Meekness Fail.

I was feeling pretty ok with how I have been reacting to life lately.  I haven't been yelling a whole lot.  I have been talking to my kids not at them.  I have been trying to reason even when my counter minions are screaming and throwing fits at every suggestion (mostly my 4 year old).  However, last night I totally lost my shit.  I felt that old pressurized feeling.  I felt that old nerve tapping pain in my neck and in my head.  I felt like I was going to explode and I did.  My five year old hit someone with a foam baseball bat resulting in that blood curdling scream throughout the house and I lost it.  I snatched the bat from his little grasp with that evil mommy look on my face I am sure, whacked the couch with it a few times, realized I was in the midst of my own fit, ran to my bedroom, shut the door, then my bathroom, shut the door and then proceeded to scream until every muscle in my body was tense.  My muscles were so tense that my ever expanding belly started to cramp, and perhaps that is a good thing because it snapped me out of my fit of rage and sent me into a fit of tears instead.  I was reminded that there is a tiny being I can't hide from no matter how many doors I shut in my escape and that he can hear and feel everything I say, scream, feel.  So, I cried it out for a minute and humiliated walked out to face the other damaged children I had left cowering on the other side of the door.  

Now, I can make excuses, I have plenty.  My husband is never home.  I am basically a single parent.  I never sleep well.  I am hormonal.  I have had an emotionally damaging past.  But, all of that doesn't matter.  Even though those things are real and they suck and they make life harder, they don't matter.  It's in the midst of the hardships that we show our true strength.  Right then, I was feeling pretty weak.  I started this post a couple weeks ago, I wish I could say that since then I have made glorious strides, but now I have failed at least two other times I can pin point and probably more.  Like the time my ten year old didn't get enough sleep because his toddler roommate woke up in the middle of the night and wanted to chat, resulting in an overly whiney day.  Or the time my four year old, who is my biggest challenge at the moment and can rarely speak to me below a whine or screech, insisted that eating his pizza in the office so he could watch a movie and began running through the house flinging pizza along the way while screaming of course.  Oh there is one more, even the time after an uplifting church meeting where I heard a fellow mom bear testimony of how she prayed for help with her current problem child and the next time she wanted to scream, she followed her heart and held her and told her all the things she loved about her instead.  It was so touching and relieving to hear that other moms (even perfect moms from church) flip out too, and I reset my resolve, yet came home only to be screamed at for 20 minutes about candy by my sweet number four who is four and I lost it, not quite so loudly, but still my anger boiled to the surface.  I wanted to break something I was so frustrated.  

For me it is a one minute at a time kind of success.  Some days I can count hours, and yesterday I actually made it the whole day without yelling.  So, I am going to focus on the good minutes, and beg for forgiveness for the bad ones and hopefully even in the middle of all the hard and mess and loud I will find my calm, my peace, and remember that I love these boys even when they are out of control buggin'.  That I will remember that I love them so much that they deserve my understanding when they are having a bad moment, and that I love them so much that I would never hurt them even with yells or screams.  In the mean time, when I feel this overwhelming anger, I will grab my one year old, he is my calming force, I will leave the room, hold him, rock him and thank God that he has that calming effect on me.  That's my goal anyway.  Wish me luck! (Someday I will be able to compile how I reached success I know it!)

My Antagonist and My Buddy

 My Calming Force