Thursday, April 11, 2019

I get louder closer to the bell




Believe it or not, I love having my kid home. I hear lots of moms during breaks talk about how they can't wait to get their kids back to school for one reason or another. I on the other hand love having him home. I also love not being so rushed, maybe that is selfish, but it is true. Deadlines or scheduled times often get me flustered. Do I get annoyed sometimes that he is "bored" or loud and sometimes doesn't understand why you can't play with friends 24/7 or they are unable to come over or do something- YES! However I prefer this to the hustle and bustle of the grind of getting him up, making him get ready, arguing whether he has shoes and socks on before we walk out the door or if he has brushed his teeth or combed his hair- when he wants a particular sweatshirt that he can’t find right then and won’t think of settling for anything else even though he has like 8 more hanging in his closet. This just makes me get more frustrated, angrier and even louder that the 27 warnings I already gave that we needed to leave so he wasn’t late. Does getting louder make him act quicker? I wished I could say you betcha…. I honestly think it should but I actually think it makes him less likely to hurry! Mind you in 5 years at this school he has never been tardy even once so I am not sure why I continue to stress out almost every morning that it will make him late.
Maybe it is in my blood but I hate being late, I hate getting stressed or anxiety over the thought of it even, but I do A LOT and I am certain it is almost always unnecessary! I get louder and louder the closer it is to the bell ringing! I wake up in the morning, in my head able to get every single thing I think I can get done before walking out the door whether I am just dropping him at school or I had to also get up earlier to get myself ready and do all the morning rituals because I wasn’t coming straight back home. I will guesstimate 8 out of 10 times it never goes the way it comes together in my head, I am rushed, stressed or something comes up that doesn’t fit into my neat and perfect morning that I already planned out in my head the night before. I think maybe I need to make it a ritual to write it all down before bed, cause in my head it seems to go a lot smoother.
I do myself no favor by getting stressed, angry or yelling… I don’t even know why I do it. It seriously doesn’t prove to be effective at all and usually makes someone else in our home in an even worse mood than we started out. I can wake up perfectly happy and ready for the day and one little irritation causes my mood to change… and as a mom I say over and over again to myself and my readers our MOM mood often sets the mood of the household… sometimes I even think the dogs are affected by it! I think it is my coping mechanism that yelling release some endorphins that need to be released for me to again turn back to calm after the build of anxiety within. But sometimes by then it is too late and someone else carries that negativity the rest of the day, whether I can release it in 2.0 seconds my other household personalities take it and make it into their mood.
That is one thing I truly miss about my mom… we could blow up at each other, yelling one minute and crying and hugging the next. This morning, I tried to make a pact with Paxton that no matter how much he makes my blood boil to the point of yelling at him for things he isn’t doing, that we can learn to blow up and forgive quickly. I started crying telling him how much I missed that which I had with my mom… he understood but just as he needs to try and just complete a task the first time I ask instead of the 6th so that it keeps me sane, I need to try to take 5 deep breaths or walk away for a minute of calm, before I create an unnecessary storm that can set the mood negatively for the whole day.
Seriously sometimes I wish life marriage and kids came with an instruction booklet, but then again figuring it out on our own, trying different things, breaking bad habits and creating an environment that works for your family is far more challenging and rewarding then opening up to page 5 and completing the 3 tasks someone else has instructed you to do on the way to act and react in every situation.
Trust that God can guide you in what to say and how to say it you just have to remember to ask for help and somehow in those moments if you silently ask for help before responding, the answer on how to handle the situation comes. Don’t get so busy that you can’t take that split second to make a better decision and response. Answer with intent don’t react with anger, taking that extra second can sometimes waste less time than fixing what you messed up by your immediate reaction.