If It Makes You Yell

A while back I read an essay written for moms of kids about the holidays. It was all about how if something ends with you yelling, it's not worth doing. I got the point of the essay - forging holiday traditions and trying to be everything to everyone is pointless if you loose your shit trying to get said traditions forged and things done for everyone. I get it.

Here's the thing:

I'm pretty sure everything makes me want yell, and it's not just about the holidays. Constantly interrupted while talking on the phone might eventually lead to yelling. Having constant demands thrust upon you by a (pardon the repetition) demanding 3 year old eventually leads yelling. Someone trying to have a conversation with you while the baby is screaming and they're using the quietest tone audible to man eventually means yelling (and I don't just mean over the baby). Being asked the same question 7 times in the few minutes it takes you to read one magazine article eventually angrily yelling. You get the point. I can't not do things that cause me to yell. Yelling is the only way I can seem to let go of whatever anger or irritation is growing inside me. I HATE this about myself. HATE. But I can't seem to figure out the way to change it. I've prayed, I've begged, I've read books and found relaxation exercises. I'm just... an angry person, I guess.

I have figured out how to avoid triggers though. And that, my friends, is called low expectations. If I don't have anything to do, anywhere to be, or anything that requires my children to be up, fed, changed and in the car, I can go DAYS without yelling. If I don't have to be constantly interrupted (which means no reading, writing or watching of anything besides children), I probably won't yell either. It's when we're running late, the baby is covered in spit-up, G is demanding another drink of water and I still don't have lunches packed that my anger becomes an issue. IE: anytime I'm trying to do ANYTHING.

Now don't think that I'm yelling a blue streak at my children every day, because I promise, I'm not. I am actually leaps and bounds more patient than I ever expected and I grow more and more patient every day. And I'm my own worst critic, so this really must be true. But I do yell at least once a day (usually about twice or three times) and when I do, it's the culmination of whatever irritation I've been carrying for a few hours, so it's not pretty and I'm not proud.

My parents were yellers. I don't want to be a yeller. I don't want to pass on this can't-control-my-shit gene.

I found these on Pinterest and I'll probably have them on my fridge until my kids are out of school. I felt kind of silly posting it at first, but I have pictures of my kids and comics from my dad and and all kinds of other memorabilia from friends - all of which make me smile - why not something with a little weight, a little something that helps me plug along for the sake of those I feel are so important that they're posted prominently on my fridge. Someone stop me if I become some kind of self help guru, though...

Anyway, I'm writing this so maybe someday if my kids read this, they'll know I really did try, God knows I try. Even if I manage to fail every day.

 

Here is the full quote referenced above, it's one of my favorites:

“but the biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make while doing this. I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of the three on them sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages 6, 4, and 1. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in a hurry to get on to the next things: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less.”
― Anna Quindlen