This challenge is MUCH harder than I expected it to be. I fully expected needing to restart day 1 a few times, but I haven’t managed to hit a single day without yelling! Worse, I end up yelling somewhere around breakfast time!
A few notes on the yelling:
1. G not eating drives me crazy. Why? I see him not eating, and I immediately figure he’s going to end up cranky, screechy, and ill-behaved while we’re out and about. I immediately see him breaking down in the middle of public, with me then getting angry because I know it’s all due to him not eating. I also see him not eating and figure he’s likely getting sick again, and we just went TEN DAYS without him being sick. I equate him being sick to us being totally stuck at home, unable to be around friends because I don’t want to get their children sick.
But here’s the thing…none of it may have even happened yet. He just isn’t eating anything in front of him for breakfast.
Granted, a couple of days now, he is screeching at breakfast, which I chalk up to low blood sugar and needing food. And the screeching drives me crazy, too.
2. One day, I was barely managing not to yell when the husband walked in and commented on my increasing tone of voice and said, “Don’t lose the day!” Unlike before, when that helped me avoid a yelling moment, this time, in the middle of my struggle to calm myself down before losing it, it ends up making me MORE irritated, and I snap at him, which, well, makes me lose the day.
3. I’m getting seriously discouraged. A week has gone by, and I can’t even make it ONE DAY without getting angrier than I should over something or without yelling.
Is it that I have too many triggers for yelling? Am I under so much stress that I can’t think clearly about a situation without playing out a worst case scenario or three, which runs me through the gamut of emotions and leaves me upset about things that haven’t even happened yet?
G is now napping; instead of being happy he’s getting the rest his body seems to need, I find myself being upset and saying he’s tired because he hasn’t eaten enough today and his nutrition levels are likely all low, especially his iron (we battled anemia with him for a solid year, so I’m constantly worried his iron is low). Instead of feeling sorry for the little guy who might be getting sick, I see it as him just barely having gotten over being sick, and now he’s going to be sick AGAIN?! Is there no end in sight to the 2 weeks sick, 1 week better, 2 weeks sick, 1 week better cycle? If both my husband and I were working right now, we’d be completely out of sick days for taking care of him!
But we aren’t both working. Sick is no fun. And maybe he’s just going through a no food phase. But the screeching in the mornings over breakfast/brunch/lunch makes me think he NEEDS food, he’s just refusing all of it!
And we get back to….me yelling and being upset because a toddler isn’t eating.
Three days ago, I think I nearly made it through the day without yelling or getting inappropriately angry, only because I had been gone all day on a 15-mile walk to the LDS temple with the teens in our area. But when I got home, we had friends coming over, and I was getting irritated because G didn’t want to tubby, I desperately needed a shower, he just wanted to play with mom who had been gone all day, and I got irritated because I was tired, gross, and just wanted to get me showered and him ready for bed. However, I did NOT yell. So, as far as yelling goes, that was ONE day I didn’t yell.
Next morning, G didn’t eat, and I lost control and yelled.
I’m re-thinking the challenge. Maybe I should make it two days without yelling since I’m still struggling to make it to a day 2 successfully!
I also am finding it hard to blog every day. So, I’m going back to the drawing board and I’m going to try working this out so that it’s still a challenge, but a doable challenge. Maybe I’ll keep physical gratitude journal that I can just jot things in during the day. I also need to figure out tools for when I start to over-think situations and paint bleak outcomes for things that haven’t happened yet. Instead of assuming the worst, I need to find a way to lay out the various options and decide how to prepare for them, instead of deciding to arm myself emotionally for the worst.
Next time I blog, I’ll hopefully have better ideas for how to work this challenge for myself.
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