It's all in my head...or on it?

I'm currently suffering through a bout of lividness. (Wow, apparently that really is a word as my spell check didn't tag it!) I'm angry. Angrier than a beehive that's been thrown to the ground by a honey hungry bear. And that's not my usual demeanor. I'm normally patient, kind, mellow and laid back, but I can actually feel my blood pressure rising. Probably not a good thing. In fact, I want to throw something, stomp through the house, break things, punch things do anything to relieve some of this pent up anger. But since we're going through the whole teaching the children responsibility and maturity, it wouldn't behoove me to go ranting and raving through the house. Not such a good example of responsible maturity. So, I've decided to try blogging to release some pressure. In order to effectively blog about one's anger one must analyze it.

Right off the bat, I'm angry with Hubby. How dare he be able to sleep so peacefully. Can't he see the world is actually upside down right now and I need him to help turn it the right way up? I ended all my games, my facebook, my email, basically unplugged from the online world so we could spend our designated one hour together and I was able to have 21 minutes before he was out. We will eventually make it through the book we're reading together. Anyone have young children you need to put to sleep? I'll record my voice for you to play to them because it's so soothing they'll be out in no time...or 21 minutes to be exact. I just needed some time with him to unwind. To take a deep breath and have someone take care of me and my needs. But, upon further analysis, that's not really fair of me. I mean, he's tired. He worked late, didn't even have a chance to come into the house when he came home because we were all in the van waiting for him to drive us to the kids' activity, grocery store, dinner, etc. When we finally straggled back in from all of that, his time was spent with kids brushing teeth, homework, general getting ready for bed routine. No wonder he crashed. I might have, too. My conclusion on the Hubby anger: yes, I feel a little neglected, but my anger began way before that and it is always easier to take it out on the one you love most. In truth he deserves his rest, he works very hard for us. He's off the hook and I'll quit mentally cussing him out.

Hey, I think this is helping. Where were we? Oh, yeah. I was angry before I even saw Hubby. What else happened. I knew Hubby was going to be late tonight, so I was supervising the homework/chores solo and was on my way to prepare dinner. I reached up for a pot and noticed they were askew. When your children are responsible (I'm using this term lightly under the current circumstances) for cleaning the kitchen, it is not too unusual to see things not quite up to snuff. I reached for the pot, grabbed it, started to pull it down, when in a slow motion moment, I see the heavy pot lid gracefully flutter down coming to rest ever so gently on my head. NOT! That sucker is heavy and combined with gravity I don't care how hard of a head you have (and I have a hard head or at least I've been told I'm stubborn so I'm assuming it's the same thing) it hurts like the dickens!! Instant welling of tears, horrible headache, I stagger into the bedroom and just cry. (Note to self, if you're going to drop pot lids on your head and cry, make sure you don't watch a tear-jerker movie like Toy Story 3 earlier in the day. The double crying jags do nothing to make your eyes pretty.)

Once the pain had subsided enough so that I could make a coherent sentence come out of my mouth, I round up said children and ask who put the pots away incorrectly. I should learn of course that a mother who has been crying can look pretty scary, especially to the child responsible, because they all suffered with instant short term memory loss and had no clue which one of them did it. I asked each of them how to put the pots away the right way and they could all answer correctly. Someday I'll get a grant to find out where in the child's body the correct way of doing something gets lost from brain to limbs. Anyway, I then lose it. Start crying again and let them know that the chore lists took a long time to create. They were designed to make it easier on them. They just have to start at the top and work their way down the list. In turn this makes it easier on the parents as we don't have to sit there and babysit them while they're doing the chores. On and on. And on. I'm pretty sure they heard, "Blah, blah, blah, sniff. Blah, blah, sniff, sniff." Not one of my better moments, but I didn't yell and still maintained some semblance of outward calm even with the raging headache.

I proceed to fix dinner and serve them. I let them eat without me as I had no appetite and was looking for some sanctuary I could escape to. That only lasted for a few minutes. Thing 4 is a creature of habit and enjoys family meals and the sharing of the day. She came in and asked me in her really sweet, angelic, cute way to sit and visit with her while she ate. And since there was no way she could have been responsible for the pot lid mishap, how could I break her heart and say no. I joined her.

Of course by this time the other 3 were finished eating and moved on to after dinner chores one of which is put your own dish into the dishwasher. Thing 2 neglected to do this, so Thing 1 went to his room and asked him to put the dish in the dishwasher so she could finish the kitchen. He said he would when he felt like it. This went on for a few more verbal jabs when Thing 1 gave up, slammed Thing 2's door and stomped into the kitchen. I calmly leave the table, enter Thing 2's room and gently grab him by the ear, have him stand and send him to the kitchen. I promise, it was gentle and I said not a word (I'm patting myself on the back because I was still showing restraint and patience!). A mere 15 minutes later we're in the van awaiting Hubby. He did ask me after we dropped them off why they were so quiet in the van. Needless to say it was a somber evening before he showed up.

Turns out I don't have a bump on my noggin, I have a dent. Not sure if that's better or not. But in the anger analysis, I'm now willing to chalk this day up to a lost cause or better yet, a lesson in venting anger. No point in letting the anger continue to fester and ruin tomorrow, too. Because it's true what they say, no one can make you angry, you choose to be. Right now, I'm choosing to be sleepy.