Weekend Report

This was not a great weekend. I still feel sad about it.

I took a day off on Friday because the kids were off from school. I was so looking forward to spending time with the kids, going on a hike, reading, playing... And then reality happened. One of my kids and I had a fight and I spent most of the day feeling furious. Ugh. Still, we met some friends in the park and spent about 4 hours wondering around and exploring, so it wasn't a total waste of a day. It just wasn't what I wanted it to be. And I still feel the aftermath of being angry with that kid - and it wasn't the first time they did their best to sabotage, consciously or unconsciously, family activities.

 I find the disconnect between anticipation and reality so jarring, it is sometimes (always?) better to just not to put much time into looking forward to things. Then I can be pleasantly surprised by how well things went or I can just roll with the punches, so to speak. At least, I will not have that heavy feeling of disappointment (in myself, kids, humanity, etc) when things don't go the way I was hoping to.

On Saturday, we went to meet a potential new cat. The cat was not at all in the mood to meet us. Ah well. Then soccer games, a bunch of activities on Sunday....

And then, there was Monday. We all slept through alarm (second Monday in a row), which meant it was a stressful and rushed morning.

It is Tuesday now, and I can't say things are looking up. I am still feeling grumpy. The child I mentioned above is still behaving in ways that are ranging from bratty to nasty to supercilious. I am having an internal debate as to whether I need to write them a letter explaining why I am angry or spend a significant portion of today's evening giving them 1:1 time explaining why this behavior is not acceptable. I suspect the 1:1 attention is what they crave. But wouldn't it mean that I am teaching them "If you behave in this unacceptable manner, you are going to get lots of attention from mom"? I want to send the opposite message, "I want to spend lots of quality time with you, but not when you are treating your family like garbage."

I got to think more about how to approach this....