QUIT YELLING

It's the summer of the horrible mommy... I tried to stop drinking coffee because it is not really good for my nursing baby and I'm sure it's leaching the calcium out of my bones, but I can't manage to quit yelling at my oldest son without it. Maybe I just can't keep up with him without it. Yesterday I declared we would have a day of no yelling. Anyone who yelled (including me) would go to their room for a time out. I went twice. I always wonder how we got into this habit as a family of yelling at each other. Maybe my husband started it--I remember when we were at dog training several years ago and they deteremined that he always shouted at his dog so that was what she responded to...he does the same with me and the kids. Now, everyone yells to get their point across. Someone is going to blast an eardrum here soon.
I read a short book called Raising Children Compassionately Parenting the Nonviolent Communication Way, way too advanced for my husband and too frustrating for me at the moment. How do you go back and change to damage you've already done? It seems that even if you one day decide to change, there are so many setbacks and unanticipated bouts of yelling that it doesn't do much good. I've got to keep pursuing it though. We had a really good day yesterday...so I'll declare another day of no yelling today. (What I really know if that, as always, if I wrote regularly, I wouldn't be yelling so much. Because I would have made my point somewhere and it wouldn't seem so urgent to force my point home.) Even dogs can learn new tricks...or maybe they just keep drinking coffee. Which is worse yelling or caffeine?

educated women & kids

Do educated women have fewer children? I guess women like me with a master's degree either don't have kids, or have only one or two, unless of course, they had the kids prior to getting the degree. Those who had the kids prior are assumed to have been in a state of unenglightenment, prior to their education. After their education, the kids are already grown and they can look back to say that had they known better, they would have known that educated women don't have more than two kids.

Where does that leave me and my three small children? I must be at the edge of crazy: I completed a master's degree during which time I had two kids and finished my thesis while pregnant with a third. I wonder what those judging others make of an educated child-bearing woman like me. Childless friends don't realize that email works better than calling with three kids screaming in the background. Other friends with one kid probably wonder why I don't just stick the kid(s) in daycare and get a job. And internet authors write articles about women opting out of the workforce in their commitment to motherhood. We're just opting out of a system that has no options for people who are unwilling to sacrafice their life and their children's formative years for what would only amount to a half-way decent wage, and those who are unwilling to sacrafice their income to have a job that costs money so that they can keep their life priorities straight.

Financially strapped and overeducated, I change diapers, nurse the baby, pickup from school, arrange playdates, clean the toilets, do some freelance editing work, attempt to find a part-time job that will work with my husband's job & school schedule, wash loads of laundry, give up on finding a teaching job that will work with our family schedules, read a few books, feed three kids lunch, drive to baseball games, go to play group, do more laundry, think about finding one class I could teach in between something, and finally know that one day, the children will be grown up enough that I can teach again. Why am I in such a hurry? Will the workforce still want me in three years? The children need me right now.

Getting started writing

The baby's crying--woke up from her nap too early for me to get anything written but what's new? the boys are trying to clean up but aren't really doing it. writing something is better than nothing for a stay/work at home/teacher mom