Personal Rule of Six, Step 2

Step 1 is here.

This is my second point of my Rule of Six:

Only for today, I will react with good humor in all but the most dire of situations.

Ooooh my goodness am I struggling with this right now. I'll give you two reasons:

Jeffrey and Batty.

I'm in such a bad reacting habit with Batty (she's 3 years 3 months). She is a button pusher, a willful child, definitely fits the definition of "spirited". I am SO used to (and TIRED OF) having to "deal" with her (i.e. discipline, explain, drag her away, etc) that I find I'm using an exasperated and strained tone before we've hardly gotten started. I'm sure we are feeding off each other. Hopefully, acknowledging this is the first step in stopping it. Here especially is where I find I must plaster a smile on my face multiple times a day just to short circuit that scowling/growling before it starts.

Jeffrey on the other hand, is a sweet child so far, but he is at that stage where he is frustrated all day long that he can't do what the girls are doing/eat what the girls are eating/play in the garbage/toilet. That, and the fact that I *keep moving* drives him nuts, oh, and also when I sit down. I am way too tired to carry him all day long (and he hates when I sit with him on my lap - if he's in a carrier I must be moving) but if I walk past him one way, he tries to follow, then I zip past him on my way back from somewhere and he is SO frustrated that he can't keep up. So he whines. All. Day. Long. Oh, except when daddy comes home and there are two sets of adult hands and bodies to entertain. So dh thinks Jeffrey is just THE most PLEASANT baby and ummm, I don't. LOL Then there is the whole eczema on the hands thing. I am supposed to (according to the doctors, dh, and strangers I meet on the street) prevent the baby from chewing/rubbing his hands on things. This is impossible. ONE RUB and ONE CHEW breaks the skin. So he looks (and probably feels)awful all the time. Because I'm a horrible mother, apparently. Everyone tells me so, by telling me that I have an impossible job but I just have to do it anyway, and do it right. And when I fail my baby hurts. This whole thing breaks my heart in so many ways, I'm crying just typing this. Sounds stupid until you live it. The absolute worst thing you can do to a control freak with anxiety issues is to tell them to try to control their children in some impossible way. Remember the whole "mouth patrol" thing? That just added to this - same idea, times 2. H%ll.

And the whole "baby's a light/bad sleeper" thing (yes, we have a white noise machine).

Anyway, between the two of them I am on edge all. the. time. I won't even get into the problems the other 3 cause, and they each have their issues! LOL

I think I need to define "dire situation". Is ds chewing on his hands so they are bleeding again "dire"? Logic tells me no, but tell that to my visceral reaction.

I also need to practice how to approach things with good humor. Breaking into song helps around here. Also rhyming and I can be quite good at it on the fly when I'm not full of anxiety or really tired (so, like 10% of the time? LOL!). Smiling and making a funny face instead of yelling.

This may sound funny, but I need to see them as "silly little people" instead of the all-powerful-mommy-crazy-makers they've become in my mind. I remember being 17 and babysitting tons of 3-year-olds. They seemed so YOUNG then, so silly and inconsequential. Now, even though I'm more than twice as old as I was, that same age (preschool) seems so much OLDER and more powerful. I sit at my dining room table at dinner, not feeling all that much older than the 5 children that surround me. I need to work on that.

I *definitely* need to trust God more to make up for my weakness. He knows how I'm made, He allows me to go on like this despite a decade of prayers that it stop. I must trust that it's for His good reasons. I must trust that it's OK that I can't do the impossible despite what everyone else says. I just wish God was louder about it, instead of leaving me guessing. A booming, "You're doing great, Amy!" would be nice! ;-)

The troops are now up, it's time to run and figure out when the best time to attend Mass will be!