Mom's behaving badly

OMG! I am having one of those days. Please tell me you have those days too? I am bad tempered, out of sorts, irritable, well, you get the idea. I can't tolerate one more person today. I can't even stand myself. I need a time out!

I think I'm taking it out on the poor kids. I see the older two looking at me sideways as if I might explode any moment. Smart kids. Well, it doesn't help that the 3yo doesn't stop anymore to see if you heard him the first time but now just chants his sentence over and over and over again, so that you couldn't respond even if you wanted to. And then the 6yo gets in on the act by making his amazingly high pitched loud special sound effects to accompany his little brother's monologue. The 9 yo now usually has the sense to duck and cover when his brothers get like this and I'm in a mood. 'Course now and then he helps take it up a notch. It must be that I'm just too sensitive today, they're not really this bad all the time. Right? What if they are and I just don't notice anymore? Am I raising howler monkeys?

I'm sure it's mostly because I'm tired. I woke up at 4 am for no discernible reason and tossed and turned until the little one cried for me after 6am. It seemed dreadfully important that I hadn't finished my Christmas shopping, and didn't know what to get for certain hard-to-give-to people. I made brilliant and creative lists of stuff to buy and make while I lay there. Most of which I forgot the moment I left the bed, and the rest isn't as great as it seemed when my head was on a pillow.

Which brings me to the secondary reason I'm probably so grumpy. I hate this time of year! I am such a Scrooge! You know, Scrooge before the spirits taught him a lesson. What was the lesson? Oh ya, give your money away and buy things for people. That lesson. Geez. See what I mean? I don't even like Dickens today! If I had my druthers I'd spend the last 2 weeks of fall in bed with a pile of books, a box of chocolate, and a cat. I'd get up for necessities like the toilet, checking email, and putting more books on hold at the library.

These days of having children necessitates getting up, being useful, and acting cheerful, even when I don't feel like it. Which does help me feel actually cheerful, once I wake up. There's nothing like the unconditional love of a 3 yo, his little arms and sticky hands around my neck, to mellow me out. And there's nothing like mania of 3 kinetic boys to wind me right back up again!