Bumpy travels...

I would like to think that the road to becoming a better person and parent would be the smooth kind of the newly paved highway by our house, courtesy of the Stimulus Package.  Instead, it feels more like the shoddy and nauseating honeymoon van ride in Jamaica from the airport to our hotel in the pitch-black dark of the middle of the night, on a rocky and curvy road, unsure if we were headed to the right hotel, being driven by a man who needed to stop along the way and pick up an icicle to nibble on.

I would also love to say that I've been a patient parent lately, but I've fallen short of my goal.  Perhaps I need to lower my expectations of myself.  There are things that my kids do that I inherently know aren't awful things, and it's just my reaction to them that make it worse.  For instance, the noise. Oh the noise!  Both the whining and the happy screaming.  At times I wish there was a mute button or a volume knob for my kids.  Or Parent Ear Plugs.  But maybe this is really MY issue, not theirs.  I've learned that I'm really sensitive to noise.  When it escalates, so does my heart rate.  My chest gets tight, my nerves get shot, and I blow like a pressure cooker.  Screaming back isn't only childish, but unhelpful.  Finding a solution that creates peace, sanity and patience is a trial and error lately.  Sometimes I physically have to plug up my ears, take a few breaths, count to ten.  But this tactic is easy to forget.  Being mindful and present works when things are going smoothly, but I forget when things get rocky.

I so wish that I could be one of those folks that keep their cool under any situation, just letting things roll off their back.  Part of the work I'm doing here is just coming to peace with who I am in the first place.  But what that also does is shed light on the parts of myself that are unpleasant.  The attitudes, behavior and patterns I've inherited from my own parents, both the good and the bad.   I don't know if I'll ever get to a place where I'm completely calm all of the time.   Reacting to every little thing that occurs without giving that Thing time to register has been so etched in my makeup that it will take some time to break that down.  But I don't know if that intensity will ever leave.  Could it be channeled in to something else?  Perhaps. 

Whatever the case, at least I'm wearing my seat belt...