Still trying

I have missed a few days with the posting every day but I am way ahead of where I normally am for posting each month so I am going to consider it a success. I didn't post yesterday because it was one of those days as a parent where you wonder if you have enough patience to do this job. The girls and Gary are the love of my life, really, but yesterday my patience was tested to the breaking point. I know the major part of it is the fact that both girls are sick right now with coughs that can be likened to 50 year old pack a day smokers.

We missed swimming yesterday because I didn't think that getting wet and being cold would really help Aimee's current cold state. So we stayed at home all day and therein lies the problems that occurred yesterday. I tried as best I could to distract with Play doh, coloring, markers, baking, etc. but with each passing task the girls got more out of control and my patience was thinner and thinner. I don't think the lack of sleep from the past few nights due to their colds and both of them waking at separate times throughout the night did much to keep the anger at bay either.

I finally snapped at about 4PM when I asked Aimee to help me pick up the millions of pieces of toys on the living room floor to get ready for supper when she looked me straight in the eye and said "no". So I tried another tactic and tried to make a race out of it to see who could pick up more stuff the fastest to which she said.."I don't want to." Lovely. So I threatened with a time out and she said "okay" and went off to her room. While in there she proceeded to remove every single book from her bookcase. Now Aimee loves to read and has close to 60 books on her shelf so I reached the point of no return and raised my voice to a level that not only got her attention but made her start to cry and say "you scared me."

Again, I will take that parent of the year award anytime now....