Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Survival of the Sanity

Today was one of those days. For some unexplained reason, all three girls woke up in an antagonistic mood. Jocelyn was pushing buttons at every opportunity. Molly would whine and be on the verge of tears if she was looked at the wrong way. Ava was the least nutso, but her attitude made her less than pleasant to be around as well. By 9am I was ready to send them all to their rooms to remain in solitary confinement for the rest of the day.

Unfortunately, we were low on food, so a commissary run had to be made. Against my better judgement, I loaded all three girls into the car and headed to the store. Within the first 5 minutes, I was ready to dump the cart and go straight back home. I pulled my cart over into the closest aisle and picked up Jocelyn so she was at the same level as the other two who were sitting in the cart. In my calmest but firmest voice, I said to all of them that we needed to buy food and I needed to keep my sanity, so they were to snap out of their funks and get through our commissary trip without any major issues. If we had to leave before I was finished shopping, all three of them would go to time out for an hour when we got home.

My "pep talk" was more or less effective. We got through our grocery shopping with only a few bumps along the way. I encountered many a customer who looked at me with sympathy or empathy or gratefulness that they were no longer in my shoes. Sometimes surviving is the mark of success. It is the end of the day and everyone in our house is still in one piece and no worse off after such a rough day. We survived the day... hopefully tomorrow will be even easier.

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