Breaking Days

I don’t know what was different about today.  Was there some strange chemical in the air?  Did the children not get enough sleep?  Are their hormones raging?

I have 2 children at home and today they felt harder to deal with than when I had six!  They argued.  They whined.  They failed miserably in their school lessons.  Today we didn’t get to do any fun stuff because we were too busy trying to get and stay on track and correct the horrendous answers to their math problems.  Today I felt like they just about “broke me”.  

I thought I was tough.  I thought I pretty much had this parenting stuff down, but today I felt like I was at my wit’s end.  I felt a thread width away from a breakdown.  I wanted to lock myself into my bedroom and let them do whatever they wanted and not have to care.

We battled this for the better part of the day and then got in the car to head off to their afternoon activity and those same children who were fighting and writhing, were laughing and talking while I sat in the driver’s seat, feeling battered and bleeding.  

Then it dawned on me.  I am dealing with 2 adolescents on the verge of puberty!  Both of their bodies are overflowing with hormones and mood swings and exhaustion and I am their collateral damage.  It caught me off guard because every one of our kids has gone through puberty in a different way.  Yesterday we were driving in the car and my 14 year old had been argumentative and pestering for most of the day.  I tried to be patient but I ended up sending him to the farthest back seat of the van just so that he couldn’t torment anyone in his vicinity.  

Here was a great clue to me, before I sent him back and I asked him why he was doing this?  (what a ridiculous question to someone who is battling body chemicals!)  He just said, “I don’t know I just feel sad and happy at the same time.”  Truth is, I bet right now he has no idea what he really feels.  

Maybe this morning I should have bagged the math and come up with a way to shift our focus instead of plotting on in that negative, stressful atmosphere.  Maybe I should have "shaken things up" and done double math tomorrow.  Wish I would have thought of that in the heat of the moment when my brain and emotions were scrambled!   Maybe I’ll have it figured out by the time I am a grandparent.  

Yeah, right, just accept that you never totally will.  Oh, well.  One more day we go on our journey.