Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Shrew

Well, it didn't take long - only a week - before getting the kids ready for school in the morning dissolved into HELL.

Lilah is asserting her independence and refusing, most mornings, to go potty when she gets out of bed. So, after calmly telling her three or four times to go potty and having her refuse, I finally lose it and shout at her "GO POTTY NOW!!"

I forgot to have Daisy and Annabelle choose their school clothes for today last night before bed, so that was a fight this morning. I tell you, they are SO picky about what they wear. Well, actually, they really just want to wear the same damn thing every day, and when I say "No, you just wore that," they disintegrate into tears and tantrums. And of course, all the time spent on tears and tantrums is time not spent getting dressed, and I end up yelling.

Kevin dawdles, as usual, and then cops a big, fat attitude, complete with smart mouth, when his case is gotten on to hurry up. Now!

We get out the door and suddenly Lilah is having a screaming tantrum because I didn't give her the correct water bottle to carry in the stroller. How dare I? She screams the entire walk to school.

When we get to school, we wait, with all the other kindergarten kids and their parents, outside the classroom. When the teacher opens the door and starts welcoming the kids in, Annabelle drops her backpack and lunchbox on the ground and refuses to pick them up. So I'm standing there arguing with a not-quite-five-year-old to "Pick your things up now and go into your classroom!"

I'm in a horrible mood by the time I nudge the girls into their classroom and turn the stroller around to head back home. And of course, a neighbor catches up with me, and all I can think is "Oh, god, how much of my yelling and bitching did she hear?"

And by the time I get home, I mostly just feel guilty. I mean, the kids are just being kids.


4 comments:

heather said...

Just know you are not alone. Mornings are pure hell at our house too. That's what we get for having so many dang kids that all need to be ready at the same time. And it's always so easy to feel guilt when all the big kids are out of the house and you can think clearly for a minute!

ashamom said...

I agree with Heather. I HATE mornings! I finally decided to make lunches the night ahead. Hopefully it will make mornings easier.
I only had one day of back to school and I felt exhausted. "Mean mom" or the "shrew" is common on school mornings here.
Love, Asha.

heather said...

I just had to add that I found the funniest blog that was mocking a "Back to School" post about all the fun things to do to make it great. One suggestion was to lay out the kid's clothes the night or even week ahead of time. She asked if it was okay to just have them sleep in them to help make the morning routine faster. That's my kind of parenting!:)

Tricia said...

Don't be so hard on yourself girl! Every mother has been through the utterly unreasonable child many times over....mornings have always been the worst time of day (for me) and it only multiplied 100 times over when I had kids!