Today was a certifiably bad day.  One of those days that require the ingesting of a high calorie food item with little nutritional value.  The kind of day that seems to highlight all of your flaws and none of your good points.

This is how it started:  the children were whiny and I was impatient.  So simple, right?

Whiny children are nothing new (especially with my offspring.)  Children whine.  It’s programmed into their genetic code, probably for some sort of survival skill. “Small humans lacking the ability to open the refrigerator or hunt in the wild, developed a loud, annoying nasal sound which insured that the adults of the species would feed them in order to make the noise stop.”

So the problem was obviously with me.  I grew impatient.  Quickly and overly impatient.  I had overbooked the day and stayed up too late the night before.  With my defenses down, my impatience led to irritation, which led to bad choices on my behalf.

I yelled.  I stopped listening and teaching and I yelled instead.  I rationalized that it was to ‘straighten’ my kids out.  But really?  It was an attempt to make myself feel better, ease my frustrations.

Of course, my yelling only exacerbated the situation and made everything worse.  The children went from whining to outright crying and feelings were hurt.  Time was wasted.  And for nothing.  All my yelling and blustering did NOT make me feel better, it only saddled me with another destructive feeling:  guilt.

By bedtime things had been patched up somewhat.  I apologized to my children, and they to me.    Tomorrow, odds are my kids won’t even remember.  Children learn quickly that bad days happen sometimes.

But I will remember.  And it’s that remorse that I’ll feel tomorrow for today’s missed opportunities and wasted time, that makes this bad day officially suck.  Sigh.

Hand me another Oreo please.