Showing posts with label anger. Show all posts
Showing posts with label anger. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

The impatient wife

Lately, I pity my husband. The poor guy knew I was crazy (I think) when he married me, but I don't know if he realized that I could be so crazy impatient.
It seems I spend all of my patience on M, and it goes more quickly now that she is 10 months old and really, ahem, expressing herself. Especially while teething.
I either had more patience (unlikely) or M was less trying a few months ago (likely). The point is, my husband is bearing the brunt of a day where M has used up every. last. drop. of patience I have and gets snapped at for any little thing. I guess what I'm saying is that I am far from the "wife of noble character" that God calls me to be.
On one hand, at least I can admit it right? On the other, I've had this little problem identified for a while now and haven't found a way to overcome it. I'm betting my hubster likes days such as today, where the moment he gets home I'm off to work, and when I get home he's off to bed, because he avoids any monsterous wife behavior.
This cathartic post is hopefully not going to serve only to express my desire to be a better, calmer wife, but hopefully a way to 1. Hold myself accountable for better behavior and 2. Develop ideas and/or take suggestions to extending the benefit of a slow fuse to not only my daughter but to the hubby.
I know that the steps in becoming a better wife involve first becoming a better lover of Christ, because a lack of the fruits of the Spirit in me is clearly a lack of Jesus in my life.
See how all this clarity happens when I write?
My challenge to myself, and to my fellow moms/wives who may or may not experience this same problem, is to stop letting "me" rule behavior and let God take over. I'd love to say I could commit to reading so much of the Bible every day, but I already know I'll fail at that, so instead of just flipping it open to read, I'm going to use my handy-dandy glossary and read all the verses that contain the word "wife", at least one a day until I run out. I'm going to write down my thoughts about the verse, the context, and how/if it could apply to me and Matt, as well as any other extraneous thoughts. I know there are examples of bad wives in the Bible, so this hopefully will be a way to not be one of them.
By the way, if you choose to try this with me, I read the NIV version, so it might differ in other versions.
Pray for me, friends, because this change in me can only come from Him. :)

Now, speaking of difficult days... Today was definitely one of them.  M woke up at 5:30 a.m., napped from 8 to 9 a.m., a 1/2 hour nap at 11:30, and was grumpy the whole time. Little booger is teething, so I understand. But I don't know what to do for her when nothing makes her happy.
I couldn't hold her. I couldn't set her down. I could hardly change her diaper without something upsetting her. These days tend to lead to Mommy and Little M sitting on the couch crying together...
This is the face I got most the day: (And just fyi, I played a lot with this photo in Lightroom )

 That was even after we dashed to True Value to buy her a wader pool. Which she could hardly wait to get into, despite the chilly water. I had a brief reprieve (and can you believe the red in her hair?!):
 And, five minutes later, it was back to crankiness. Same photo as the first, just in black and white:
Now, vote—which do you like better, cranky face in color or black and white? :)
She went back down for another nap at 2:30ish, and Daddy got to have a mostly happy little bear for the evening, so that's a blessing.

Listening to: You Decide, Fireflight