Four days. I made it four. long. days. 

When I put it like that, those that don’t know me must think I’m some lunatic, bat-shit-crazy mom that just screams at her kids all day.

I promise, I’m not. 

Some days I’m just at the end of my rope and internally pleading for the ability to do one thing without a child openly disagreeing with whatever that decision may be. Yesterday, on day 4, that decision that was ludricus was going outside to play in the 50 degree sunny weather after a winter of gray, snow and below freezing temperatures. I know, it was a bad idea. The work it took to get my kids outside for some sunshine was exhausting. I would’ve given up, only we’ve been trapped in doors for so long and I had an errand to do shortly so we had to leave the house anyway.

That wasn’t what made me yell yesterday.

It was actually a lot of things.

It was the lack of sleep I had the night before which made my patience short on a day I needed it the most. It was the constant battling to get the tiniest thing accomplished. It was the continuing education course I was trying to work on and the video wasn’t playing. It was the 2 week period of atrocious bedtimes. It was the fact that my partner was gone and I couldn’t tap out. It was everything. So after an hour of back and forth over every little thing imaginable, I lost it, yelled and sat her in time out for the umpteenth time that day. That time was the only time that it changed her behavior and mine. She shaped up, went right to bed afterwards. First time in 2 weeks she fell asleep before 9 PM. 

I would feel bad about it, normally I do, but we had a 9,000x better day today and bedtime tonight. So, maybe in that instance it did some good. At least that’s what I’m going to tell myself as we head into another week. With a time change. Awesome.