Day 7

We've decided to do the Dares on only weekdays, leaving the weekends to concentrate on unpacking and spending family time.  This is what we think will work best for us.

So, on to Day 7.  For day 7 we were supposed to list out what stresses we have in our life and how they negatively affect the interactions we have with our children.

So when thinking about what stresses me out there are two things that I get completely stressed out about and makes me short-tempered, unfairly, to my children.  The first one is finances.  We're not bad off, we pay all our bills, but we do not have any savings, and while I really need to see a chiropractor, as of right now we cannot fit those visits into our budget.  It is something I stress about, when the car breaks down, or the kids start growing out of their clothes, or there's a bill that unexpectedly pops up somewhere.

The other one is the army.  Michael working long hours constantly or being called in on the weekends.  As a stay at home Mom, which I do love being, I still need those times where I am not the only parent here watching our kids.  I need a few minutes to myself after my husband comes home to just pee alone or think without a lot of loud voices calling "Mommy!"  And when Michael comes home late I don't get that and not only do I not get that but the kids end up staying up later than their bedtime so that Michael can spend time with them and I'm then robbed of my time with Michael where there are no kids between us vying for attention from one or the other of us and our adult alone time in the evenings.

Both of those things stress me out and make me short with the kids and it's unfair to them since neither of those things are caused by our children.

It's not something I've put a lot of thought into previously but it's something I will attempt to remember now, when I'm super stressed out.