UGH

Yesterday was quite possibly one of the worst days we have had since Andrew came home! It should have been an easy, laid back day because of MOPS. You know, because Sarah gets super tired from playing and having to get up early that she comes home and totally crashes. In fact, most of the time she barely makes it out of the parking lot before she falls asleep. But today, oh today was such a different story!

Our first problem, was how early our day began. I was up at 7:00 and had to drag Sarah out of her crib by 7:30 to make sure we had enough time for breakfast, getting our food together for MOPS, and getting all of us out the door and into the car. Now I know there are tons of mamas and kids who start their day way earlier than us EVERY SINGLE DAY, but you have to understand that Sarah has been used to sleeping until at least 9:30 for the last week or so. She was highly upset about the change in routine and more than a little grumpy/tired because of it.

And apparently she decided to show her grumpy self off to the teachers in her class today. Usually I get all kinds of comments like:
"She's so sweet"
"Sarah's a busy girl, lots of energy!"
"She sure loves to talk and laugh."

Not today. Enter problem number two! The message I was greeted with today "Sarah's had an emotional day." Great, what in the world does that mean? Well it meant that my normally cheerful toddler was a red-faced, snotty, sobbing mess. I mean she was full out bawling and making these pitiful sobbing, snorting noises. It was bad. So why wasn't I paged to come get her at some point during our meeting? Who knows. I finally got her calmed down enough to eat some lunch and boy did that drag out. We finally left church about 1:00 compared to our usual noon.

So then Sarah fell asleep just as we were pulling into the complex. SUCCESS right? Wrong! Her nap lasted about 45 minutes before she woke up with a piercing scream. I then spent the next 3 hours trying to get her back down for a nap. I begged, I pleaded, I bargained, I turned on the TV, I played music, I lost my temper. Nothing worked! I was so angry about this skipped nap and later all I could think about was why? I'm pretty sure  know I scared Sarah , because I saw the look on her face. I didn't really mean to get that upset, but all I kept thinking about was the stuff I could be doing and I was practically mourning the loss of what had become my guaranteed 3 hour naps on MOPS Mondays.

Looking back I'm sure I could have just left her in her crib for a while and gone about my chores. Enforce a quiet time even if she won't nap kind of thing. But instead I just got so angry that she was awake that I wasted what time I could have had and brooded about it. Andrew was sleeping for nearly the whole ordeal (thank god for small blessings!) but he woke up close to the time that I figured out a nap for Sarah would be pointless anyway. So for about 5 minutes I think all three of us were crying... Not a good day. Like I said, I have no idea why I was so upset about the skipped nap. I was just bound and determined that it wasn't going to be the start of a pattern and I needed to show her who was boss. All that attitude did was make everyone miserable and stressed.

So now that I've confessed what a horrible mom I was yesterday, here's my resolution for today. I'm going to forget about yesterday and deal with today with a fresh perspective. If we have nap troubles again, I'm going to try my best to deal with it better. Lucky for us we have no big plans, so I won't have to make an early wake up calls or really do anything out of the ordinary. So here's hoping it all stemmed from a routine being thrown off and nothing major like illness or what have you. And here's to grace to get through the day and patience for my children, who are my blessings even when I don't realize it.