Thursday, July 26, 2012

TAMING THE BEAST: MUMMY RAGE

The intensity of playschool holidays and being the sole minder of my 3 hyper kids all day every day has hit me like a juggernaut.

The first few weeks were a nightmare.

Now, thanks to a few little tweaks here and there, it's become a bit more bearable.

But all along I've found myself grappling with uncontrollable mummy rage.

Born out of the simple frustration of repeating myself over and over again - and them seemingly ganging up on me to drive me to insanity.

It's not something to be proud of, mummy rage. Nor something to write home about. Hence my blogging silence for a subdued period.

But now I finally feel like I'm coming out on top, albeit for brief moments here and there, of lovely, fun intervals from the madness.

It all started when my oppositional 4 year old finished playschool for the summer. Losing his routine, he was thrown, bored, unstimulated, wreacking chaos across our family as he needed to unleash his inner beast to work off  testosterone surges.

The other two are no shrinking violets either. My youngest Lorcan has always been a screamer, prompting the other two to regress massively to using screaming to get my attention. Sadly it works.

So with no routine, everyone suddenly got loud, very loud, including me. And I hate loud.

I was shouting big time. All I did was shout at them, "stop" and "don't do that" or "for god's sake". I thought I was losing my mind.

The eye of the storm passed, the rain stopped lashing, I bought lots of Omega3, and finally, I see light.....

I thought I was well prepared for motherhood.

But little did I know how thoroughly it would test me. I've been to that limit recently. I screamed my way out of it!

I used to pride myself on being calm, patient and laughing things off. I'd held down stressful jobs in national newspapers for 10 years yet I don't remember ever getting stressed, angry or shouting.

Fast forward 3 babies and I'm tetchy, shouty and full of instant rage that makes me feel tight in my chest.

Yet I adore my kids and I hate shouting at them. Generally, we're quite a happy-go-lucky bunch. 
 
The bunch
 
Recently, I've been practising laughing rather than shouting, walking away at the little things (because giving out all the time is so draining) I've given up coffee in favour of chamomile tea, we've been doing rewards and bribes, we're trying to go somewhere every morning, and I've upped my dose of thyroid tablets and I'm back on the Omega3 and Evening Primrose Oil. 

I'm also trying to calm down my 4 year old with high dose Omega3. Maybe it's wishful thinking, but I think it's working. 

Oh and I'm trying to book a weekend away to reconnect with Hubby to celebrate my 40th soon - no kids allowed!

We all need a little bit of help along the way...


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