“Just shut up!”

That’s what I eventually thought to myself, about myself, as I cleaned & complained. You see… I was in my zone...again. I was on a rampage and overly ambitious to get all the things D.O.N.E. No one was safe & that’s how it often is when I’m in this state of mind.

Every few seconds, I called my daughters to pick up their clothing or some random item I’d asked them to get 20 times before. I could hear them huffing & puffing as they went back & forth to their rooms. The stressed mom in me wanted to reprimand that huffing & puffing. I also wanted to remind them of the reason they had so much to clean. All of a sudden, however, I realized how often I was calling my daughters to do things. They couldn’t get one task completed without another being hurled at them.

One could argue & say “welcome to mommy’s world!” but that wouldn’t be fair…at least not entirely. My girls are 6 & 11. Cleaning up after themselves has gotten better with time, reminders, repetition, & maturity. Even still, I can’t expect them to do things exactly as I would. Their progress over the years is what I have to remind myself of!

On this particular day, no matter how warranted some of my yelling seemed, it ended up irritating ME. I can only imagine how my daughters felt! The complaining and nitpicking were constant & I couldn’t stop.

Have you ever been there?

It was hard to redirect myself & find a better way to handle the fed up-ism I was feeling. In total mom truth, I was just tired of repeating myself to them. There seemed to be a myriad of tasks on my list to cross off & most of them should’ve already been done. Had my requests been carried out the first time I asked, we wouldn’t be revisiting them!

I could feel my daughters’ energy & clearly see their frustration. If someone was upset & loudly giving me demands (repeatedly), I wouldn’t like it either. Fortunately, all my years of parenting have taught me how to take a step back, see things from their point of view, & sometimes realize how ridiculous my own behavior is.

Sure, I had the right to reprimand their disobedience when they’d been given prior instructions. Yet, it did not give me the right to be so upset. I’m not new to any of this & have been in this exact situation before. (See: Do These 3 Things Instead of Yelling) Parenting… always learning, always growing. Repeat.

My rampage was thankfully short-lived & I thought about myself as a mom. I pondered whether or not I’d like having me as a parent. It didn’t take long to come up with a “Heck yeah!” conclusion, but for reasons I feel are important.

It’s often hard to praise ourselves as people let alone as parents. In spite of my mistakes though, I’m proud of myself. I’m the kind of parent who reflects on what I do; I think about how my actions/reactions affect my children & the majority of the time, I don’t overact. I get things right!

As I mentioned before, I’m quick to admit my faults. (See: Opening Up To My Daughters About My Insecurities) My imperfections are never a secret. I’ve also never believed children should only be seen & not heard. Our daughters are allowed to express their feelings respectfully in our household. Even when mad at me/us, they’re allowed to talk about it. Most of the time, the conversation ends hilariously & we all feel better about the situation. That’s how we choose to parent in our household & it works for us.

Now I ask… would you want YOU as a parent? Are you the kind of parent you’d want to have if you were a child? If not, what can you do differently to become that parent? Think about it & let me know in the comments.