Helping myself not relax

Lucy was playing Mario Kart Wii while I was reading from my laptop w/headphones on. BB was sitting directly in front of the tv.

I glanced over see Lucy erasing my player license. "GlennDoom's license will be erased. Are you sure you want to do this?"

(little finger moves to "Yes" with confidence)

"GlennDoom's license has been erased."

I looked over at her. I must have sighed pretty heavily, cause they both looked at me, expecting to have to brace themselves for my discipline.

Deciding to try to put my feelings into words, I said, "Don't do that on mario kart again. You just erased my player license. I'm not sure what that does, but it can't be good."

Lucy looks up at me while turning her face down in a frown, shaking her head and whimpering, like I'm a total asshole.

BB stares at me in wonderment.

Uuuuhhhhggghh. I'm slowly fucking up my kids. Ignoring them by putting them in front of the tv. Only speaking to them when I have something negative to say.

"Don't do (x)" dominates much of my speaking patterns lately. Lucy is really acting out a lot, exploring life, getting into stuff she shouldn't. BB is doing this too, and though it's to a lesser degree, it only adds to what I have to watch out for.

This I interpret in my brain as giving me more stress. I could just say, "My kids stress me out," but that's not true. I choose to do it. It's how I learned to self-medicate, possibly. Thusly, I turn into Dick Dad a lot, and it's not cool and I need to relax. Though the surrounding world doesn't exactly help me to relax, often I'm not helping myself to relax either.

Megan and I took our two girlz to the doctor a few days ago for BB's 15mo checkup. Our doctor is really cool, a woman about our age. She likes how we parent, she always says. She's even said we're her favorite parents that she sees.

Since it's in my nature to second-guess myself, I always reflect on it with a grain of salt. Of course, hearing it always feels good. Often I feel that I yell at my kids too much, but when it comes down to it, I'm nice to them way more than I'm mean.

But sometimes little things tip me over the edge, and I react in ways I regret later.

Here's my latest: I was taking a shower, and Lucy comes in and goes to the bathroom on her little toilet, which must be emptied directly after she goes. Also, she needed me to wipe her.

I had just spent 15 minutes brushing my long, tangly hair and going to the bathroom myself before heading into the shower, which would have been a great time for Lu to come in and go herself.

And I had been really looking forward to the shower, I was dirty and stinky, I had just gotten BB down for a nap, and it was all lined up.

But like it always is with kids, plans parents make don't EVER turn out the way they're ... planned. There's always a wrench thrown in the gears, slowing you down, making you stop, slow down and help your kids.

So my reaction? I get mad. I didn't yell, but I raised my voice at her, about how bad her timing was. How I was all wet and cold and I didn't like it.

But then through my anger fog, I begin to hear my brain telling me that it's not fair to get mad at her for that, she's only three years old, she's impressionable, and I'm scaring her.

I mumbled, "I'm sorry, I know you can't control when you have to go to the bathroom," but she was gone. Too late.

Sometimes I act like a dick and it's hard to take it back, cause you know the effects are lasting. I had to get back in the shower too, without talking to her about it.

It was a hard day for me overall. Last day of mama's workweek, and I was really tired of taking care of kids. It doesn't always hit me on our fridays, but last friday was one of them.

I think I'm allowed to have one a month.