Blogger Catharsis?

Last post on roller-coaster parenting I was in a very difficult, depressed state.  Questioning life choices and my own sanity.  Three days later I'm amazed by the level of patience, calm and coolness that I've managed to keep with the kids.  A snow storm hit on Wednesday and snow days have left me home with the kids instead of going to work on Thursday and Friday like normal.  Kaio's getting over a cold so we stayed in the house most of the time.  Lame-o since this is perfect snow man building snow!  We did go out for a bit (bad idea cause he got sicker after that).  Here is the snow bunny we built.

Snow and kids do not make a conducive working environment!  I only got a few work things accomplished.  And, lovely, while I was in a meeting with my boss, Kaio starts insisting, "Mom clean my butt, mom help!" over and over again.  I'm muting the phone in between my sentences.  Yeah not so classy.   Luckily for me over the week I was able to do enough to maintain the illusion of productivity - the theme of my post-children career.  

Work At Home Mama keeps her cool for three days straight.  The headline should read.  

Could it be that my last post expressing incredible difficultly with controlling my emotions and maintaining patience was cathartic?

Especially yesterday, Friday, when Mari stopped at home only for a moment in the evening to have dinner before heading out to poker night with the guys.  I decided to put on a movie and keep the evening activities low key.  We watched FernGully.  The dishes still sitting in the sink unwashed, the mail spread across the counter in unorganized piles, and remnants from the day's activities still all over the living room floor.  My compulsion was to clean up the ubiquitous mess: turn on the movie to sedate the kids and start cleaning.  Inevitably they would loose interest in the movie and I would not get enough stuff cleaned and I would get frustrated about things not working out.  The new cool mama in me said 'no.'  and I just sat on the sofa with them and we watched the movie together.  

After the movie was over, I gave them the choice of dinner or a bath.  They were hungry, but didn't want to try the food I made: roasted peeking duck and mixed bean stew.  The moment became a stand off.  "I want to take a bath, I don't want to eat."  I said, "ok but I want to see you guys try it and take at least three bites, then we can take a bath."  A huge surprise to myself, I stayed firm but playful.  After a trip to the potty and an attempted escape the kids finally tried the food.  Nene declared the duck 'delicious' and ate all hers plus Kaio's.  Kaio ate and enjoyed all the beans (he had a bunch of the duck for lunch so that was fine).  Score family!

she chose pink, violet, and orange to paint with while Kaio played a Thomas computer game

After such a win, I was patting myself on the back for staying so cool in the face of dissent.  And just as my inner monologue declared victory, Nene pooped in the bath tub!  Ugh.  Now this made me mad.  The bath full of dechlorinated water with an added cup of dead sea salt, all contaminated.  The third time in recent history that she's done this.  No one to help me.   I yelled at her.  I said, "bad."  I pulled her out of the tub and didn't get her a towel.  When she said she was cold, I squatted to her level, looked at her and repeated, "The bathtub is not a toilet.  The bathtub is not a toilet."  Purposely trying to make the situation slightly traumatic in the hopes that she will remember the gravity of the situation and control herself next time. 

So then when the kids did not want to take a shower, I dragged them there.  Stern but not frantic, I insisted they get in the shower.  Once they were in there, they were very happy and played together.    I went downstairs to get some clean clothes for them and got this gut feeling like I needed to go back and check on them.  Nene had found my razor and was pretending to shave her legs!  OMG.  please don't make the stupid mistake I did and put your kids in your show without kids proofing it.  Luckily no one was hurt. 

Thomas carrying a load of bananas to the bakery

We all went to sleep together on their bed's bottom bunk. A happy little family.

lots of snow to shovel

Playing with snow and warm beet juice