Random

I love dreams, they can be so insightful, meaningful and random.  When I can remember my dreams, the feeling the dream gave me usually stays with me for the day.  Sometimes it's calming, sometimes it's sad and sometimes it's just weird.  Last night I dreampt that I was in high school.  I was sitting with a guy who I liked and I wanted him to kiss me.  I knew he liked me too but when he leaned into me for a kiss, instead of kissing me he spat in my mouth.  I was mortified and humiliated and did what any high school girl would do - I ran to the washroom.  There were a couple of girls and a teacher in this huge washroom that saw me crying and I ran right into a bathroom stall.  I noticed that the bathroom was in some stage of renovation and the stalls weren't quite complete.  And on the door of the stall was a slot for money which said "Now that you have to pay for your shower, here's a vaccum" (random!).  There was in fact a vaccum of sorts on the floor of this huge stall.  I guess you get to pay and clean up after your shower now.  Just then some boys came into the girls washroom - looking for "mama" as they had a song for me.  I'm pretty sure these boys were gay -at least that's what I was thinking in my dream - because they weren't shunned from the girls bathroom.  And I've always felt that gay men should be welcome in the girls bathroom.  They sang a song that said my boyfriend was sorry and I just cried and told them to leave.  Then a nice girl came up and explained to me that on the East Coast, it was traditional for a boy to have other boys sing a sonnet to a girl he's hurt and this was the ultimate form of apology (neat! romantic!).  So of course I felt better.  I hope you enjoyed my little dream story.  Do you remember your dreams?  Do you look them up in a dictionary to see the meaning? 

Stress

I'm a working mom.  I could leave it at that.   

I was pondering today the amount of stress in my life.  It pales in comparison to when I commuted 2+ hours a day and worked 10 hours a day while having a child but it's still there.  I don't even realize I am until I lose my patience or start snapping at my husband.  If you look at the symptoms of stress, I have most of them and I didn't even realize that until I looked it up today.  I found this chart which gives all of the symptoms:  http://duniapsikologi.dagdigdug.com/files/2009/04/sept3_tgl_03908stres.jpg

Over the years I've developed a few strategies for dealing with stress that work wonders for me.  I take the kids down to the lake, I read a book, I treat myself to something, I clean the house, I bake, I eat something really healthy, I go for a little walk and sometimes I eat chocolate (although eating chocolate is the least effective as it's affects are only short term - approximately the lenght of time it takes me to eat it).  Doing these things don't take away the things that are making me stressed - but they do make me feel better.  Tonight I'm looking forward to reading a book and forgetting that my house is on the market, that I have bills to pay and that I have to get up so early tomorrow.  How do you deal with stress at home or at work?

A story about patience

Generally, I am not a patient person.  I'm a slightly anxious and slightly high strung actually.  I don't like crowds, line ups or loud noises.  But having children and over 7 years attending to their needs I have grown more patience.  They have changed my life for the better in so many ways and I try to be a good mom to them in return.  It didn't come overnight though, I've had to work on my patience.  I've had to leave the room and count to ten on more than one occasion.  When I start feeling overwhelmed I ask my husband to take over to give me a few minutes of perspective.  Sometimes all I need are a few minutes of quiet and I'm back into the thick of it with renewed perspective and patience. 

An overtired two year old. 

Once a week my husband works late and I have the girls to myself for the evening.  We play hide and seek, paint our nails, play ponies and read books.  We did all this tonight in fact.  My youngest (3) was overtired and crying at the drop of the hat.  My oldest was too for that matter.  After redirecting a few fights between them ("You can't hide where I'm hiding!!"  "Madelyn won't let me look at that book!!") and getting endless glasses of milk (3 each to be exact) and giving them individual attention and hugs where needed it was time for bed.  I was doing pretty good!!  Instead of losing my patience I would calmly redirect them or dry tears and give hugs. 

When bedtime is drawing near I give them time to adjust to the idea that playtime will soon be over and our bedtime routine will begin.  I usually have to ask them a few times each but eventually they are herded into the bathroom to brush their teeth, wash face and hands and have a pee before bed.  We all crawled into bed, they fought about which book to read first and I found a compromise book - one of our favorites - I Spy.  They even managed (the poor overtired dears - insert sarcasm here) to fight about who was spying.  After stopping tears of a fight over the book for the fourth time (we didn't even get to finish the book) I had had enough.  I decided I'd better settle them down before I lost my patience.  WELL....then it was a fight about where they slept.  They can't both sleep in my bed because then the youngest keeps the oldest awake or they kick each other and fight over covers...but neither of them was willing to leave my bed.  What was I to do??  The youngest was crying and the oldest was trying to snuggle down and get to sleep.  It's usually my oldest that I ask to compromise but that wasn't happening tonight.  And with my three year old refusing to get into her own bed or get into my bed I lost my patience.  I had my own little tantrum and they both ended up in my bed.  I left the room and waited in the bathroom for the youngest to come out to ask for water but she didn't and I went back in to see them both laying quietly with their eyes closed, no tears and trying to go to sleep.  I kissed them each and told them I loved them and left the room.  They just succumbed to the comfy coziness of mommy's bed and all is right in the world again.  What do you do when you feel your patience slipping?