ugly truth time.

i can't be nice for a single day.  seriously.  it was christmas today, and by  the time 4:30 rolled around, i was being an asshole to my kids.  christmas.

every morning, i wake up all covered in good intentions to be an attentive, positive feedback giving, low, pleasant voiced parent.  and by the time i've been parenting for 10 hours, i'm done.  i need the relief squad, and there is none.  so i just keep parenting, but poorly. i tap out, and then i start being ugly.  i let my exasperation and impatience show, on purpose.  i yell about stupid things.  i say 'althea' in a really terrible tone of voice.  i count.  i think constantly about how many more minutes are left until bedtime. it's not nice.  i'm not nice.  and i want to be nice, because i love them.  desperately.

i don't want Althea, or Iliana, to think that I am mad all the time, or that I'm someone you have to be careful not to piss off.  I want to be better.  a better person, a better mother, more patient, more kind, more loving.    I want to not use that shitty voice, the one that says 'you are wearing on my last nerve and i want you to know it'.  i don't want to always be hurrying them rudely out the door.  i don't want to be desperate for a break from them, despite the fact that they are what i love most.  how is that even possible, by the way?  it makes no sense.  but there it is.

i need some strategies.  how do other parents get through to bedtime without feeling like they are breaking down every night?  more days than not by the time i am tucking althea into bed all i want is for it to be over.  and then i realize i am basically shushing my 3 year old, who is trying to tell me something that she thinks is amazing (tonight it was about a type of frog who hatches eggs out of its skin, and she was worried that it would hurt the frog. but them decided that ti would hurt her, but it probably didn't hurt the frog.  i am not making this up.)  anyways, she is in bed, trying to tell me this, and i am more or less telling her to quiet down because i want to be done.  parenting. fail.

it sucks to feel like you are failing at what you are doing with your life.  parenting is what i am doing with my life right now.  and most of the time, i don't feel like i am doing such a bang up job.  a friend of mine recently posted a blog entry from a woman who realized she was overly critical of herself and her children, and took up the mantra 'nothing but love today'.  i need to tattoo this on my arm and go from there.

deep breath.  count to 10.  tomorrow i can wake up covered with good intentions again.