The holidays are finally over and I must admit that since my last blog post my attitude and perspective on having two four year olds in the house 7 days a week, for 6 weeks, did change somewhat.
We had a lot of good times and fun times but truth be told I am not the naturally patient text book example of a mommy, by a long shot. And after the novelty of not having to rush in the mornings to get to school on time wore off, I started to snarl and growl a bit. I'm kind of good at giving of my time, but I'm better when I know there is a gap on the horizon where I will be able to do "my own thing" for awhile. However there wasn't much of that to speak of.
I've come to learn, especially since having children, that things come in waves and phases. So bearing this in mind I did my best to ride the various waves, and in some cases, tsunamis, that came my way. We started off in a good and jolly, "Yay we are on holiday!" phase which soon morphed into "everybody is getting on everybody's nerves" phase. This was the part where the girls fought. A lot. daily. Every 15 minutes.
One child would invariably be screaming from being bashed on the head or some other equally unfair assault and the other would be whining her version of the tale to me. This went on for a large chunk of the holiday. At first I did my best to meet their emotional needs, and when this did little to reduce the conflict, I slipped into "I am a really bad mother and therefore my kids are dysfuctional," phase. After that I became really grumpy and went so far as to threaten Anna that if she did not stop her whining I was going to throw her boiled egg at her. Yes I admit I allowed myself to let go of concious parenting to the full for a brief moment. It wasn't long after that that I dissolved into a phase of weepy surrender. At this point, quite miraculously, they stopped. But it took me a couple of days to realise that something was different. They were playing, happily, and had not fought over anything for a few days. It felt like I had been washed ashore on a tropical beach after braving a night long storm at sea.
Either they realised it was time to cut Mom some slack or they had finally found their groove with each other and decided to, groove.
Ofcourse, Murphy's Law, school began 10 days later, which has lead us into a new phase of challenging learning curves and emotional adjustments. Especially since it is a new school.
I will wait and muster the dregs of my patience and resilience for the next phase of emotional onslaught, which I have no doubt my darling twins will be bringing me soon.
We had a lot of good times and fun times but truth be told I am not the naturally patient text book example of a mommy, by a long shot. And after the novelty of not having to rush in the mornings to get to school on time wore off, I started to snarl and growl a bit. I'm kind of good at giving of my time, but I'm better when I know there is a gap on the horizon where I will be able to do "my own thing" for awhile. However there wasn't much of that to speak of.
I've come to learn, especially since having children, that things come in waves and phases. So bearing this in mind I did my best to ride the various waves, and in some cases, tsunamis, that came my way. We started off in a good and jolly, "Yay we are on holiday!" phase which soon morphed into "everybody is getting on everybody's nerves" phase. This was the part where the girls fought. A lot. daily. Every 15 minutes.
One child would invariably be screaming from being bashed on the head or some other equally unfair assault and the other would be whining her version of the tale to me. This went on for a large chunk of the holiday. At first I did my best to meet their emotional needs, and when this did little to reduce the conflict, I slipped into "I am a really bad mother and therefore my kids are dysfuctional," phase. After that I became really grumpy and went so far as to threaten Anna that if she did not stop her whining I was going to throw her boiled egg at her. Yes I admit I allowed myself to let go of concious parenting to the full for a brief moment. It wasn't long after that that I dissolved into a phase of weepy surrender. At this point, quite miraculously, they stopped. But it took me a couple of days to realise that something was different. They were playing, happily, and had not fought over anything for a few days. It felt like I had been washed ashore on a tropical beach after braving a night long storm at sea.
Either they realised it was time to cut Mom some slack or they had finally found their groove with each other and decided to, groove.
Ofcourse, Murphy's Law, school began 10 days later, which has lead us into a new phase of challenging learning curves and emotional adjustments. Especially since it is a new school.
I will wait and muster the dregs of my patience and resilience for the next phase of emotional onslaught, which I have no doubt my darling twins will be bringing me soon.
