A year without yelling

Wow it has been a little over a year since I have last posted. A lot has happened, but right now this is merely for me and kind of journal entry. You are welcome to read, but I will be trying to post almost everyday, so I understand if it gets boring or too blah for you who choose to start to read it. But I have really begun to realize that I need to make some changes in my life and the life of my family. My eyes and heart have been opened recently with our finding out that my three year old son Dawson is needing and having open heart surgery May 29, 2013. I have realized that I need to be consistent in riding in a journal. I guess I kind of use facebook as a journal, but there are just too many things that I need to be writing that don't need to be said on facebook so I have decided to really work on posting here. Speaking of facebook I recently read an article about a mother of 4 boys who worked on not yelling at her kids for a year and she gives some amazing ideas, support, reasoning, and just plain amazing motivation to start it with my family. Go to theorangerhino.com for all the advice and support you can use. I grew up in a yelling a family and I hated it. My parents are amazing parents and they love me and my family and all my sibling and their families, but I do remember being yelled at and doing a lot of yelling myself and vowed to not be a yeller to my kids when I had them. Well I have three kids now and I am sad to say that I have turned into a yeller. I go to bed some nights feeling regret and sadness that I yelled at my kids in their face and said things that made them sad and not feel important. I never want my kids to feel like they are not important to me or anyone else for that matter, so I decided after reading that blog article that there needs to be a change and I needed to start now! So today May 23, 2013 was my first day of a year of not yelling. I'm proud to say that I did ok. There were moments that I struggled and I had to pull myself away from the situation. Like when my 1 year dumped a brand new box of Life cereal all of the ground while my three year old was just standing there watching him laughing and then joined in my grabbing one of his big cars and crushing them into carpet, all the while telling me they were big rocks that he had to use his car to crush them. (And during this I am sitting on the toilet watching them so I wasn't exactly in the position to jump up and stop them.) Yeah what a lovely start to my goal ;o) However during that time I did find myself yelling for my three year old to stop his younger brother rather then just watch him. At least he was using his imagination and gaining an enjoyable memory with his little brother. I have decided with this goal in mind that I am going to write down goals for each week and figure out what triggered those moments that made me want to scream at my children. My goals for this week is when I feel the urge to yell is to leave the situation and go yell in my pillow or walk away as I'm growling like an animal. The point of that is that I'm not yelling at my kids in their face. Yes, I may still be yelling, but I need to start out reasonably and I'm hoping as time goes on and my patience grows that I won't even need to yell in my pillow or growl like an animal, but it will come naturally to calm myself down before the urge even surfaces. Another goal is look on the positive side of things. Another one is to get more sleep and exercise and most importantly to spend more one on one time with my kiddos. I find myself way too often getting distracted on my phone, Ipad, or cleaning that I don't sit down to read a book or color with them. I feel that by spending time with them that our relationship will become stronger and I will be able to get to know them and understand them. Also by doing this we will be making memories that will last forever. I need more of these! My kids deserve to feel loved and important and I always want them to know that I love them and am grateful to have them as my kids that my Heavenly Father entrusted me with. I know I will be referring back to the website a lot for tips and support and I am grateful that I have that. I'm excited to start a new life with my family and teach my kids to love each other and others. One of the biggest eye openers that really got me to want and need to do this was noticing my kids yelling at each other and saying things that I have most likely said to them. That is not acceptable. That just broke my heart and after that I knew I need to change and today I'm starting and I will succeed. I know it is going to be hard and somedays I'm going to want to give in, but my kids are worth it! Along with all of this I need to write down the moments that made my day special to remind me of the tender mercies the Lord gives me everyday. Wish me luck!