Losing My Cool...

Has anyone else had a mommy day in which they totally lost their cool? 


I mean really lost it, like throwing things such as stuffed animals and baby monitors across rooms and slamming doors?


Yeah, you know how my last entry said I was enjoying the temporary satisfaction of everything feeling good...we've swung a bit in the opposite direction today...


How did it happen? 


Not sure, except to say that I was trying to clean the mudroom this morning because it was full of utter filth (and we're having a first birthday party here for Ella tomorrow) and when I'm trying to clean anything for an extended period of time and I don't focus on the girls, things seem to go haywire...not with Ella...that little one is such a charm of a child...she was sitting in the middle of the playroom in a major pile of unpicked up toys just quietly playing. She is so cute to watch because she just goes from random object to random object, picking it up, scoping it out, and then on to the next thing, almost always peacefully, curiously and completely contentedly. 


Ava on the other hand...she's pushing ALL of my buttons these days, and does not seem to have the capacity to do much on her own-- there is incessant whining, and the needing, and the jumping from one thing to another and then another and just leaving messes of play dough and toilet paper and wrappers and snotty tissues everywhere and then pushing her sister over and trying to put plastic stools on Ella's head while she is just innocently lying on the floor!!! No lie. I walked into the living room this morning and caught her with a plastic stool in her hand, looking at Ella and saying, "I'm just going to put this on your head." 


"NOOOOOO, you're not!!!" Maybe that's where it all started heading south. 


I'm not sure how it all escalated right before nap time except that after a morning that including more whining and tantrumming than normal conversation and play, she refused to go upstairs and read a book, suddenly claiming she was scared (never happened before), and then started whining because Ella had her monkey...I picked up the monkey threw it across the room, slammed her door shut and told her I wasn't talking to her any more until she stopped whining, which of course resulted in a full fledged meltdown on her part, screaming and crying coming from behind that closed door while I proceeded to throw a baby monitor across the living room floor...


Oh, this is so not how I pictured things going as a mom before I had kids... 


I then grabbed Ella and her pre-nap bottle and fed it to her and put her down in her crib while Ava continued screaming from her bedroom. I finally went in, apologized for the way I had acted and explained to her that she and I both had some things to work on. That the way I had responded was not healthy, but neither was the way she had responded. 


I'm not sure that she totally comprehended my little talk, but it made me feel better. 


So anyhow, here we are at nap time, the house is finally quiet and I'm seriously considering preschool for her next year...she is just so high-energy and high-need and I simply can't focus on just her all of the time...


I feel pretty crummy for reacting the way I did. After all, as my friend Sara, another stay at home mom says, "I have to remind myself that someone needs to be the adult in those situations," I'm not fully sure I succeeded at that today. 


Boy am I glad God's mercies are new every morning because I'm definitely needing a fresh start...


and a nap, and then some coffee...