Bitchy Mama: a Sunday at the homestead

Was is the sun? Barely recognizable to our drizzle addled brains.

Was it heat? True NW'ers start whining anywhere above 75 degrees.

Maybe it was just the pure freedom of a day with no "have to dos".

I was actually in a great mood. The garden thrives. The sun is shining. The birds are signing.

Yet, the kids managed to fight, argue, squabble about every little thing. Nothing was ok today.

I found myself mitigating and playing the serial facilitator all day with not many happy lasting outcomes.

Shea has gotten good at crying bloody murder whenever he doesn't get his way. I mean, really, like he has severed a limb. Jake and I come running and it's because Molly wants to climb the rope ladder even though Shea was doing something totally different, a good distance away. Or something equally eye-ball rolling.

About a dozen of those sitations and bitchy mommy comes for a stay.

I tried something different with Shea and his reluctant big boy pants issue. I took off a poopy dipe and thought ok, he is going au natural for the rest of the day.

He did not like that. Every other kid in the world would revel in the nakeness but not Shea. He misses the support or whatever. So, I told him he could wear big boy pants but he didn't like that idea either.

That is about when bitchy mommy walked away and left the whiney, pouty progidy by himself on the backporch to grump by himself. I sort of toss over my bitchy shoulder, "Ok. If you don't want to wear them, that is fine with me. See ya!"

I timed it. It took 3 more minutes of solo-grumping then he put the big boy pants on HIMSELF and trotted down to the backyard to receive my exuberant praise.

We are so pathetically behind the 8 ball as far as potty training goes so that little incident is actually a victory. I have had several open, planning discussions with Shea about how we are going to say bye-bye to dipes after school is out. We are saying hello to big boy pants for the summer. He seems skeptical.