Thursday, January 24, 2013

Yesterday I earned my gold stars.   Dinner was in the crock pot by 9 a.m.  I made yeast rolls and cinnamon rolls from scratch. I handled squabbling without irritation, got all three of my napping children to nap at the same time.  And I folded laundry.

A lot of laundry.

Last week I was sick.  I didn't bring it up here, because reading a post about someone's illness always makes me slightly queasy,  but I stayed in bed four full days, weak and miserably congested, while Brian ran the show.  We don't typically let dirty clothes pile up, because dirty clothes in this house are not simply worn, they are legitimately dirty, and if they don't get into the washer quickly they are often ruined.  Clothes got washed while I was sick, but nothing got put away.  Which meant that I spent a good portion of my day here.

  

By late afternoon, everyone was up from their nap and had sampled their cinnamon roll.  Brian was down the street helping a neighbor, and the children were either riding bikes or watching Dora while I was finishing dinner prep in the kitchen.  I rounded the corner into the living room to ask a child a question, and found this:


And it wasn't the toddler.  It wasn't the toddler!  I won't say who it was, because my purpose here is not to embarrass my child.  But it wasn't the toddler!  

Just like that, my gold star day was over.  

And now it is almost twenty four hours later, and I still haven't fully recovered.  I am easily flustered and weepy, while the perpetrator continues to act out to garner attention.  So I'm asking the wide wide world - when something throws you off your game, how do you recover?  

3 comments:

Heather said...

I cry. I give myself a set amount of time to be bothered. Sometimes, I give myself a full 24 hours before I think, "Time to get a grip."

Mrs. Shehane said...

They' just "helping" ---!!!! Hmm. Not the little helper, huh?
Love you - Mamamamama

Kendra said...

Cry about it. Sometimes there IS some use crying over spilled milk. Always pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and being Pollyanna isn't possible...for me anyways. Sometimes just giving myself enough room to feel frustrated helps.