A SHIFT...

I have been feeling it for over a week now. Nothing earth shattering. It wasn't like a lightning bolt. Gradual, one might say.

The summer has been hard on me. I know my kids see it. I should say they hear it daily. I scream at them to pick-up, get-up, shut-up, clean-up, stop hitting, stop screaming (yes, I am screming as I am telling them to stop screaming.) It makes absolute no sense for me to hit them while yelling, "stop hitting," but sheer frustration had set in and my children were becoming animals and I was fried.

They fight like cats and dogs some days. They say the nastiest things to each other, they kick and yell and throw things at each other...all before 9 am most days. Planning days of things to do has not helped. They are typical little kids that are good until after the fun. Then the tired little demons were coming out to play and I was furiously screaming and threatening and constantly spanking. Then the days started appearing where they were nice to each other for longer than 8 seconds at a time. Brinkley was cleaning the toys up without being asked. Jax started helping with Pudgie and wanted to play nicely with Brinkley all day. I started wondering whose kids these were and when they arrived on my doorstep.

It hit me today while I was driving home from a very disappointing outing at Tempe's Splashpads . It was never about my kids. It was about me and my attitude towards them and myself. My attitude shifted when Tommy and I started training at the gym we now belong to. I took away my kids ability to run the house. I changed my attitude. My kids had too many choices and as bad as it sounds.... Summer would now be about ME and how I wanted to have fun. I started looking past the insignificant things and centering our family's world on some more important things. It seems funny to even talk about it. Somehow though, I can see past some things that were making me irate two weeks ago and laugh at things I was spanking my kids for.

It is still just a little shift. A little shift that made me decide to run at the gym today. I have not run in 6 and a half years because of my accident. I was told to never run..ever. I was told I shouldn't run. I was told I can't run. I believed some of this for a long time. It overflowed into other aspects of my life for so long. CAN'T, SHOULDN'T, WON'T, DON'T...... I didn't realize how those words were making things miserable around here for me.... and to top it off, I have been taking it out on my kids and Tommy all summer long.

It is amazing how good it feels to not yell at the kids because we have toys on the floor. The dishes can wait, some days, for hours on end. Someone always offers to help with this and that and in reality, when I don't yell, things gets done faster and the house is nicer to be in. Laundry is not going anywhere, so why scream about that. Summer is really almost over and then another will come and go until there are no more summers like this. Owning up to my attitude and actions is what it comes down to. There are still going to be days that I would sell my kids to the lowest bidder. Days that I don't dare blog about because it would need serious sensoring....

All in all though...it ain't so bad. And I think I may just run again!