For Every Monday..

For every perfect Monday, there are a few Thursdays. Monday night Harrison slept from 7 pm till 4 am and then went back down till 9 am. This contributed greatly to my perfect day. When Mama is well rested, everything runs better.

Then there was last night... Harrison was up 3 times at 11 pm (just as I was falling asleep) and again at 2 am and again at 4 am and around 5:30. Meanwhile Noble (who normally sleeps from 7 pm till 6 am) was up at around midnight and again around 3 am.

Taking into account that it takes me about 30 minutes to fall asleep when I have been woken up... that was a crazy night. Luckily Jon actually gets up to tend to Noble when he cries. He just needs a drink of water and he goes back to bed. But it still wakes me up. By Harrison's 5:30 waking, Jon was just got up for the day. He put Harrison back to bed since I had just fed him and I got to sleep till about 6:20 when Noble woke up. :)

When Mama is not well rested... today has been a challenge. I have yelled too much. My kids are tired too from the change of getting used to a school day schedule and so they are grouchy and I was grouchy with them.

Jon and I have a new "code" to remind each other to chill out in our parenting. When one of us hears the other losing it, and we don't want to correct them in front of the kids (we feel this shows us divided to the kids and we want to present a united front) we have a new saying. Tonight I heard Jonathan yell it up the stairs, "Stephanie do you think maybe she needs a minute to think about it?" That is code for "take a deep breath and give yourself a time out."

I yelled back down, "Yes I definitely think she needs a BIG time out but unfortunately she doesn't have time for that because it is bedtime and there is no one else who can do this. (Jonathan couldn't help as he hadn't finished his work for the day.) The code call out did have the intended effect however. It chilled me out and helped me check my tired cranky self back into line.

I wish I didn't ever have nights like that where I get frustrated and explode after telling a child to do something for the 5th time. I wish I never had to tell my kids to do something more than once. Ha! Geez wouldn't that make parenting easy. But parenting is not easy. It is difficult even when you feel good and are well rested. And more often than not, you have to do these hard things when you are sleep deprived or hungry or hurting from working out on the pilates reformer too much. (Abs Elizabeth!) Then it is the true test of your self mastery. That is one test I am still working on.

I just thought after my last couple of posts it might seem like my house runs smoothly. I needed to record a bit of today to give a dose of reality. The reason days like Monday get a blog post is because they are so rare. Usually there are some high points (like dancing with the kids in carpool this morning or shopping with Annie at Walmart or watching Noble play outside this evening) and some low points (like trying to keep Noble still for the hair cut I gave him today, or dealing with Annie's sour mood after a frustrating violin lesson, or trying to get everyone in bed at a decent time and getting the house picked up tonight.)

Doing laundry with the girls tonight we had a little chat about how hard it is to be "mom." Sabrina told Annie that having to deal with crying babies and little sleep and all the work that it probably wasn't worth it. Then I told them both that of course it is worth it. Because I get to be the mom of such wonderful people like them. Even on hard days like today it is TOTALLY worth it.