Tag Archives: Lent

21

Apr. ’14

40 days have come and gone

I.MADE.IT

We got off to a rocky start here, the first three weeks I was yelling once a week. Which was down from the three or four times it was. We hit that third week though and everything started to flow. Now about that time it warmed up about 20 degrees, days got longer and we could go outside. Might have had something to do with the change in my mood but either way, week three through six blew on by. I didn’t take those last three weeks basking in the sun though. Nope, we started potty training and we hit both kids’ (and mine) birthdays and two illnesses. We were busy. We were running. We were living.

I thought I would share a point when I noticed my change had occured. It was two days before mine and Molly’s birthday. I was working 9 hours that day, eleven the next and I had a birthday cake to make. Like all five year old girls, Molly wanted a Thomas cake and since Charlie has food allergies, Stampy and I were left to our own devices to make it. Things were going well that day and I had scheduled myself down to the minute. I knew if I could just get the cake in the oven, my mother-in-law could get it out as she was watching the kids. Turns out I had just enough eggs and cocoa to make one cake. I had just enough time to make one cake. ONE.CAKE. Dry ingredients go into the stand mixer and the rest is Charlie history. FYI, if you leave a stool next to the counter and if the stand mixer is near that stool, a three year old might climb on said stool and turn stand mixer to high. 
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Needless to say my already risen stress level went from 0-60 pretty quickly. Chocolate cake dry ingredients everywhere. Oh, and did I mention the eggs had already gone into the stand mixer?? Yup. My eggs, cocoa and time were now a dust storm all over my kitchen and three year old. He didn’t have much to say for himself other than “I’m covered in flour!”. I realized that I could yell about what just happened or I could accept what life handed me.
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I chose to accept what life handed me (seriously, I couldn’t yell at that cocoa covered face) and with that it handed me two awesome in-laws at that moment. That not only got new ingredients but baked a cake and cleaned my kitchen. Yup, that happened to. I was pretty lucky.

Did I mention we started potty training that little guy?? I’m sure more will come about that later.

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27

Mar. ’14

3 weeks, the non-yelling continues

Sort of. Well, I’ve yelled 3 times. But only twice at the kids, once was really to no one in general. Maybe it was towards Stampy, but it was more I’m-having-a-nervous-breakdown-and-no-one-is-listening-to-me yell/cry. 

Either way, the bigger part is that I’m learning ways to control my mood when things really start to irk me and I feel like I’m losing control. These past 3 weeks have also taught me what really pushes my buttons and makes me want to start yelling at the kids. I now know what I need to learn to control. 

I need to control my urge to be on time. Nothing gets me riled up faster than being late. I hate being late. I hate when people are late in general. It’s probably one of my biggest pet peeves. Want to put me in a bad mood, show up late. Of course a 3 and a 5 year old have no sense of time. At all. None. Since I’ve stopped yelling, we are now consistently one of the last people showing up for school which means my blood pressure is consistently up before 9 AM. It’s a good thing we live a half mile away or we’d be much later since I’ve been buckling my kids in to their car seats when we should be there. Today we were actually early, but Molly sat in time out twice before we got there. 

I need to watch Full House reruns more. That Danny Tanner rarely loses his temper, he has a lot of patience and good advice. I didn’t realize that back in the early 90s. I also didn’t realize how bad the fashions were. Nick at Nite is really good at reminding us what not to wear.

I need to exercise more. I really try to make it a priority but with work and 2 kids, it sometimes takes a back burner. However, I am much more relaxed and calm after a 3 mile run. I’m also too tired to fight. Yoga just makes me realize that things aren’t so bad. At least the kids aren’t asking me to bind while squatting.

The tickle monster needs to visit more. Really, you want to choose 5 minutes before walking to the car to argue about getting a cowgirl hat? That’s fine, I can’t hear you over the tickle monster. You don’t want to brush your teeth?? That’s ok, the tickle monster will do it. He doesn’t mind your silent crying and thrashing.

With a little over 3 weeks to go, I think I’m going to make it! Probably not without yelling again, but at this point at least the kids now know that when I yell, I mean business. Plus, I’m Italian. We yell sometimes. It happens.

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09

Mar. ’14

We are off to a rocky start

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. 

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04

Mar. ’14

40 Days without yelling

Starts now! Well… tomorrow.

Although this Catholic girl may not go to church every Sunday (or any, really) it doesn’t take away from part of my heritage. The Catholic part. The part that taught me every year for 40 days I need to give up meat on Fridays and sacrifice something to make me a better person. I always have a hard time deciding what to give up because if I give up the simple I feel like I haven’t grown in those 40 days and if I’m going to give something up for 40 days, I should get something out of it. To date one of the hardest things I have given up was parmesan cheese. It sounds ridiculous, I know, but this girl has a cheese problem. That little green bottle of “cheese dust” (as Molly calls it) gets put on way too much food. It was a sacrifice!

This year I decided on something that not only will help me shape a new habit but it will rid me of an old one and maybe make my house a happier place. I’m not going to yell, especially at the kids, for 40 days. Not that I yell at them non-stop. Far from it. I’m actually surprised how much patience I’ve gained over the past couple of years, but there are still the moments that I have crossed my threshold and the yelling starts. Unfortunately, I tend to go straight to Jerry Springer guest once the yelling starts. I’m sure it’s not pretty and it’s not what I want my kids to remember, because I know they won’t remember the 30 minutes of carrying on because I accidentally threw away some sacred piece of string they were saving but they will remember how mom just flipped out over nothing. I now understand why my mom once told me “I hope you choke on it!” as I continued to eat snacks before dinner. 

The bigger question is, how do i do this? The answer… I have no idea. I’m hoping some breathing, “mommy time outs” and exercise will keep me going. I also hope that it helps change the dynamic of our house as Stampy is joining in on the challenge. If nothing else I have a built in support system until Easter.

Do you give anything up for Lent? What would your biggest challenge be?

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