New Year, New Parenting Strategy?

Back to normal..phew, the holidays can really take it out of you right?

Did you have at least one instance of "Irritated Mommy (Wife/Girlfriend/Fiance/etc) Syndrome"? I know I did.... it just wouldn't be a complete holiday without one mommy meltdown. Thankfully, I was able to keep some control and not make a total weenie of myself. I have even forgiven myself, have you?

In fact, not only have I forgiven myself, I have tried to learn from my mistake and used it to teach my children a valuable lesson in human behavior. Yup, I used myself as the "Don't do this role model" in my little sermon on if you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all.

We talked over how I should have behaved and how I should have tried to handle the situation if I couldn't behave properly. They enjoyed themselves immensely, laughing at my little temper tantrum and later on reminding me to go to bed early to catch up on my "personality sleep" (apparently beauty sleep is too much to ask for).

I can't say it won't happen ever again, because I know for a fact that it will. It is human nature and quite frankly, even though I am slowly maturing and getting better at dealing with life's little nudges, we all slip up from time to time. Teaching the kids that apologizing and learning from my mistakes is not only a necessary but powerful lesson and is one of the best parenting moves we can make.

With any luck, I will be able to eventually channel the kind of serenity and calm that this beautiful woman seems to have an abundance of.