Glad I did the post yesterday, as I sure wouldn’t have felt like it after this day. Grrrr. The stars and moons were just not aligned in my favour.
Annie has been in a bratty “no” stage the last few weeks. Nothing serious, but every time I try to brush hair or teeth or try to get her dressed she says no or runs away. It doesn’t last long…about as long as it takes me to threaten a consequence…but the daily irritation of it sometimes wears at me. Like this morning. I threw the hairbrush on the ground and told her she was not being helpful, which of course made her cry. We got through it and then she was back to her cheery self in a few minutes. I then looked at the clock and saw this ordeal had made us almost late, (Annie’s Kindergarten goes to gymnastics on Monday morning and they leave for the bus punctually) which made me yell at her again, as there isn’t much in this world that makes me more crazy than being late. Now Annie was really upset, as she was not misbehaving at that moment and she has a highly developed sense of injustice. I stormed out of the house not even asking Markus if he wanted a ride to work.
By the time I buckled Annie into the car I was feeling mighty guilty and apologized. Though her sobs she said, “You don’t have to yell. It hurts my ears. You only have to say ‘I’m getting sick of this’ in a normal voice.” Oh boy did I feel like Mother of the year.
Mondays are supposed to be a bigger work day for me, but I was less than productive. (Luckily I can make up the hours later in the week, but life is just better if I have a good chunk done Monday and Tuesday.) I then had to drop something off downtown and so paid for parking. I thought I might as well use the time on the meter to go to the post office, even though it wasn’t that close. Half way there I realized my new shoes were maybe not quite as comfortable as I thought they were in the store. As I winced my way into the post office door, I looked in my purse and realized I’d left the letter in the car. (And it was a hand-made card, which you would think would buy me a bit of good karma.)
Hobbled back to the car to pick up Annie and took her to the first class of her swim lesson, only to discover the company offering them had made a mistake and registered me without my friend Margriet’s child, Chloe. This is a problem as the class is twice a week and I had planned on Margriet and I trading off taking the girls so we could both get our work done. Tomorrow we have to go to the office and try to figure it out, taking more time out of my work week.
As I say, grrrrrrr. Of course, I know these are all minor irritants. As Annie often reminds me, “It’s not the end of the world.” But I can sure manage to whip myself into a right frenzy at times.
Happily by the afternoon Annie had forgiven me, we played some games, and then had a nice book read and snuggle. Hopefully writing this post will clear some of my bad juju and I can move on tomorrow. I’ll let you know.