be more patient with my children

I’m having a tough time being patient with the big one. When he’s anxious or unregulated, he starts asking questions. Lots and lots and lots of them. Once, I counted them, and he asked over 90 questions in less than 30 minutes. He’s not overly interested in the answers, but it’s one of the ways he seeks to control an environment he feels is out of control. By knowing everything about everything, you’ve got to be more in control, right? Anyway, I can handle about 3 days of this before I run out of patience and we’re on day 5. I think he’s fairly well regulated and this is more of an anxiety thing over our upcoming Disney trip and the school year starting not long after that. I’ve done everything I can possibly think of to prep him for Disney and he’s going into second grade, so he’s well acclimated to the school. I just don’t know what else I can possibly do for him so I’m trying to ride this out, but I’m not doing well. Thank goodness for afternoon rest time.

I almost hate to say this on the chance that I do jinx myself, but I’ve been doing very well with this for about 2 months now. I’m not going to delete it, just move it down my list, because I don’t want to forget it.

I haven’t yelled or gotten overly upset in about a month now! Yea for me!

We’ve had two days where I’ve been a single parent and pretty worn out too. I’ve just wanted to be alone and quiet, but I’ve managed to keep my cool with them. I even pushed myself to interact and play with them rather than retreating, which is what I usually do when I’m trying to just keep it together. I’m very proud of myself right now.

The big one got in trouble at school again yesterday and today, and I was calm and patient and didn’t lose my cool.

I’m really bad at this.

Sunday was extremely bad (first time I’d really yelled in about a month) but we’ve had a really nice vacation week since then. Everything has centered around their activities and what they feel like doing within moderation, as we still had to grocery shop and we didn’t spend the week eating junk. We have a nice day planned for tomorrow, too.

The circumstances of today were almost identical to the ones from about a month ago when I completely and totally lost it with the children. Today, I managed to get things pre-prepared so I wasn’t frantic about getting everything done so they could be to bed on time, and we had a nice afternoon and evening, despite a few hiccups, if I hadn’t been prepared, could have ruined my mood. We even had time to have dessert and play a game together before bed tonight.

of being mostly reasonable and calm! I hadn’t realized it had been that long. This morning was a tiny bit rocky because I was in a bad mood over something with my husband. I didn’t take it out on them; I just didn’t want to interact as much. I still managed to read and play with the little one, but without as much enthusiasm as usual.

Yesterday I completely and totally lost my cool with them. Today has been a fine day, though. I realized that one of my triggers for yelling at them is when I’m not prepared for something—to get the big one on the bus, the little one to preschool, dinner on the table, etc. When I’m rushing around trying to make sure we’re not running behind, I snap faster. There’s a simple solution, but often I’m too tired or unmotivated to get everything ready ahead of time. I’m going to have to readjust my thinking so that I do get everything ready, tired or not.