Sooner or later.

I guess it was bound to happen, sooner or later. If you were outside my house right now, you'd hear two boys screaming in their beds. If you were here ten minutes ago, you would have heard me screeching "Don't you ever bite me again!"

Sigh.

I really don't know what to do with Elias lately. Most of the time, any activities or play that we try to do together ends in tears and meltdowns. It feels like he's totally out of control, an inward mass of chaos that manifests in freak-outs and sadness and naughtiness. To say he's "oppositional," as one book advises, is an understatement.

It really does bring me to tears, because I feel so helpless, so much a failure. As much as I know that I have little ability to change his behavior (or the emotions that cause it), it makes my home feel like a war ground, a place of unrest. And if you know me, you'll know that this is the one thing that I can't really handle or even understand in my home. I've prayed for peace for our home more than anything, before Elias was even born. Before we even moved here. I've always wanted my house to be a place of peace and rest, for us and others than come into it. And right now, it isn't. At all. And it makes me sick to my stomach.

More than anything, though, I want to penetrate deep inside Elias, and target whatever it is that is making him so upset. I want to help coax that unrest out of him, so that he can be my happy boy again.

I know part of it is that we have Josiah now. Mommy isn't all his anymore. I know that this is a good thing, for both of us. But how does one interact with a child whose world is upside down? This is a common saying, but think about it. He doesn't understand what is going on around him.

Growing up is chaotic. I know this, and so do you. We've all gone through it. But most of us don't remember this early part of maturing. It reminds me of my high school years. What a chaotic, messy time. Life seemed so dark, so unknowable. So painful. And although E doesn't have the words to express that, is that how he feels? Nothing is how it should be. He cannot do the things he wants to do, and he can't express his ideas in a constructive way, that would help him change his world. What verse is it in the Bible....perhaps in Galations...something like, when we were young we were as slaves, we were carried where we did not want to go. All day long Elias's wants are not matched up with his "allowed-to-do's". And his emotional capacity is lacking in the means to handle that fact.

This post is meandering now. Both boys are asleep now, but there is not much hope in me for a different boy waking up than he who just now went to sleep. So I will just get the bread started. Finish the laundry. And pray for my boy, for peace in our home.