I always struggle with one child more than the others. It changes frequently so its never the same one. There were years that I thought maybe, just maybe, I could do without one. I repeatedly asked myself "why?!!?". Then there came a time when I realized I struggle with ALL of them at the same time. I will admit having 5 children under 7 was much easier than now. I know there were difficult years in the past but nothing prepared me for what I deal with presently. At what point do they start knowing they can think for themselves? I never told them they were allowed to do that! I liked it when I made the decisions and they followed. Life was good.

Its not bad now. Life is still good. Just in a different way. I know I have to adapt and change alongside them. I may not understand or even want to understand why one just did what they did. I just need to love unconditionally. Sometimes, I try to make them do what I want, the way I want it done. Like the good old days. It no longer works with a positive outcome.

I take therapy classes with a particular child because, well... I need some help. Yes, Moms are allowed to ask for help. The therapist suggested, as punishment, to have the kids write. Kids don't like to write. I am suppose to find a story or article pertaining to what they did wrong and have them copy it and tell me what they learned. I'm sorry. This is not going to work for me. I have 6 kids. I don't have time to research an article every single time they do hit, yell, scream, lie. They would be writing all day and I would be googling and printing all day. No time for that. Instead, I told them to write the Articles of Faith. I thought this was brilliant. Until it back fired on me today. Sam yelled repeatedly to his sister. I told him to write. As usual he sits there and ignores my request, sometimes for hours. I am not kidding. He was sitting at the table one night for 3 hours. Anyway, he said some rude remarks, yelled a few mean things, then sat there quiet for about 30 minutes when he stated he ripped the Articles of Faith OUT of his scriptures so he didn't have to write them. What? I asked him in not a nice voice, "You just ripped pages out of the HOLY SCRIPTURES?"

I was speechless. What do I do now? He is completely unpredictable and fearless. So let me forward a couple of hours to Sam still sitting at the table because how can he write the AofF if he no longer has them in his scriptures? Maybe he should of memorized them. Yes, I won this one. Kindof. I saw Isaac bringing Sam another set of scriptures and telling him to use those to write the articles. I could of stopped the whole thing but I didn't. I thought it was sweet of Isaac to help get Sam out of jail. Sam wrote what he needed, in the best handwriting I have seen yet, and apologized for his behaviour.

See why I need therapy?