two days in a row

I can't believe it either, two days in a row of posting.

Today has been very frustrating. I gage a day by how well I handle situations more than how Ethan and Seth or Naomi are acting. And I have seriously been misbehaving. Today Ethan has been having serious melt downs over the tiniest things. For example, he was trying to wrap his bear with a blanket so that he could lay the bear down to sleep. When he couldn't get it the way he wanted it, he started SCREAMING. This was the second time he had just started screaming and crying over an incident like this, and then I lost my cool as well. I felt so angry with him as I tried to calm him down. How's that going to work? Me screaming calm down, stop screaming. Children are smarter than that, why should he stop screaming when I am. I ended up having to walk away from him and sit down to calm myself down and then came back to him and said I was sorry for what I had done. By then he had calmed down too and we hugged.

I think what is setting me over the edge is not just Ethan's screaming but Seth just gets into EVERYTHING. Which is fine but it gets a little old when I repeatedly say to Seth, don't touch, stop doing that, Seth STOP! Which then he tests me to see if I mean what I am saying, which means I have to discipline, and often it seems it is happening the most when I am feeding Naomi. AH, the life of having three so young.

The thing that I want to reflect on and change for the afternoon (all three are sleeping right now) is that it's okay. Ethan is 2 and going to have melt downs, Seth is 1 and is going to test boundaries and explore, they are more valuable than getting the house cleaned, or avoiding a mess, so if Ethan is screaming he will stop, and if Seth pulls out all the pens in the drawer I can put them back. Everything is REALLY okay, so why do I need to freak out, we'll get there in the end. Please God, help me to keep this in mind this afternoon!