parenting – The Girly Reports

I told myself I wasn’t going to yell…just for today. That’s all I had planned. Stay calm.
Count to ten, take a deep breath, do a quick downward dog… but it didn’t happen for me.

I just get so annoyed… way too easily these days. Maybe it’s the amount of activities we have, the plans I make, the unrealistic expectations I have with my children, with me, with the goals of the day.

I have simple desires. Very simple. Just do what I say! When I say! It’s really not too much to ask… I’m not asking these girls to mop the floor or even clean their rooms! My requests are fairly simple like “Brush your hair.”

It’s hard to control three kids, each with different personalities, with their own set of interests and agenda.
Gia wants to be the boss.

Arianna wants to be silly.

Lexi just wants what she wants at that split second and screams and cries.

So… when things aren’t going according to plan, I get frustrated and raise my voice.

And then come the consequences…I hate the way I feel… guilty, out of control, and chaotic.
It just doesn’t feel like a happy, organized day.
I feel stressed, defeated, and out of control.

It’s like a tug of war between the girls and me… with me falling down … a lot!

The thing is, I don’t want to be a yeller.

I don’t want the girls to have memories of mom being angry all of the time…

I need to be the pillar of strength and comfort and compassion. I’m pretty sure children of angry parents have way more anxiety and insecurities.

I am on a mission to deflate the balloon of frustration… I am saying goodbye to the stress!

The girls and I made our first video on our revised YouTube channel. They are no longer the Baking Brats because they didn’t want to just do baking. Now they are The Girly Reports…and I will be changing my blog name soon so I can be separate from them…I don’t want any of their little friends stumbling upon this blog while searching for The Girly Reports!

Anyhoo, the video (link below) is a silly skit about stress reduction tips… it’s super ridiculous and goofy. After watching it, I cringed at my plain Jane face, my voice, and my general annoying chatter… but we uploaded it anyway- making public the annoying mom. My husband graciously called it “interesting…”

I was thinking about people viewing it and how embarrassing it was going to be… I felt a little uncomfortable at first…and then I thought, you know what…I don’t care and I think this is a key first step in deflating the stress.

Uploading the D grade video, thinking about viewers shaking their heads, maybe thinking negative thoughts… and then sitting with those feelings and being ok with it, made me kind of empowered… less focused on what others think. And as a trickle down effect, less stressed…

Hopefully, as I discover different ways to feel less on edge, my kids will enjoy a calmer, cool as a cucumber momma!

Key #1 Be messy and embrace imperfection.

Let your kids be imperfect as well…and be ok with it. Don’t get this confused with letting your kids be unkempt and dirty …I’m not into the rats nest hair style or long fingernails with dirt underneath… man those nails grow fast!
Just less focus on perfection.
I actually have been wearing the same pair of leggings for a week straight! And it feels …well, like exactly what I said – messy/imperfect! And I haven’t had my nails done either in weeks…Woo hoo!
I am nailing this down!

Look out for my next post on key number two for deflating the stress balloon.

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THE GIRLY REPORTS VIDEO ONE

So I haven’t blogged in a while. I was thinking of stopping all together. I’ve been struggling with the girl’s behavior, struggling with getting Arianna to sleep. It has been a nightmare- I don’t know what is going on with her lately. I lay with her for an hour, we read stories, tell stories, and when it’s time for bed, she screams and has the most horrific tantrums.

She wants the light on now, the big light, not the nightlight. Last night, she was angry that I switched the big light off. I went downstairs, closed the door and tried to ignore the screaming and kicking on the door. Then I heard a crash. She threw the nightlight and the glass bulb shattered all about. The tantrums have been getting worse and worse lately and my oldest is getting sassier and more and more defiant.

I am home alone for most of the day, have a husband who works late, and lately this blog is one more headache. So I was just going to stop. I don’t have much too write about, how many times do my readers want to hear about the girls’ temper tantrums and trips to Target.

Yesterday, I was almost out the door at CVS without a bruise, and then Ari spotted these rubber ducks that she wanted at the counter…

The store checkout is the most stressful place for me, it’s all smiles and fun, walking through the store… and then we arrive at the counter…I hold my breath, feel my shoulders tense up. ‘Can we just pay? Can we just pay? Hurry up slow salesclerk!’ I think to myself.

Too late – the shiny wrappers of every kind of treat imaginable beckon my girls to touch and beg for treats…yesterday it was ducks- after calmly trying to rationalize with Ari to put the ducks back, we had a meltdown on the floor, and I had to pick up a thrashing Arianna, my bags, and get out of there, and then for some reason, Gia refused to walk out the door of CVS.

No idea why and I still don’t know. I left her there. This random lady walked her to my car (How embarrassing!) Also super fun trying to get them back in the car and buckled. I had to use my entire body to force crazy Ari into her car seat and try to buckle her.

I finally got them in, breathed a sigh of relief, and realized a man was patiently watching and waiting for me so he could get into his car. He’s like, “it’s ok, I have three boys at home,” but that didn’t make it any better.

The girls are a handful and a half, so I concluded that I simply have no time to write and I’ll just keep my life to myself. But, in the past week, a few people said to me, I miss the posts, and I liked reading because I don’t feel so alone, and today, my friend brought me a cantaloupe for our playdate! She read the post about me trying to get better about the sweets- that meant so much to me.

I kept wondering, what is the real reason I want to stop? Perhaps I had been writing too much, thinking too much about this blog, reading other mom blogs and not giving my girls the attention that they need. That, and the fact that I am burned out and drop dead exhausted after battling to get them to bed.

I know in my heart that the bed thing is just another stage and “this too shall pass.” So what was the problem? I was just being Jill- typical Jill, all or nothing Jill, I’ve always been this way, as long as I can remember, if I didn’t get 100 on a test, I was pissed. If I couldn’t figure out a math problem, I remember stressing for hours in my bedroom instead of just closing the book and asking the teacher the next day. Those are like the smallest examples of my all or nothing-ness. I could write a novel about my crazy head.

I am obsessive and I was going to do it again with parenting. I was going to shut down the blog and give the girls all my attention, and be “better” and only focus on them. As much as that sounds like a good mom thing to do, I realized today that a mom needs more than just their children. A friend came over this morning, my house was a disaster, I hadn’t brushed my teeth, Arianna just peed on the potty so she was naked, I had no make-up on, and hadn’t even brushed my hair (did take a shower though!) I had nothing baked and the bathroom was probably dirty….my friend and her girls came in. The girls played, and I talked and talked to an adult. It was great. It made me realize that being “a better mom” and only focusing on the kids is not a good solution. That was just all or nothing parenting.

That’s it for now, I have much more to write on this all or nothing disease later and the amazing power of friends.