4 days down, 361 to go!
Dear Rice Krispies,
I am kind of feeling like you guys right now. Any minute I am going to Snap! Crackle! And POP! It’s amazing how your jingle really quite accurately describes how the whole yelling thing goes down. First it’s an innocent Snap. Then I Crack and let out a nasty snap and before I know it, BAM, the POP comes. I’ve already had a playdate with Snap today and no offense Crackle and POP but I really don’t want to play with you today. I’m on Day 4 and I really want to move on to day 5 tomorrow.
No hard feelings?
The Orange Rhino
*
I am SO on edge today. I just feel the impatience and stress bubbling up under my skin waiting to come out. I feel like any second I am going to scream at someone for no good reason. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that my husband woke up cranky and started picking at everything I said the minute he got out of bed. That ALWAYS puts me in a mood, shocking, I know. Or maybe it’s that my in-laws have been here for a few days and while they are very helpful, they also bring an extra level of energy and chit-chat to the house. So there has been NO silence in my house for 5 days.
And I need silence to re-charge. Just a few minutes during the day is all I ask. Ok, that’s a lie. I need at least 30 minutes to remain a normal, loving person and 60 minutes to be extra loving!
And I need at least 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep which I am so not getting. This is probably the biggest culprit of my bad mood. I am simply not sleeping well at all. I am stressed about balancing this project vs. my job as a mom vs. my job as a housekeeper vs. my job as a self-keeper. I really want to commit to this project but I am finding that it is taking away much needed time from the other aspects of my life. I simply have so many things on my mind that I want to let out and release. The minute I start writing my fingers just fly and my head starts going in a thousand different directions, wanting to discuss every question, challenge, antidote, fear that I’ve been storing inside for years on end.
With every additional child, there is simply less time in the day to chat with friends and family uninterrupted. So all my feelings are just left bottled up leaving me one really on edge mamma! I could probably type for days and still not have released all my unresolved mommy issues like the whole stay at home vs. work thing, the no more babies discussion, or the I’ve become a bad friend because I have so many kids thing and let’s not forget the I’m just not a good enough mom thing.
But I don’t have days on end to write, or talk.
To release.
And so I yell. Because all the stress of keeping these unresolved issues in my head + my never ending to-do-list leaves me so irritable that the smallest, most ridiculous thing makes me snap. Like #1 talking in an annoying baby voice or #2 insisting he can’t put his shoes on, when he can, or #3 dumping out all the toy baskets. Really? These things are really worth yelling about? They are so not….
I need a place, a way, to release all the stress without Yelling.
The way I see it, maybe I can devote an hour, MAX, to the blog a day. Not nearly the amount of time I want to. Every entry I feel I never write what I want or explain it the way I want. And then I think it’s not worth posting. Well, who cares. Somehow the writing, no matter how good or bad is keeping me from cracking. It is becoming my much needed release.
How do I know?
I survived the day without yelling. This is personally a really huge accomplishment. HUGE. Anytime I feel as on edge as I did today, I totally lose it and enter Yelling Level 6 at least once, if not twice. So the fact that I didn’t – that I actually stopped and took those much needed deep breaths first – is an improvement. Something here is working. What a release. LOL. I mean relief! Hmmm, coincidence these two words sound identical? I think not.
