Well I did manage to post a few times last week, and then this week I've been rather quiet. I'm trying to THINK POSITIVE and sometimes that is hard so I've been reading, but keeping my mouth shut. Learning to keep my mouth shut is something that I've gone back and forth on over the years. Sometimes I don't speak up when I should, and other times I keep yabbering when I shouldn't. So I've been quiet this week on the blog.
My daughter and I survived the week without my husband, although there were a couple of days when I was pretty late for work. Her tantrums seemed to escalate as the week went on. Instead of getting used to her father being gone, she got more difficult to deal with. Of course I was getting more tired as the week went on as well, but such is motherhood. When my husband came home our daughter stuck to him like glue for a day or two, but now we are finally starting to return to normal.
A week away has taught my husband that "normal" in our house isn't really "acceptable" and I'm kind of glad for that. I feel like for too long our daughter has gotten away with unacceptable behavior. Now just to clarify, we are talking about a preschooler so I'm not talking about drug use or anything. I'm just talking about the whining and lazy behavior that we have tolerated for far too long. I have heard too many times words that grate my nerves "What do I have to do to get you stop crying?? Just tell me and I'll do it!" from my husband. This attitude has gotten us in a bad relationship with our daughter. So now he has been away, and is back, I am hopeful that some of this is finally going to change. I am tired of being the "bad guy" but I'm not afraid to do it. I'm not afraid to compromise either, and I certainly don't claim I have all the answers, but I'm glad to see improvement on his end.
So here we are. Things for both of us are rough at our jobs. Stressed out and tired parents greeting a tired and cranky preschooler at the end of the day... not happy times. I'm hoping to alleviate some of this for all of us by putting some getaway vacations on the calendar for the summer. Money is not plentiful though, so it looks like we'll be camping in a tent rather than living it up in nice hotels. Camping is work too. I hope we can still manage to find some peace. And hopefully by having those getaways on the calendar to look forward to we will all feel better.
What does any of this have to do with Al-Anon? Hmm... priorities, Keeping it Simple, One Day at a time, THINK POSITIVE, Serenity... I don't know. I'm just trying to do the best that I can one hour at a time.
That's all you can do. Just start the day over at those times when things don't go well. Good boundaries help me deal with difficult people, although I don't know how well they work with kids!
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