New Year, New Me!

I am too ruled by my emotions. I'm 30. I should be able to be in control of myself. I fear I'm teaching this characteristic to my children. Emotion is a good thing, it is, but I need to be in better control of it. So, my first new years resolution is to speak to my children calmly and in complete control regardless of the situation. I think my tendency is to "tune out" some of the minor annoyances of them fighting with each other until it becomes too much and I fly off the handle. Then it's timeouts and crying and hurt feelings and me wishing I had handled the situation better. Now I see my kids having a freak attack when things don't quite go their way and I know exactly where they learned it. The weird part about it is I haven't always been that way. Yes, I've always been emotional, but it seems this overreaction thing has only emerged over the last couple of years. Maybe my parents would disagree. I am fine one second and a moment later without warning, I'm thrown into this fury I can't control. I love my kids beyond words and I'm trying to be the best mom I can be. I want them to be able to take real life situations and rationally think through how to deal with them. It is my responsibility to teach them that and what better way than by example? I suppose finding a solution wouldn't only be for their benefit, but mine as well. I don't want to be so controlled my emotions.

I feel grateful all the time. I am continuously filled with gratitude...for everything that my family and my in-laws do for us, for the blessings we have; good health, a good marriage, a nice home, good jobs, good friends, etc. etc. etc. I truly just feel thankful everyday for the wonderful life we are leading and all the wonderful people we share it with. What I need to improve on is expressing that gratitude. There's always a "thank-you note" on my to do list that never seems to get done or an act of service to a family member or friend who needs it that I think about, but never quite follow through on. I don't think "thoughts" of showing gratitude count since the person I'm thinking of showing gratitude to never know that I thought about it. Ty always says "the road to hell is paved with good intentions". I think this is exactly what that means!! So, that's my next resolution this year, to express my gratitude outwardly.

We've gotten into this terrible habit for dinnertime. My family is seated up at the bar while I stand on the other side "serving" them throughout the meal. I always eat standing up and I always eat cold food! I'm grabbing a drink or a napkin or wiping up a spill or cutting meat...you get the point. Oh, and the TV is always on. Wow, it's appalling, I know. I'm not really even sure how we got there, but we're done with it. Ok, not completely done, but it's happening less often for sure. So resolution #3...Eat dinner at the table three nights/week. Three nights is reasonable and achievable. We've done it a few times now and tonight Jake actually said "mom, I want to eat dinner at this table". Yay! Getting the kids on board is half the battle (Ty being the other half). Hailee still keeps expecting me to allow her to turn the TV on, but I think she's getting the idea. They have been helping to bring food over to the table and set the table, so it's giving them something to help with while I'm cooking, as opposed to crying on the floor next to my feet wanting me to hold them or play with them. It's turning into a group effort. Also, we got this fun little game for Christmas that you play at the dinner table and Hailee loves it. It has cards that have you do different things. One example is one person closes their eyes and everyone hides something from the table. The person with their eyes closed then has to figure out what's missing. Another one is one person has to think of a food and everyone else has to ask questions about it until they can figure out what it is. Anyway, it's for families with kids aged 3-6, so it's perfect for us. It helps keep Hailee sitting at the table anyway.

So, of course I have a few other things that are just ongoing things I'm working on such as exercising regularly (ugh) and trying to be more organized. I'm not trying to set specific goals or anything as I don't want to set myself up for failure, but I'm just trying to be more conscientious of those things. I've been running...I know, seriously? Yes, running. I hate it, I hate every step I take, but for some reason, I've stuck with this longer than any other kind of exercise I've ever tried to do. The hard part is I haven't gotten any results whatsoever; no weight loss, no mood change, not sleeping better, not feeling more energy, nothing. It's hard to stick to something like that when you get nothing in return, but I'm just doing it because it's supposed to be good for me, right? And for the organizing thing, I actually hired a professional organizer. Literally couldn't do it myself. She's been helping me a ton. She's got some great ideas and I already feel less overwhelmed with paper and tasks and all those things that I worry might fall through the cracks. That peace of mind is worth a lot.

So I have a lot to work on this year!! I don't usually formalize my New Years Resolutions or anything, but I've been feeling very reflective lately and just know I need to focus my efforts on some specific areas this year. So who knows if anyone actually read this post all the way through, but I just needed to put this down for myself. Thanks for listening!