The Eye of a Needle Would Be Easier Than This

I have so much to do this morning, in a very short space of time. But I always have to time vent, it seems.

Today, I feel like my children are ungrateful and spoiled. Entitled and inflexible. Lazy and negative. Nay-sayers and buzz-kills. Nasty, brutish and short.

I'll be honest: when I am working hard to provide them with opportunities, relaxation and inspiration, and I am met with sour faces, complaints and resistance, I get extremely pissed off.

But what's the right response here? Yelling is definitely a fall back position; I'm pretty good at the indignant, guilt-inducing tirade. Unfortunately, I am the adult in this situation, and it's my job to guide them through the day, hopefully feeling good about themselves and having learned a thing or two.

I do want them to feel good about themselves; I want those positive feelings to come from having played and worked hard, helped their family, cooperated with mum, and experienced what it's like to engage the world positively.

It's all I can do to keep myself from screaming at them. Well-placed yelling is just that: well-placed and deserving. But I'm teetering back and forth between patience and righteous indignation.

We are off to a homeschooling science class this morning, after I (with their extremely reluctant help) finish cleaning up our Sonoma home-away-from-home so my folks come home from their trip to Ireland and find their house nearly as they left it. They will fight me on nearly everything I will ask them to do in the next two hours.

How will I respond?

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