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Day 1 attempting a schedule

I find that if I am feeling mopey, grumpy, or insecure, that I tend to let my children sleep later than I should or let them nap longer than they should, and it can be difficult for me to motivate myself to do what needs to be done. Today is the first day that my husband is working the 4pm-10pm shift at the hospital. I had my older son up at 7:45, or rather, he woke me up. I gave Bashar his juice and some banana bread, and cut a piece of banana bread for my younger son, my husband, and for myself. Bashar and I looked at a book of the alphabet; he's really taking an interest in letters and numbers. I started trying to wake Danny up at 8:30, but the little man was dead to the world. About 8:45, Danny was awake. By 9:30, both of my sons wanted to go outside. It has been rainy here, so that means a whole lot of mud puddles and stuff. I really didn't feel like doing more laundry, so I took them out for a walk. We walked for about an hour and a half. I'm grateful because we were walking around the hospital perimeter, I know where all the restrooms are, so when Bashar needed to go potty, we could find a restroom easily. We ran into a nurse my husband used to work with, so we chatted with her for a little while. By the time we finished chatting with her, it was pouring down rain. We had lunch, and I gave the boys some paper to color on, that lasted for all of 30 seconds, so I'd better get back to them.

A fear of the dark

It is a dark, rainy, windy night. It feels spooky. My husband is on call tonight and when he came home for dinner, he said that it is even more spooky if you are walking outside from the hospital. He'll be sleeping in the hospital tonight...
I am a little afraid of the dark on nights like tonight. When I was growing up, we had all these trees in the back yard, right behind my bedroom window. It made spooky shadows, even when the shades were drawn. I can remember feeling afraid that someone or something was going to jump out from behind the book shelves or something. For this reason, I feel terrible if per chance I don't hear my children crying up stairs. I was 6-7 years old when I had these fears of the dark, they are only babies. Tonight, 45 minutes after I put Bashar and Danny down to sleep, Bashar woke up crying. In light of the threat that some moron wrote on my other blog, I wanted to throw my arms around my little one all the more. I put my arms around both of my boys, stroked their hair, and sang to them. It's moments like these where you feel like you never want to let go of your loved ones.

What is wrong with me???

What happened that two weeks ago, I was calm and patient and able to show my son what to do and what not to do without yelling? Now I feel so on edge. I am trying to figure out how to set boundaries with my husband and be more healthy in my relationships, but I am entirely flunking at gbd with my children. I don't get it. I feel punitive and adversarial, like I am flying off the handle at everything. I never used to say bad words like this, and now, well, I sound like a drunken pirate...no offense meant to any pirates who may be reading this. When we go outside and I get a chance to chat with other mothers, I am like a different person. I feel almost like a hypocrite, this mean ugly mother inside the house and a calm pleasant person outdoors. Bashar opened up the front door and went outside when I wasn't looking--even our doorknob is on its last legs and keeps falling apart...he was still able to get out. I headed outside but couldn't find him. I was so scared that he ran into the parking lot or something. I was angry because my husband didn't lock the door after he left. I was afraid that he got hit by a car. I couldn't see him any where, so I went back inside, brought Danny and put him in the stroller. I found Bashar by the door of our next door neighbor's apartment. What a relief. But I still feel terrible for the way that I have been treating him today.

Hoping for a better day today

Yesterday was one of those days. When I was up stairs dusting, Bashar took off his stinky diaper. When I came down, there was some poop on the rug. At least Danny didn't step in it like the last time when this happened. While I was cleaning the rug and carpet in the living room, the boys took down the baby gate and got a hold of their breakfast left overs. When I came to the kitchen table, Danny was underneath it and was about to mash the food into the rug. Then Bashar took down another baby gate, walked down the stairs and out the front door. I am keeping the front door locked now. Needless to say, I was testy and irritable after 3 snafus. We went outside to play, and I found that my work the previous Saturday was undone. I asked my husband for another plastic bag and went about picking up other people's trash, grrrr. Bashar kept running towards the parking lot. The little guy is so fast! And sometimes I'd run after Bashar and Danny would run in the opposite direction. It scares me more than anything. The evening was nice, I spoke to 5-6 friends of mine around the play area.

So grumpy, but I am going to do something about it.

I fell off the gentleness wagon I yelled. I stomped my feet. I acted like a jerk this morning. I've been a grouch all week. I am determined to not take out my problems in marriage on the kiddos, but today I yelled at them. I apologized to the boys for being impatient and not very nice. Bashar drank a few teaspoons of my coffee--hey, it was instant coffee in a whole lot of hot milk with two dark chocolate hershey kisses stirred in for a good measure. The other day I ate feta cheese, followed by dark chocolate hershey kisses, what a combination. I checked out Boundaries in Marriage by Townsend and Cloud from the library. Many people at gcm have been recommending it to me over the past several months. I am going to see how to put firm fair boundaries into place in my marriage. I have boundaries with my children, why shouldn't there be boundaries with my husband. I have a lot to learn, but maybe I will feel empowered and able to get past this yucky grumpiness.