Wednesday 30 July 2008

Stressed?? Moi??


It was with some trepidation that I woke up to my day off this week after the way Small Child had been behaving these last few days! High lights, or perhaps that should be low lights, have included a naked tantrum on the bedroom floor (her, not me) because she didn't want a bath, being dragged to the car kicking and screaming because we'd chosen the wrong socks and me almost bursting into tears on the nursery lady after Small Child tried to hide between my legs and wiped snot on my dress in the process! I managed to hold back the tears until I got to work when Boss Man said "rough night?"... at which point the dam burst! Luckily Boss Man also happens to be my brother in law and has two young kids so it wasn't a total faux pas! 
Once I'd gotten out three verses of "I'm such bad parent", two chorus's of "Don't think I'm cut out for this" finished with a crescendo of "I have no patience anymore and it's turning me into an alcoholic", I felt marginally better. When the evening of Chinese food and red wine with Other Half had passed I felt I'd had sufficient opportunity to rant and hopefully return to a state of non-hysteria!
So today was another day, I was determined not to be beaten by a three year old and decided to go back to the positive parenting approach; I did wonder how long it would last at the point she started insisting that she was wearing her pyjama's to the beach! But... its approaching tea time and there haven't been any catastrophic melt downs yet, even after I woke her up from a ten minute sleep in the car which normally results in the sort of behaviour akin to that of children with 666 tattooed on their scalps! (I have seen them - they do exist among us!)
We had a great day at my best friends beach hut making sand castles, catching crabs (not the sort that Charlotte caught when she went to the beach in SATC!) and I felt generally quite chilled out as my BF reassured me that I was not alone in having these "I'm a crap parent" episodes. 
I guess all this begs the question.... do I open the last bottle of red that's languishing all alone in the wine rack to celebrate my day of Model Small Child or do I save it for tomorrow night in case Devil Small Child returns?   
      

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Brilliant photo to go with the post! I laughed out loud (snot on the dress!) but only because I too have a little girl who makes me want to run in the opposite direction.

TheOnlineStylist said...

Thanks Tara! The more I hear that other mum's feel the same way, the better! Perhaps it's a thing with having a girl - Maybe our mothers wished the same fate upon us once upon a time?!