I recently read a post on BloggingDangerously.com called The Luckiest Mom. It cracked me up. It's all about how she yells at her children too much so she tries to work in "good" yelling. Yelling things like, "I'M THE LUCKIEST MOM!"
I have realized I yell at Daughter too much too. I really don't yell at Son, cuz well, he's three months old...he doesn't do anything too maddening yet. Overall, Daughter really is a great kid. She's very helpful with her brother, almost too helpful sometimes. She's really good about playing by herself quite often which helps me have a little down time here and there. And yet, there are the other times. She's really good at pushing buttons until I'm at my breaking point. She's awesome at yelling so loud and so much that her poor brother can't sleep causing me hair pulling happiness when he's overtired and all he can do is scream. She challenges me at every corner on anything I tell her to do. Punishing most of the time is pointless because she finds a way out of it. Put her in the corner for time out and she spits on the floor...can't leave her in time out cuz her spitting causes more reasons for yelling. Send her to her room she screams for about two minutes and then I hear her laughing and she's playing with her bedding making it into some fort or something...where's the punishment in having fun? She is so maddening sometimes that I just finally explode and yell at her! At these points I often sing, "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming..." to myself and it brings a smile to my face for at least a few seconds.
After reading The Luckiest Mom post, I thought 'Heck...I can do that!'. So I started grabbing Daughter's face and yelling, "I LOVE YOU!" every time I was near that breaking point. At first, she was shocked into silence by this and then, as it happened more, she started yelling, "I LOVE YOU TOOOO!" back in my face. It would make us both giggle and we'd hug and she's run off to play and I would keep all my hair. I was in love with this new turn around!
We recently had to go to the doctor and Grandmama went with us. In the truck, Daughter yells out, "I LOVE YOU!" Grandmama looks at me, a little shocked by the loud announcement of affection, so I explain. Grandmama, now knowing what's going on yells, "I LOVE YOU TOOOO!" at Daughter. We all break into giggles.
At the doctor's office, Daughter is playing with this other little girl who was about her age and they're having a great time. The little girl's name was called to go back and see the doctor. I watched as my daughter grabs the little girl's face, goes nose to nose with her and yells, "I LOVE YOU!" First shock, and then...oh, the giggles from the three in my family and the stares of WTF? from the rest of the waiting room made my whole day a little brighter!
Yes, I think "good" yelling has improved my happiness in life with my children! A big thank you to Kit at Blogging Dangerously for the hilariously awesome idea!
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