Behavior

Last weekend we went to my niece's 4th birthday party. Rayne has played with Hunter and been at her house a few times and was excited to see her and to play on her playground. For some reason I didn't even think about who else might be there. With Rayne, I usually do think about these kinds of things so we can talk about it before we get there. I try not to build up the anxiety by talking about it way ahead of time, but maybe on the way there we talk about who will be there and what to do if she feels nervous etc. It does seem to help. I didn't even think about it until we were pulling onto the street and there was no place to park. Briefly I talked to Rayne and we got out of the car and started to walk in. As we greeted different people just getting to the house, I physically saw a change in Rayne. Her whole little body slowed and tightened. She was hesitant. She held close to me. I felt sad and wanted to rescue my baby! In the meantime, being a good mom and knowing we would be outside, I remembered to put sunscreen on the kids before we left. Caius cried the whole way there (we had a pretty long drive) which is not like him and by the time we were getting to the house, I realized he had rubbed sunscreen in his eyes! I was concerned and, being me, was pretty soon feeling panicky myself worrying he was going to go blind or something. To Rayne's credit, once we got to the backyard, she was brave enough to go to the other end of the yard and play by herself while I took care of Caius. This was quite a big step for my girl! Eventually it was time for Hunter to open presents and blow out candles etc. There were enough people there that I don't know if Rayne even realized what was going on. When the crowd cleared a bit, she and Caius got over to Hunter's presents and when I told them we couldn't play with them and tried to dissuade them over where we could have cake and ice-cream, I felt like Rayne started really grabbing things and almost throwing them around. Perhaps she was jealous or something? Or maybe I was just overly stressed about Caius and hadn't calmed down so it felt worse than it was? Anyway, when I pulled the kids away, I don't remember what happened or if anything did but Rayne started crying and screaming. It wasn't really a tantrum but more like a tantrum than any anxiety induced thing. I lost my patience and yelled at her telling her she couldn't act that way. I think I even said something dumb like maybe we just can't do these things because she can't handle them; I hope or thought I said it more to myself than to her but still. Not the way I wanted to respond or behave as the mom. I was embarrassed and quite disappointed in myself. I can't describe the hate I feel for myself when I lose my temper at my babies. I really wanted to be good at this job and I get so saddened not knowing what I'm doing and feeling helpless in some situations. Sometimes when I go to bed after a hard day, I go over the situation in my mind so I can figure out, in a calm state, how I wish I would have responded, how to do it better next time. I thought about the party and felt sad that I wasn't more sensitive to Rayne and her anxieties. I wished I would have kept her closer to me and been more with her. At the same time, I felt sad that after taking care of Caius, he got left with other people while I DID play with Rayne and give her attention. Caius was fine and it's good for him to play with Grandma and Nini but I just kind of felt like he was hurt and then Mama had to leave him. To be honest I wasn't sure how I wished I had handled this. It's so overwhelming sometimes. Then I had a thought. Perhaps I didn't like the way I responded but MAYBE I responded that way not because I'm a bad mom but because I really did not approve of Rayne's behavior. I didn't think it was okay for her to act that way and I feel that she is getting old enough to learn about manners and being polite. I know she's still little, but the point is not what she is capable of but that I, as Mom, would feel an expectation of her rather than it's all my fault or under my control and jurisdiction. When your baby is born, you have this helpless little thing that is completely dependent on you. The advice is to breastfeed ON DEMAND, get up at night when SHE cries, learn what HIS cries mean, they will settle into THEIR OWN sleeping and eating schedule. You spend so much time with their wants and needs and figuring out their temperaments that I think it's easy to forget that YOU are mom. My mom has often told me there isn't really a right answer or way of doing it. You have to decide how you want it to go and then just do it, making them fit you if needs be. Sometimes I get what she means. I just wish I could remember. Perhaps I want to improve in my actions. But perhaps it's also okay to think or expect some things too. P.S. Since going to the new format of Blogger, I type my posts and put in paragraphs but when I publish it, there are none. Does anybody know what I'm doing? Also, when I post pictures, all that shows up in the draft is the code, not the picture. This is workable, but rather annoying. Even here, I pushed the italics button and instead of seeing my type in italics, I see the coding instead. ???