Day 2 - Orange Rhino Challenge - failure?

(If you have no idea what I am doing - read the first post)

Let's talk about inappropriate laughing. Did you start laughing when you read that? Or groan maybe? Did you think of a time you laughed totally inappropriately? I've done it. It's funny and horrible and then even funnier because it's so horrible, but mostly it's kinda horrible. And then funny. I have a point I swear.

But first let's also talk about triggers. Things that annoy. Happenings that start the ugly ball rolling. I wish I did not have them. My continual drive to better myself through my church, the books I read, the deep convos I have with friends, and challenges I set for myself all point to this fact. But I DO have them - and I will share:

1) When one child is doing the ugly tantrum and then ANYONE talks to me during that.
2) When 2 children are doing the ugly tantrum and ANYONE makes a noise or moves too quickly.
3) The very voice of my #3 during anything stressful.......this is a very dark and scary and new revelation for me. One I will be doing some soul searching on. One that has opened the door to relieving stress in that relationship.
4) When a child stands in front of my stroller while I am walking - making it impossible to move forward.
5) When the babies are late for a nap and I can't seem to get them down for a nap.
6) When everyone is hungry and I ONCE AGAIN forgot to prep the side dishes - which I must now do and it's already 6pm and we are all starving.

This is a condensed list for the purposes of this post. Reason? This all happened today. This afternoon actually.

I am not justifying my failure or making it ok - the opposite actually. I mean what I say about this challenge - I do intend to go 365 (longer actually) without yelling. I don't care how many times I need to start over but I will get there. I mean to make this list for the purpose of identifying my triggers and therefore being bigger than them & finding a way to STILL be badass in the face of them.

So....the morning was lovely - I had a beautiful breakfast with my sissy and girlfriend. YUM. And then I puttered around the house until way too late (1:45pm) when I finally got my act together and started getting the babies ready for a nap. By this point one injury had already occurred. 7 minutes later another. And 67 seconds later another one. The last one, was when inappropriate laughing occurred. One sibling laughed at another sibling's injury. I was FURIOUS. The hell gates of motherly-lion-fury where pouring from my very eyeballs. I felt myself start to totally lose it. I did not yell though (progress?) - as we believe in total silence during injuries - but I gave that guilty child the evil look. And I do mean eeeevvvvil. I also did The Finger Point. The angry one that says "I will deal with you later."  *gulp* And when the tears of injury boy had stopped I had a mini tirade of anger. It was not the ugly scream, thank god, but it was stained a tad with venom. Back to day 1 sister. Dang it.

I regained my composure just in time too because #3 injured, way too tired, child then decided to throw an epic tantrum because I wouldn't allow him back on the punching bag he had just injured himself on twice - and he got to working himself up so good and mad that he vomited on my floor, bloody vomit too because he had cut his mouth from his fall. Awesome. Purely awesome. Then #4 starts to yell at me as she's overly tired. And then another child wants my attention. What the what is doing on people??!!!!!

#2 now gets my snappy comments to please leave the room while I deal with crazy town. But because this child needs to be told 77 times and wants to ask 77 questions about why, why, WHY this needs to be done - my snappy turns a little too snappy. Just a tad. Failure #2.

Cut to 2.5 hours later. Everyone - including me - has napped. Aaaahhhhh. We started to take a lovely walk when both #1 and #2 decide to stand in front of my stroller multiple times. This is so petty and yet so annoying to us. Both John and I started to get a little ticked by this. I hate having my forward progress stopped for no reason.........but we keep our cool and talk in that nice, firm, lecture style talk while making eye contact. The parenting books would have be proud.

Then while making dinner that I was late on, I had more sweet moments of frustration and jokingly (mostly) yelled angry jibberish into the stove. Yes, into it. It was recommended. The kids and hubs thought this amusing.

But the GOOD NEWS.......

The Silver Lining

Back from our walk and feeling more together, #2 and I had a really nice, intimate chat about how she handles her anger. I suggested hugging the person you are angry with. She made The Face at this - but I forced a hug on her anyway. She smiled. And then......

The memorable parlay:

C: Mom, you know how the cheese is the best part of the cheeseburger?

Me: (Do not overthink this or give a Paleo lecture here) "Yes!"

C: Well momma, you are the cheese.
Me: *sniff*, *sniff* melt, melt. hug, hug

And while I might have had 2 failures on Day 2 of my No Yelling At Anyone Challenge - my daughter thinks I'm the cheese. And I was high on love for her all night.

So did I fail after all?? No, and yes. But mostly no. Regardless - I see good things happening already.

Day 1, Take 3 here I come. <3 p="">