Today I put on my Cranky Pants

Today is a rough day.  Today I put on my cranky pants without even realizing it.
When you're a mom, you don't really get cranky days.  When you're a kid, you can have a day where you are grouchy and frown and scowl all day long and everyone tells you to change your attitude and maybe you get sent to your room...but  that's it.  When you're a mom (especially when you're a stay at home mom) the cranky pants day is not really something you get to take advantage of.

As the mom of the house, I generally need to be on my toes, keeping an eye on the day's schedule, working on my tasks and trying to find a few minutes to de-compress during nap time.  Today, though, after our really kick-butt Kenpo X workout, I was in the shower and suddenly I was full of rage. Everything I thought of made me spin off in a "Sneaky Hate Spiral"(If you haven't read it-I highly encourage a thorough perusal of www.hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com ). This is dangerous. Not only was my husband quickly going to expect some sort of polite conversation as he got ready for his shower-at this point I was so full of ridiculous, impotent rage that when he entered the bathroom he was barraged by a spastic, psychotic rant of verbal diarrhea. It was bad. He is a true champion, though, and as I finished my rant he smiled at me and said "Perfectly reasonable. I love you!"
After lunch, and after he left for work, I put my youngest daughter down to nap and started an afternoon movie for my oldest daughter so that I could do the dishes, clean up and take a few minutes to stew.
Boy, did I ever stew. I called a friend and stewed in my grouchiness, I sat in my chair and stewed, I even laid on the couch, crossed my arms, and pouted...and didn't feel any better. That made me even more grouchy! I refused to get off the couch until I got some sort of confirmation from the universe that I was justified in my grouchiness. Then I really made it official-I posted it in my status on Facebook. There. Now everyone would know that I was grouchy and rush to make me feel better. But no one did. So I did. I commented on my own status "C'mon, me, turn that frown upside down!" Then I laughed at myself.
Now, I've changed out of my cranky pants and back into my happy, normal pants-and I'm ready to tackle my biggest hurdle of the day-GROCERY SHOPPING AT SAM'S WITH TWO CHILDREN IN TOW!!!
No pouting allowed.

Learning from the Children

My daughters are tightly coiled balls of ever increasing energy.  My eldest daughter does not just get out of bed in the morning (or stumble, flailing until I find my glasses, swearing at the sun for rising, my dog for getting in my way, the coffee for not already being made, etc.).  No.  She wakes up in the morning, leaps to the end of her bed, jumps from her bed to the floor, and skips...skips!  down stairs.  She skips every where.  She skips all day long.  She skips to the bathroom, she skips to the kitchen to get a yogurt, she skips or runs but hardly ever walks.

My husband and I were discussing this the other day.  We noticed that her first choice is to always skip between tasks. We both watched her skip into the bathroom and as she left the room, we were both smiling and laughing.  Watching her skipping brought us joy!  We both remarked that we wished that our first thought was to always skip-instead of plodding along as it seems some days.

Our youngest does not just wake up, either.  If, by chance, we have to wake her up she doesn't roll over and groggily greet us with a smile.  She lies on her stomach, flapping and clapping and slapping her feet and hands on her mattress until she springs up, grabs onto the bars of her crib, and jumps up and down.  This whole sequence takes about 5 seconds.  She is ready for action as soon as her eyes open.  She is full of joy and thrilled to greet the day.

Both of my daughters are excited to get on with the next thing, but they are also so happy to be in that moment that they make us happy to be a part of that moment.  They have helped us to find joy in mundane moments and, quite often, cause us to stop, take a look around, and be happy for simple moments. 
I'm not going to pretend that I can alter my bad attitude upon waking up.  I don't know if I am willing to work on that part of me when there are so many other facets of me that need work (such as the part of me that follows through with things, the part of me that cleans the bathroom more often, or the part of me that can focus on things for more than 10 minutes).  However, I am willing to take a little more time and be thankful for small moments of joy and peace and be looking for opportunities to recognize those two things.  Hopefully, in the future, my daughters will remember me as a fun mom whose moments of joy outnumbered the moments of grouchy, flailing anger. 

Lady Gaga Vs. Hannah Montana

My daughter (who is 4) loves both Hannah Montana and Lady Gaga.  When I say loves, I mean LOVES them.  She has never watched the show, Hannah Montana but has heard some of Miley Cyrus' songs and tries to dress the way she thinks Hannah Montana would dress.  She also loves Lady Gaga.  Especially Bad Romance.
One day, I turned on some music on Pandora Radio (maybe the best thing ever invented for people who love music) and Olivia started dancing around the living room, stripping down to her skivvies!  I couldn't believe it.  I got a vision of the future-and it looked pretty terrifying.  However, she loves listening to Lady Gaga and even asks me to turn on "The Gaga Lady" when we're in the car. I generally do, too, because I love Lady Gaga too (but it doesn't inspire me to strip down whenever the music comes on)

On the other hand, she loves Hannah Montana, too.  One day she asked me to turn on a Hannah Montana song and I reacted with such vehemence that it surprised me.  I had to ask myself, what is going on with me?  If you listen to the lyrics, one is not much worse than the other.  So why do I dislike one so much and enjoy the other?

Could it be simply because Miley Cyrus is a teenager and I am an adult?  I can't think of what else it could be.  When I think about it, I don't want Olivia watching Hannah Montana because some of the language is a little salty for a four-year-old (they say "stupid" a lot) and because I don't think that she would be able to understand the context of the sarcasm.  So, that's not an issue.  She would be fine with just listening to the music.
Lady Gaga, on the other hand, is far less appropriate for a four-year-old to be listening to.  The lyrics are more explicit and the themes are more adult because the music is geared to adults.  I tell myself that it is really okay that Olivia walks around singing  Bad Romance because she doesn't understand what she's singing...but is that really okay?  I think so.  I have fond memories of singing The Sweetest Taboo in Kindergarten for Show and Tell.  While I think my teacher may have been shocked, everyone agreed that it was the best performance of The Sweetest Taboo that they had heard from a 5 year old.  (Okay, I may have made the last part up).  I just know that when I was up in front of my class with my Fisher Price Moraccas, singing to the tape my mom had made, I loved that song and I loved singing it.  I had no idea what I was singing about. I also turned out to be a pretty good person, and still love music. 
So, from now on, I'm going to try to keep my prejudices to myself, let her occasionally listen to Hannah Montana, and hope that she doesn't have any idea what we're singing about for a long time.