Today I’m Happy: Day 4
Three things that make me happy today:
- I had a million small phone-call-related tasks that I’ve been putting off forever and that have been gradually weighing me further and further down. This morning I took the opportunity of my boss being in a meeting to commandeer his office and make every damned one of my phone calls. That is a lovely little weight off my shoulders.
- It’s sunny again today, sunny enough that I left my coat at home. It’s very easy to be happy on a sunny spring day.
- After two years of deliberation, I finally turned in the form that will officially allow my employer to suck money out of my paycheck and siphon it into my retirement account. This is something about which I have some anxiety (class-based fears about pouring my money into a black hole, disbelief that I will ever see it again, and worries that I am not financially stable enough to pour my money into a black hole, never to be seen again) so it’s been easiest to just bury the form under any number of other pieces of paper on my desk and ignore it, despite rationally knowing that I was only shooting myself in the foot by doing so. But today I finally took the leap. Rationally knowing that I can do this and am doing the right thing despite my irrational anxiety makes me feel very successful.
Something that would make me happier:
- I wish my three year old was not concurrently experiencing the two year old fanaticism of The Way Things Must Be and the three year old determination to Do Everything Myself. It sets up this terrible cycle of tantrums resulting from rigid expectations not met, coupled with the inability to actually meet those expectations (and therefor more tantrums). He often screams so loud that my eardrums hurt.
Solution:
- Creative parenting (thus far) has no effect on the tantrums, but works quite well on the resulting pouty aftermath. For example, after this morning’s rage about not being done with his cereal when it was time to go, not wanting to put his shoes on, not wanting to put them on at the bottom of the stairs, not wanting to walk to the car, not wanting to be carried to the car, not wanting to be lifted into his seat, not wanting to be buckled into his seat, not wanting to drop his brother off at school, not wanting to get out of the car at daycare and not wanting to walk down the steps to his classroom, I found that quickly drawing a face on my hand and then making it talk to him in a silly voice was just the right step to convince him to get over himself and wash his hands before joining the other kids.