen and he can just do whatever he wants. Now this is where all parents tell me, "Oh he is just being four. I have the same problem with my child." That is where I get annoyed. If their child was on the verge of being kicked out of daycare then maybe I would listen to them, but their child isn't, mine is. I understand children don't listen, it is all a learning process, but for some reason my son is above average in the not listening category.

At the moment we are trying a discipline technique given to us by the director of his daycare. This technique is hard core and I will not explain because I have already gotten dirty looks and negative comments from people and well I am tired of it. I have tried everything I can possibly think of and I am at my breaking point. So if something drastic is what he needs, well I will give it a try.

However, I am breaking down myself. I find myself crying almost every night to my husband telling him that all I want is to be able to do things with him like other parents and not have anxiety over whether it is going to be a good day or not. When we have bad days, which lately has seemed to be more than not my anxiety goes through the roof which in turn is not good for the other child I am growing inside of me. I then worry about my baby and what all of this is doing to it. I have already lost one and I couldn't bare loosing another. I would like to say though, the baby so far is doing great.

So, since I am not sure how this parenting tactic is going to work out, I have decided to do my research. I went to Barnes n Noble tonight and got myself two parenting books. One is titled, "Becoming The Parent You Want To Be" and the other "If I Have To Tell You One More Time...". I don't know if either book is going to have the answers I am looking for but at least I am trying. Not only that I have decided that I too need to make some changes. Obviously my son needs something I am not giving him and I too need to make some improvements. I definitely am learning a lot about myself through this process that is for sure.

Oh, and no, I am not looking for anyone's parenting advice...I have heard enough. Although I know it all comes form a loving place, there comes a time when you have to just pray and listen to God, and work things out the way you seem best fit.

So, this might not be a widowed thing, but this parenting thing is very relevant to my journey through life.

Daddy and Mommy Game

"Mommy. You want play the Mommy and Daddy Game?"

"Sure Brandon. How do we play?"

"Well, you are the Mommy, I am Brandon, and Daddy is dead because he isn't here."

You can imagine how I felt when my 4 year old son said this to me. It eventually turned into a talk about his Daddy in the Stars. He said he wanted to throw a party because maybe he would come down from Heaven to visit if we threw him a party. I had to explain that it wasn't possible for him to visit that way, but he can always visit us in our dreams.

I always knew the day would come where he would start asking about his Daddy in the Stars but because I am remarried and he has a Daddy here on this Earth I didn't think it would be so soon. But he has been talking so much about death lately and his Daddy in the Stars, I knew a conversation that a 4 year old could understand needed to happen.

I never really told him his father was dead, I have always said that he had to go up to Heaven and be with God. However, we do go to church every Sunday and I am sure that the subject of where someone goes when they die has come up. Thankfully you don't have to tell a 4 year old much for the conversation to be over, but it was still hard, very hard.

As a parent you never want your children to feel pain or their feelings to be hurt. But when one of the parents dies, it is almost inevitable. No matter what age they are when their parent dies they will experience some sort of hurt from it. I consider myself lucky in a sense. Even though my son wasn't able to build a bond for very long with my husband and doesn't remember him, I am glad he didn't have to experience the pain when his father died. He was oblivious. He was almost one at the time and about a month or so after his daddy passed he stopped asking for him and saying "dada". The pain he will experience is more of a wondering pain. Wishing he knew him. Wondering if he is just like him. I am hoping how my now husband and I are handling things will ease that a bit. We show him pictures, talk about him, and always welcome questions. We even tell him things like, "Your Daddy in the Stars use to do that", or "You look just like your Daddy in the Stars".

I always want his memory to be alive in my son and want my son to know just how much he was loved by his Daddy in the Stars as well as his Mommy and Daddy here on Earth.

Out with the old...

Well it is that time again. Time to take down the lights and the silly blinking figurines outside, put away all the Christmas trinkets and decorations, delicately put away all the ornaments and take down the tree. For most people this is a chance for a fresh start and with the New Year at hand they look at all the possibilities the year may bring.

For a widow, at least for this widow, taking down the decorations can be just as sad as putting them up. To top it all off, I also always take this time to clean out the closets and get rid of the old that is never used anymore.

As I took down the ornaments I came across an ornament that was given to me and my late husband shortly after we married and on it was written "The Stiles". Then another ornament that said "Always Remembered". I remember when I hung ornaments on my tree when I was younger all the ornaments, well most, had a story and they were all told with a smile. So many great memories of the past years and Christmases. Even though I do have wonderful memories of the few years we were married and the Christmases we had, it saddened me a little and made me miss him.

As I started something I always do after taking down and putting away Christmas, I started to go back to a few months after my husband passed away. See I was getting rid of all the toys my son doesn't play with anymore to make room for his new toys. For some reason this took me to when I first started to have to get rid of Brian's things.

I was moving out of our house. I knew I couldn't pack it all by myself so I called in reinforcements. My orders were to pack everything, I refused to get rid of anything. However, as I stood in our closet my mom asked what I was doing with his clothes. "I'm taking them", I said. Then she gave me the look. The look I am sure every widow has seen from another loved one. The look that says...I am so sorry, are you sure sweetie, and maybe it is time to let go a little...all rolled up in one. "I'm taking them, and they are going to my closet at the new house." I demanded, as I fought back tears. Then she came to his sock and underwear drawer..."I can get rid of these, right?" Then I just fell to the ground and started to cry. If I got rid of his things then that meant he was REALLY never coming back. He was never going to complain about not having any clean socks to wear, he was never going to come home smelling sour and sweaty after a soccer game, he was never going to complain that the clothes we folded but not put away, he was never....never again. I couldn't bear it.

Even now I am brought to tears thinking of it. I know to some people getting rid of old socks is a no-brainer...but when those socks are a reminder of what you had, it makes your heart feel as if it is tearing to shreds inside.

So I guess, I am thinking of all of my widowed friends out there. Are they doing some cleaning of the closets after taking down Christmas? Are they crying on the floor not wanting to let go and feeling like their spouse died all of again?

Sometimes "out with the old, and in with the new" is a harder concept to wrap your heart around when you are a widow.

No matter how old...

I got a phone call today...Well, I got the phone call last night and returned it this afternoon. It was my Grandma Crabtree. One thing I think all of you should know is, I love my family more than anything. So, when I found out why my Grandma called me I was truly touched. She said she was proud of me, which to me is the highest honor anyone could ever give me.

Let me take you back a little before I tell you exactly what she told me on the phone...

Lately something has been weighing on my heart. I have really been thinking of New Beginnings and where I want it to go, the things I want to do with it, and what I want it to really stand for. When I first started it I was in a very different part of my life. I was still very bitter at how young I was and being a widow. I concentrated so much on my youth and felt no one older than me could REALLY understand what I was feeling. So that is why I wanted my support groups and foundation to focus mainly on Young Widows and Widowers.

However, as time has passed and I have seen so many widows and widowers of all different ages connect and inspire each other I am starting to see that we all can relate on some level no matter where we are in life's journey.

So, the phone call...My Grandma had spoken to my Aunt Kay over the weekend. My Aunt Kay lost my Uncle this past June and she had said that she had been on my Facebook Page New Beginnings. I had absolutely no idea that she even knew about my Facebook Page, but I was excited when I had heard she knew about it. She told my Grandma how much it has helped her and even though she wasn't a "Young" widow that I had helped her so much through these past few months and it has spoken to her in so many ways. That is when my Grandma told me she was proud of me.

The whole reason I started the FB page and the foundation was to help others, inspire people, connect, and to make sure no widow/widower felt alone. I was touched when I found out that I have helped out a family member. Like I said before, I love my family, every single part of it. So to know I helped her, well, there are no words. It reminded me, once again, why I do what I do, but it also reminded me that young or young at heart, we (widows/widowers) all come from a common place, the loss of a loved one.

With that being said, I feel as if God is calling me to open the umbrella and remove the "Young" from the foundation's name. I will still have specific support groups for Young Widows and Widowers but will also have support groups for all ages.

Christmas Wrapping

Christmas shopping for me this year has had a very different feeling than it has had the past three years. This year I actually have some Christmas cheer. I want to listen to the songs on the radio that talk about sleigh rides and rockin' around the Christmas Tree. I walk through the stores with a smile on my face and have patience for those on the roads that seem to be in such a hurry to get from store to store. Although, there seems to be a bit of sadness, the weight in my heart has definitely lifted.

You see, something came to me as I was wrapping my sons gifts this year. As I carefully taped the wrapping, delicately placed the bow, and signed the tag I was able to write something I never dreamed of writing ever again..."From: Mommy & Daddy". I was filled with a combination of peace and nostalgia. Peace because my son has someone to call "Daddy" again and on Christmas morning I won't be the only one excited to see the excitement in Brandon's eyes while he opens his gifts from Santa. Nostalgia, well, I was thinking of his father. I remember how excited he was on Brandon's first Christmas even though he was only a few weeks old. He talked about all the Christmases to come and how happy he was to be a father and how much he loved Brandon. He truly adored him. I was also thinking of all the Christmases in the past. Brian use to always try to get that one present he knew I wasn't expecting and the joy on his face as I opened each gift was beautiful. On our first Christmas married, we couldn't wait to open our gifts, so we ended up opening all but one on Christmas Eve :) I think we did it just because we could. lol.

This year I get to actually have a "Merry" Christmas. I get to share in all the joys of Brandon waking up that morning and being so surprised at all the gifts Santa brought him. Most of all, I already received my Christmas gift that I have been asking for these past years...Love.

This year I ask one thing from all of my friends, loved ones, and strangers. I wish that everyone appreciates all the love in their life. If you have a husband/wife, cherish them, if you have kids share in the joy and the spirit of the time, and with your family share in the Christmas cheer. Lastly, remember what Christmas is all about. Our Lord and Saviours Birthday.

God Bless and Merry Christmas!

A friend like mine...

Last weekend I had the chance to spend some time with a good friend, Olivia, and do the Bike Run for Tots. It was the second time I had done it with her and it made me flash back to three years ago when I did it with her the first time as well as the two weeks prior.

See, my husband passed away the day before Thanksgiving. At the time I was still in school. Olivia and I only lived one street over from each other and we always rode to school with each other every morning. A week and a half after my husband passed I went back to school. Olivia insisted that she drove me that day and thank God she did. As we pulled up to school and parked in the parking lot I started crying. "I can't do this. I can't go in there. I don't want to be the girl who just lost her husband. Everyone is going to ask questions. I don't want to do it, I can't." Olivia, being the amazing friend that she is said, "Brooke you can do it. You are strong. I promise I will make sure no one asks you about it. I am here with you the whole entire way. And if you really feel like you can't do it, we will turn around and go straight back home. Just try." I really feel like it is because of all of the encouraging words she gave to me on a day to day basis was one of the main reasons why I was able to make it to school most of the time.

Olivia always tried to make sure I laughed or atleast smiled everyday and two weeks after my husband passed away she decided that I needed to do something fun and forget about things for a while. So she said I was going to do the Bike run with her wether I like it or not. The catch...instead of riding motorcycles like everyone else, we were going to ride scooters. Leave it to her to turn a fun thing into something more exciting. I don't think I had laughed that much on that day than I have in a long time and it was just what I needed to lift my spirits. Something about crowds of people cheering as they see the scooters come speeding (I use that term loosly) by, loader than for the motorcycles.

This year was no exception. Not only did we rent scooters again but we all dressed in tacky Christmas sweaters and I wore a goofy hat :)

The thing is she did stuff like this all the time. Always making sure she trhough a little spice in my life and because of that I am forever thankful for her.

So for Christmas I wish for all the widows and widowers out there to have a friend like Olivia that will lift their spirits and make them laugh the whole year. Hugs to all my widow friends and an extra tight hug to my friend Olivia. Thank you girl! Love you!