Yesterday afternoon I locked myself in my room for exactly one hour.
I don't think I had ever done that before.
Let me set the scene: it was HOT yesterday. Sometimes the heat makes me irritable. I had a little headache. Sometimes headaches make me irritable. Molly had woken me up 3 times the night before, between 3am and 4am, with itchy bug bite issues. Sometimes a lack of sleep makes me irritable. I was having a moody day. Moodiness always makes me irritable. It was the perfect storm.
Lucy yelled at Molly. Molly started crying because Lucy yelled at her and "hurt her ears." Lucy started crying because I got mad at her for yelling at Molly and made her apologize. Molly's crying was exacerbated by my getting mad at her for continuing to cry over something so silly and as the decibels increased I knew I would lose my temper further if I didn't banish them to their rooms.
Upon telling them each to go to their rooms until they settled down, I came to the decision to banish myself to my room, and I was the first one up the stairs.
Ahhhh.
I went to the bathroom, in peace. I read my scriptures, in peace (having realized I'd skipped the past couple of days and that may have been part of my problem). I prayed for patience. I took a short nap. And three Advil.
Did the girls try to get into my room? Yes, but not excessively. The criers stopped their crying after a few minutes and all three girls proceeded to entertain themselves fairly well until I decided to be a mom again. Oh my goodness, I felt SO much better when I emerged; it was like magic. The rest of the day went like clockwork, was easy as pie, I was happy as a clam; yes every cliché in the book.
And so I learned something new about myself: I am not above locking myself in my room. So there you have it.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Confession
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7 comments:
Good for you! I'm so not above locking myself in my room.
It's just my fear of what my boys will do without watching eyes. Like Jacob, who's taken to climbing out his window when sent to his room, or the time I came into the living room to find Nate literally climbing the blinds! And the things they jump off of . . . my best time outs are after Dad gets home!
YOu have no idea how much I enjoied this story. It helps me understand that every once in a while we need a moment to ourselves to figure things out.
I'm glad it worked and your day got better. When I go visit my room alone, it's great too, except my kids seem to be more persistence but eventually they go off and play too. Thanks for the post.
Good for you, I love giving myself a time out. Though I can only do it when Matt is around, I fear what would happen to the house and the boys if I left them alone for an hour.
I have definitely been known to lock myself in my room, but I've found the best way for me to get some quiet time is to send the girls to clean their rooms. Do their rooms get clean? Heck no. But they play very quietly (so I won't hear them and therefore have no idea what they're doing) for a long, long time to AVOID cleaning their rooms, and sometimes that's exactly what I need. :)
Oddly enough, I lock myself in my BATHROOM when the need arises. In my old house, none of the locks worked except for the master bathroom door. So sitting on the closed toilet seat was my special, quiet place. Now...all the doors lock in my new house, but for some reason I feel more at peace in the quiet bathroom. Kinda weird? I think yes.
wow - good for you. I would definitely not even be able to read my scriptures if I was mad. but I do lock myself in my room a lot.
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