Monday, April 12, 2010

a self assessment

we have just come home from a couple of nights down south in the Margaret River wine region, intended as a breakaway for the family. there was no wine tasting (more's the pity) but what fun is visiting wineries for kids? I remember trailing after my parents to winery after winery when we visited my grandmother in the Barossa Valley and it was not fun. In hindsight it can't have been fun for my parents either listening to whining kids... anyhoo we decided that we would focus on family oriented activities and Hubby and I took a holiday from the routine of cooking.... a lot of junk food was eaten by all.

Now we had debated at length whether we go for 2 or 3 nights, doesn't seem like a big deal does it? But factor in kids who are renowned for going off their tree when they become grossly out of routine and the answer sadly was evident to us, 2 nights would be our limit. 3 nights however lovely it sounded would leave us sitting in our apartment willing ourselves home on the last night whilst dealing with screaming kids.

With Poss it's to be expected, she still has 2 naps a day and while she can survive a few days with only one day nap and a decent nights sleep, one has to be reasonable and not push her too far.
Miss 5 isn't so bad on the out of routine thing now... to a point and then there's the general 5 year old 'tude whereby when she's had enough, she makes no bones about it and we all pay a hefty price. The price this time was giving her mum and dad lip and acting out for the sheer fact that she could. The foot stomping and pouting is extremely unbecoming.

It was disappointing and I guess upsetting to end our break on that kind of ugly note, it really made us feel like all we'd done.... the entire weekend where we focussed solely on the kids.... counted for naught (in Miss 5's eyes). Very disheartening indeed.

And as an aside... since then now that things have cooled down somewhat, Miss 5 has had a talking to and hopefully something might have sunk in. She was on her best behaviour today which is something.

So in a round about way the point of this post is this.... looking back at photos taken whilst away and how conflicts were dealt with.. I see things I'd like to change about myself.

The photos? Not going to show them here.... sorry but they provided me with one of those moments when you see yourself for how you really appear rather than how you think you look.... funny how I am remarkably slimmer in my own mind ;)
My hair, I've left too long between cuts, it's looking very frazzled on the ends and just so so sad and tired... it's embarassing.... easy fix is a trip to the hairdresser tomorrow.

A not so easy fix is dealing with my thickening waistline and my...ahem... double chin (dare not say it out loud and make it true?  eek!). A side profile photo burst any bubble of illusion I had of thinking I wasn't looking too bad.
Look I'm not about to jump on the health kick train to Biggest Loserville but I can see it's time to cut back. Enough's enough!

On the dealing with conflict thing... to quote Dr Phil quoting his father, "there's something about that person I don't like about me" I may not have gotten it right word for word but I hope you get the gist. When dealing with Miss 5 on the weekend, I wasn't entirely happy with the way Hubby reacted and then I realised I do the same thing. It's more of an emotional outburst from sheer frustration and is void of anything constructive.

And.... oddly enough.... it doesn't work... huh! who'd have thought?

So I'm looking at other ways for us to get our message and guidance across more effectively. I can see often it's more about me than her and that's when we clash big time. So while I'm still not going to let her get away with blue murder, I will be working on how I go about it.

A challenge has already arisen with our friends back for another visit (with the little girl whose manners leave a lot to be desired). We shall see how it pans out over the next week there..... I sense another blog post in the works but if tonight is anything to go by, it will be an interesting and bumpy ride. I had warned Miss 5 that she was to be on her best behaviour whilst her friend was here, in fact her holiday fun depended on it and to her credit she did well tonight. (Having said that the other little girl chucked 2 enormous wobblies for her mother in the space of a couple of hours... fun and games)

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