June 8, 2023 - Thursday

Today had its share of ups and downs. Things started pretty well. Everyone got their chores done with minimal grumbling. We all had breakfast and me and the girls got out of the house when I wanted to. We hung out at Anne's, and I had a great time visiting, while the kids had so much fun together. We left there just in time to get home, grab Jonas and Aveen, and head to see the new Spiderman movie. It was so good! BUT I honestly didn't get to watch it much. Between trips to the bathroom and Ollie acting like a total butthead, I missed a lot. She's normally good at the movies, but today, she WAS NOT. She was out of her seat for the majority of the time and kept asking me why she can't run around and play, like she hasn't been to more than a dozen movies in her little life. ANYWAY, that kind of set off my annoyance...which affected much of my afternoon. 

We got home from the movies, and I started making dessert for pizza and a movie night. The girls ate popsicles and played with Play-Doh while the boys played Minecraft. After Aveen got picked up, I had everyone start working on getting the den clean. WELL. When I say an emotional explosion occurred, man, I am not kidding. Ollie was fighting me tooth and nail, doing literally nothing helpful at all, and my nerves were so frayed that I just broke the f down. She got to a 3 (twice over, honestly), wouldn't go to her room, and I ended up half-carrying/half-dragging her to her bedroom and literally THREW her in. 😟 Not a great moment for me. When I came down, Ruby was so scared that she was crying and everyone else was cleaning as fast as they could in tense silence, as if I was going to grab each of them and throw them somewhere too! I apologized for losing my temper and scaring everyone. I explained that none of them had been counted at all and that I made a mistake with Ollie, allowing her bad behavior to continue until long after I had become angry. I should have walked away or carried her up to her time out much sooner. Anyway, it was a crappy part of the day, but I calmed down, the kids moved past it, and, when Ben got home, we watched a movie. The desserts I made were delicious and, after the movie, me and Ollie went out to water the garden. I decided to call all of the kids outside to play for a bit and I did some weeding and mulching, which felt good to make progress on. 

I had a much harder time keeping my mind off work today. I'm feeling so guilty and stressed about deadlines and I have literally NO IDEA when I'll have enough time to meet them. I have to make time to work tomorrow, but I'm planning to take the kids to the art festival, and I know it's going to eat into a lot of the afternoon. Hoping to find a good Father's Day gift for Benny while we're there!