Frayed Tempers

The holidays are coming up fast, and all we have is frayed tempers at our house. Or, to be more specific, my temper is frayed. I don't know if it is remnants of strep, or cabin fever (dang has it been COLD here in Minnesota), but everyone is crabby. Or I am crabby and my crabbiness is making everyone else crabby.

Every night as I drive up to the house at 5:30 I vow to be a patient, loving, kind, sweet and empathetic mother. But every single night I am greeted by super crabby, whiny kids. Example: Rose #3 asks for juice before dinner every. single. night. We have a rule: no juice before dinner. I am not a paragon of consistency but I have stuck to this rule for quite some time. You might think that eventually she will stop asking, but you would be wrong. Tonight I had to bodily remove her from the kitchen because she was HOWLING at the top of her lungs. (I do find it a tiny bit funny when she is sobbing, gulping for air, and somehow still asking "Juice! Please! Juice! Please!" As if adding Please! will change my mind. It doesn't.)

Another tussling point: every night Rose #2 wants the TV in the kitchen to be turned up to FULL VOLUME. I let the kids watch TV while I make dinner but I can't tolerate super loud TV. So every night I turn it down to a very, very respectably audible volume. Every single night we have a screaming fit about how "I can't hear the TV". (OF COURSE YOU CAN'T HEAR THE TV, YOU ARE CRYING AT THE TOP OF YOUR LUNGS.)

Phew. These are not earthshaking problems, I know. I know, I know, I know. But I feel like such an awful mother after I get mad at them for the umpteenth time about juice, or TV volume, or leaving everything on the floor all the time, or hitting each other, or, or, or.

Tomorrow, I will try again. To be patient. To be loving. To be kind. Because really, I do love the Roses more than anything in the whole wide world.