Good morning everyone, I hope everyone is starting off the day on a good note. My poor little Sophia has been sick since Friday and she is finally back at school today. Now it’s time to get cleaning the house and do all the things I didn’t accomplish this week. First I want to get this blog post out, before anything else.
For the last little while I have been unhappy with myself and the way I deal with my kids and little problems etc. I get angry so quickly, I yell at the kids to quickly, this needs to stop. I’ve been realizing more and more that no matter how much I do for my kids, how much I love them. If I keep yelling at them the way I am, they will grow up and resent me, if they don’t already right now. In fact what really made me realize this…hubby and I were watching a show called Mindhunter. In one episode they are speaking to a serial killer and they ask him what made him become who he was. He said his mother was always yelling at him. That nothing was ever good enough for her, it changed the way he thought about all women. He said she constantly belittled him, which I know I don’t do to my kids. How ever then I started thinking, how often do I praise them, do I do it enough. Do they know I am proud of them everyday? my response to myself was, probably not.
It’s so easy for us as parents to get wrapped up in what our kids don’t do. What about all the amazing things they do in a day, that we don’t see. This upset me for quite a while, I’ve been looking at ways to change my thought process, to cool myself down before I lose it. When you have been a certain way your entire adult life, this is no easy task. I’ve got the tools to change the way I react. This is one of the hardest things I have ever tried to do. When you think a certain way, changing it or stopping it, is very difficult. I have been slowly working on this, I have days where I feel like ultimately I am failing at it. Days where I feel like I made no difference. But then I started thinking that if, in one day I stopped myself from yelling at the kids when normally I would have. Then I am doing a good job, I am making a difference.
Slowly over the course of a few weeks,, I am starting to find this way of thinking coming more naturally to me. When I drive, I sound like nothing short of a trucker. Lately my thought has been “ok that person didn’t signal, but what am I going to accomplish by yelling and swearing-in my car? Nothing, so why even give it the negative energy. A huge accomplishment for me happened on Monday. Sophia was so sick, she had started crying saying that her ear hurt and started throwing up. This is 4pm and I’ve called 4 clinics and they are all closed. I find one that’s open and call 3 times being put on hold for 6 minutes each time. So I hung up and got Sophia ready and headed for the clinic. We got there and the place was packed, 45-60 minute wait time. I got her signed in and she said she was going to get sick again. We went and sat in the car because she had a bucket. 20 minutes later we go back inside and she’s laying on me crying in pain. Her face and body is beat red from the fever, her head is hurting. She saying over and over “I don’t want to be here, I want to go home”. I’m rubbing her head and telling her take deep breaths, it will be okay. we’ve now been there 45 minutes and the lady starts doing a roll call, she doesn’t call Sophia’s name. So I go up and tell her and she takes the name again and says sorry. Fast forward to almost 2 hours and people who came in after us have come and gone. I go back to the lady and say I can’t wait any longer, Sophia is losing it at this point. The lady says to me “omg I’m so sorry I didn’t put her name down, you told me twice”. Now had this have happened a month ago, I would have lost it on this lady. She said come right now I’ll put you in a room and the doctor will be right in. She was apologizing profusely. I turned to her and said “it’s ok, it’s super busy, I’m just happy she’s seeing the doctor”. I thought about her first, she was an older lady and by herself. People walking in the door non stop, the phone ringing off the hook. Everyone getting mad at her for the wait time, which she has no control over. She didn’t need me to yell at her, she fully admitted she made a mistake and apologized. She sent the doctor in immediately, Sophia had a high fever and ear infection. He prescribed antibiotics and we were on our way.
My only concern was Sophia, my heart was breaking for her. She kept telling me she couldn’t relax and stay calm. In that moment for those 2 hours she needed me to be calm and her voice of reason. Which I was exactly that, had I lost it and screamed at the lady in front of everyone. It would have set Sophia off even more. Plus it would have set off a chain reaction, which this lady did not deserve.
Just by working on my thought process, I am starting to change everything. When I’m about to complain about something, I literally think why put the negative energy out there. What we put out, we attract! If I’m putting positive into the world, my family and surroundings. Well I’m going to get positive results back. I am still working on the yelling part with the kids. I do know that one day I will react every day in exactly the way I want to. It will take me time, but I promise myself and everyone around me. I will get to that point. It takes time and lots of it, I am committed to changing myself for the better. I am committed to being the best possible mom, wife, friend and daughter I can be.
Being me, loving you 