If You’re Bratty and You Know it, Raise Your Hand

I’m a full grown adult woman. And this morning I was a huge brat. It’s true, I wholly admit responsibility. I made two out of three kids cry and we started the morning off really rough.

It’s Halloween today. My favorite holiday. I love dressing up, I love costumes, I love all the spooky fun that comes with this day. My kids however, don’t share my enthusiasm and only show up for the candy. Womp womp. One kid is “too old” to dress up at school, the other insists on wearing a store bought costume WITHOUT THE MASK, and the other is too young to have a say so (thankfully). So their indifference to the best day of the year coupled with the anxiety I get when I feel overwhelmed, brought out the worst in me.

Side note: Surely I’m not the only one who’s worst parenting moments are almost always when I am trying to get too much done in not enough time. I recently learned that this bad, on-edge, feeling is called anxiety. Shocker right?!

I’m on a mission to become more self aware, but in the past I liked to adopt the stoic, feelings are for weaklings approach.(until the feelings erupted out after some extremely illogical trigger) I also believed that “other people” had anxiety and that the word had lost its power because it’s just a waaaah waaaah whiney buzz word that woke people throw around as a cop out. Turns out, naming those agitated, irritable, tense feelings allows me to get over feeling anxious more quickly. I’ve identified coping mechanisms (like writing) and I’m trying to manage it better.

Anyway, I should have dressed up as a queen and the kids as peasant underlings that I allow to reside in my dominion. I want absolute power when it comes to costuming these kids. The tipping point was Matt’s insistence that he wear tennis shoes with his high water Ice Man flight suit. I mean, I can take photos from the waist up but I know that he’s not in an authentic costume from head to toe. Also monkey face make up on a toddler is really hard!

One bad morning doesn’t define me as a mom though. I’m not part of the #badmomsclub just because I was a jerk. My kids won’t be scarred and ruined. This one bad morning was just ONE morning in the scheme of all the mornings that are great. And yeah, I may have made some kids cry but I also made them a hot breakfast, made their lunches, made them get dressed and brush their teeth, made them load up in the car and get to school on time, and made amends before they walked in.

Hopefully you guys had a better morning than me but if not, forgive yourself! The kids already did.