The desire to do better

I dunno what it is, but I've always had a desire to do better the next time if I stuffed up (stuffed up by my own definition that is).

I didn't get my VBAC so I wanted a VBA2C.  I needed to do better than to "fail" at something.  Failure in my own head that is, if Coo wasn't born by c-section she probably wouldn't be here today.  I failed at breastfeeding with Sparrow, Coo and Speedy so wanted to do better this time.  I'm not sure where my drive to do better comes from, but wherever I get it from, I'm very appreciative because I think it makes me strive to be a better person.  A complete pain in the arse as well I'm sure, right Elf Man?

Anyway, today I lost my cool at Speedy.  Not completely unusual, she is a toddler, and just a little bit frustrating at the moment.  She wants to do so much on her own, but just doesn't have the ability yet.  We were making biscuits and I lost my temper because she didn't cut out the biscuit properly so I couldn't put it on the tray, but she wouldn't let me help.  Now, its probably because I'm sleep deprived, but I told her off, which then caused a huge crying tantrum from her, which then caused me to yell more because I didn't want her to wake The Baby, so she cried louder and eventually even I shed a few tears in frustration - I was trying to do something fun with my kids and it all seemed so difficult!  Why can't things just be easy!

So putting her down for her nap, I was stroking her silky curls and was going over the incident in my mind.  What I should have done was give her a little bit of dough of her own (not a huge chunk like the others had) and a few cookie cutters to play with on her own, and then did the rest with the bigger kids.  Instead of getting upset with her for being loud and (eventually) waking The Baby, I should have walked away from the bench and given her a cuddle in the bedroom and calmed her down.

Being offline is giving me the ability to think about situations differently - and if I'm not happy - do it better.  I wouldn't have thought about this all last week, I just went on doing the same thing, day in and day out - and it wasn't getting better.  Because I couldn't think of how to do it better.  Spending just these last few days with the kids have me thinking more clearly about how to handle a situation differently because I'm more connected with them. I may not be thinking it at the time, but today's incident shows that I have changed, even just that little bit from being offline.

After our biscuits were made - and I didn't have any baking powder so they didn't turn out quite right - they still looked good!

Then I made a cubby house with the kids, that they spent approximately 10 minutes in, and had a few fights in, so we abandoned that idea.  We ended up going to the park, grabbing maccas for lunch (not healthy but meh, I'm not perfect, I've said that before) and grabbing Elf Man on his lunch break and enjoying a picnic lunch at the park with the kids.  It was pretty good, it was the first time in a long time that I've taken the kids to the park, and played with them.  Sure I took them to the park before, but I always had my phone to check out facebook or one of the forums, just so I didn't miss the goss.  But I missed a lot more than that by not playing.

Happy kids....

A pondering baby....

A few accidents...

My kids growing up before my eyes....

I've realised that Ferris was right - life moves pretty fast.  If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.  I've missed a lot already.