I had a rough day with the kids, to say the least. I had a few errands to run, and halfway through them, I had gotten to the end of my rope with Tessie. She was fighting me on every little thing, and I had very little room for discipline since we were out and about.
We met up with my aunt during one of the errands, and then had lunch with her afterward. Tessie managed to turn her behavior around just before frozen yogurt time, conveniently, but Christian made sure I didn't have much downtime. He began yelling when it was time to leave, and generally started causing a big scene. When I asked him if he wanted to get in trouble he looked right at me and said "YEAH!"
The ride home was awful, Christian screamed bloody murder for twenty minutes straight, and although I was using every ounce of control to keep it together and try to speak to him calmly, I finally lost it. "Christian," I yelled, "stop screaming now!" I instantly felt awful for yelling, and it didn't even accomplish a thing, he kept right on screaming, and with renewed vigor. By the time we neared the house, I was in tears.
After I got the kids out of the car, and up on the porch, everyone was finally calm. The kids started to color, and I started to clean up for dinner. Even though the kids were being good, I was in a crabby mood, and being extra short with them. They kept asking to go to the beach, and I kept telling them that they had to wait, because I had to clean. Then I stopped, took an objective look at my situation, and realized what a fool I was. I was choosing to be unhappy. I decided to make a different choice.
I threw on my suit, picked Christian up, grabbed Tes by the hand, and off we went. I told myself I wouldn't loose my temper, I would smile, and I would enjoy this special moment with my kids. And guess what? I did enjoy it. We had a great time, and I didn't have to reprimand anyone for anything. Is it really that simple? Can I be happy just by choosing to be so? It definitely worked today, I turned a super crappy day into an amazingly beautiful evening, and I'm proud of myself for it.
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