Friday, May 24, 2013

How to cope with "Mommy Guilt"

I'll cut right to the chase - today has been a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. I really don't know what has been going on with Jackson today, but it's like he's a different kid. From the moment we woke up this morning, it has been nothing but complete defiance and disrespect. We've had bad days many times before - but this has just been different. He is such a challenging child sometimes and it's days like today that I just feel like a complete and utter failure as a parent.

I have a horrible case of Mommy Guilt right now. I'm not proud of myself when I yell at Jackson. I try so hard to keep my cool with him, but today I just hit my breaking point. It was like I felt something snap inside of me and I screamed at him like I never have before. And it didn't just happen once, twice, or three times. I finally lost count by late afternoon. The worst part is even as it was happening, I knew it was the most deconstructive way of trying to get him to listen to me. It's a known fact that children absolutely do not listen when you yell. So why do we do it anyway? I think the answer is we yell not because they've lost control, but because we've lost control. I think we also yell when we're angry with ourselves, not just them. I've been so unbelievably upset with myself today and I definitely don't function well as a parent when I feel like that.

I'm trying to tell myself that tomorrow is a new day and I will do everything possible to make it different than today. In the end, I know it all starts with my actions and my responses to him.

Parenting is hard. So hard.

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Making a promise to myself

I met up with a very dear friend for lunch yesterday afternoon. I hadn't seen her in over three years. Yet the moment we sat down and started talking, it felt like barely any time had passed since I had seen her last. We got to talking about our blogs and how difficult it is to make the time to actually write anymore. Having a couple kids running around on a daily basis makes it difficult to carve out writing time.

But I realized something as we were discussing it. I've always had such a hard time writing in my blog because I've always had that small part of me that was writing for other people, not myself. I always felt the need to be clever in my words and exciting in my stories. And you know what? Sometimes my life just isn't that exciting. Sometimes it is completely and unbearably monotonous. Such is the life of a stay at home mom I suppose.  But because of this, I never wanted to write in my blog because I was just too exhausted trying to come up with ideas before I even began.

So I'm making a promise to only myself - I will begin blogging again. I will stop putting so much thought into it and just write from my heart. Someday I will look back on this blog and it will bring me back to this wonderful time in our life. A time when our boys were young, energetic, fun, curious, frustrating, exciting, and silly.

I'm starting with once a week. I can do this.