Calm in the Storm.

The first sound I heard this morning was screaming. Unfortunately this isn't unusual at this stage in my life. Kian wakes up somewhere along the continuum from fussing to screaming. The older children typically take about five minutes until their first meltdown of the day. Many people tell me to savour this period of my life and that I will miss it someday. However, I doubt I will ever miss the screaming unless it's because I have completely lost my hearing. Thanks to all of the screaming, that is a fairly probable possibility.

Today's screaming was worst than normal. Kian has woken up extremely grumpy the last couple of mornings. Yesterday I was able to soothe him in about 10 minutes, not so much this morning. Poor Aris had a very bad weekend and spent the entire morning wailing and screaming. I'm not sure about you, but this was not a good start to my morning. However, something amazing happened today. I'm not exactly sure where it came from, but I was in a good mood. Even with all the screaming, I stayed calm. It took us about 30 minutes to get out the door this morning which resulted in the kids being late for school. Normally I would be in a flitter and not using my nice words. For some strange reason, that didn't happen today.

I'm not sure what was going on, but today was a strangely good day. By this I mean that it wasn't that the day went well, but that I handled things well and stayed strangely positive. The craziness of the weekend had caught up to me and I was exhausted to the bone. Kian was clingy and grumpy. The situation with Aris needs to be dealt with both in terms of her behaviour and emotional needs and in making sure that doesn't happen again. This is made more complex as I am getting different stories on what happened. *sigh* Life was crazy today but I'm still in a good mood. I've been in one all day. I have no clue as to why.

Part of it probably has to do with the amount of rephrasing we practiced this weekend. My course really stressed active listening, which I've done a lot this weekend. Perhaps this is just a result of practicing staying calm in the face of chaos and opposition. Or it could be the sheer amount of little blessings adding up. I had a really good connect time with my husband last night. He listened very well to my overflowing fountain of fears as I head in a new direction. I felt very cared for.

Some of it has to do with my kids. There have been so many special moments with them today. Kian is beginning to express affection and to talk. He called Steve and left him a voicemail. After the beep he said " Hi. Miss you. Love. Bye-bye. *kiss*." It was very very cute. He's also been physically expressing affection. Today he grabbed his spiderman doll and hugged him tight. He kissed and hugged both of his siblings. Then he tried to sing both of them to sleep. It was very cute. Seeing Kian change from a very demanding although adorable infant to an affectionate and active toddler is so encouraging. One day in the semi-distant future I won't wake up to screaming. But hopefully until then I will have many more days like this. Days of peace in the midst of the storm.