Karma. That Bitch Has A Twisted Sense of Humor.

I am a yeller.

I didn't think I would be. I never yelled (okay, except for that one time, but that class totally deserved it and it's just wrong that my principal happened to be giving a school board member a tour that day) as a teacher. I am much more likely to mutter obnoxious comments under my breath, or write them during meetings to the amusement of my colleagues.

But then my kids started to, you know, bite each other. And I discovered yelling was effective.

I realized recently that I may have been doing a little too much of it, as I've had to get really loud for them to notice. Though that may be because once unleashed, my yelling voice has also appeared in traffic and around customer service representatives. So I decided to quit yelling. No matter how naughty the kids were, no matter how frustrated I was, I would not yell.

Today was Day 1.

I awoke at  5am to hear the boys talking to each other. Not that ChunkyMonkey talks, but he sure makes noise. I tried to ignore them, because I've discovered that I can't force them to sleep and that when I talk to them at 5am I am tempted to yell.

By 7am, I had discovered that Lovebug had clogged the toilet with too much toilet paper . . .and pooped on top of it.

At 7:45am, a huge, full, glass jar of salsa fell onto the tile floor of kitchen. While I tried to clean up, Lovebug and Ironflower got into a wrestling match and knocked ChunkyMonkey over.

At 9:05am, a man began tailgating me and flashing his lights at me after I dropped Ironflower off at school. I was doing 36 mph in a 35 zone and he was in a hurry, I guess.

We avoided problems in the grocery store because I bribed the boys with toys and food. My grocery bill was $20 more than it should have been. (Does this mean my children would be well-behaved if we were rich?)

10;45 saw us driving home from the grocery store, with Lovebug yelling, " I have to pee right now!". We were 10 minutes from home and I did not want to clean up pee in addition to the poop and salsa, so I pulled over on a side street. This caused ChunkyMonkey to wail loudly as he wanted out too. I brought Lovebug over to a tree. I reviewed how to pee standing up because he generally likes to sit down. I don't know why. Because of that, he kept trying to squat and I kept trying to make him stand up straight. Eventually he peed .. . . .correctly. . .onto my shoe.

12:00pm Ironflower, in her frustration over having to leave school, threw a rock in her brother's general direction.

It's now 2 and I am proud to say that I have not yet bitten though my tongue.

What do you do about your frustration?

PS If you happen to be a person who links to me - all three of you - could you please, please change your link to jerseygirl89.com? Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.