Attitude

Boy, I really woke up on the wrong side of the bed today. I went out for a walk/jog, and only went about 2/3 as far as I usually do, even though it was cool and moist and really quite nice out. When I came back home the kids were full of ideas of things they wanted to do today, and it just felt like a big list of demands. This was purely my own fault, that I felt put upon by these requests. First of all, we do almost always have some activities we three do together on my days off work, so naturally the kids assumed that I was going to do some things with them today. If I want the day off from activities with the kids, I can just say so--no need to act put-upon or resentful. 

In any case, I told them to think of what they wanted to do while I took my bath, and we'd figure out a plan for the day when I was out. I laid in the bathtub and felt sorry for myself while they came up with a list full of worthy activities (M: make a crystal, bake something yummy; A: watch a DVD about Queen Elizabeth I, play a bean bag throwing game she likes, do an art project, make a list of places on the map for her to find, and all dance together). I couldn't get interested in any of their ideas, even though I actually checked out the Queen Elizabeth dvd for myself.

In fact, I was tired and grumpy and wouldn't have minded doing any one of those activities normally, but was just feeling buffeted by their "demands", which of course weren't demands at all, just requests. In my head I'm adding all the other things I had to do: make breakfast, clean the kitchen, go grocery shopping, make lunch, clean the kitchen again, make dinner, make sure the kids take baths, make sure A practices, do a little math practice, and I really wanted to go to OMSI to watch the landing of a probe on Mars...). My whole attitude was stupid, though. Of course I couldn't do everything the kids wanted to do and get everything done on my list, so my job was to sort through the to-dos for the day and come up with a plan that would work and that would leave me feeling neither exhausted nor resentful nor neglectful. 

It is easy for me to think that I have to do everything, but actually the other members of my household are quite cooperative when it comes to household chores. We actually wrote out a schedule for the day, which made my schedule-loving daughter's heart sing. In the end, the kids each got to do two of the things they wanted to do (M: crystal, making something yummy (Dutch baby for breakfast), A: bean bag game, and the Queen Elizabeth dvd). They also helped by making breakfast, helping with dinner, bringing in and putting away the groceries, and doing the dinner dishes. I got most of the stuff accomplished that I wanted to do, and got to watch the Queen Elizabeth dvd (which I had also wanted to watch, actually) and take a 3-hour nap!

After dinner M took at least and hour to do the dishes, while I relaxed on the couch and tried to read, in between his conversational gambits (covering Dracula (from numerous angles), speculations about whether a really strong metal could disable a metal detector, rabies, speculations about whether someone will someday discover something that goes faster than light, etc. etc.) and A practiced her piano almost the whole time. Talk about diligence. A used to have such a hard time playing with the metronome. In fact, for the first couple of years of piano lessons there was usually absolutely no relationship between the metronome's clicks and the speed of her playing. But tonight she played several pieces perfectly with the metronome, at many different speeds, and switched between clicking on eighths to clicking on quarters. Truly, tremendous progress.

Anyway, today was a good lesson in how my feelings of resentment and being put upon are purely of my own making. I just need to do my job of balancing my needs with those of the household, and I can't get dragged down by thoughts of all the things I'm not doing. I'm doing enough.