Slow to Anger

Short disclaimer: I LOVE MY LIFE!!! I love my husband (no one could be more perfect for me. NO ONE!!!). I love my babies - Oh God, thank you for these babies. I love my Lord - there's no other way!. I love my parents, my in-laws, my sisters, my brother, my church, my friends, my house, etc. Here is EK feeding H her bottle. So sweet.

So sometimes I think I paint this perfect picture of life in the Douglas house. Well, I am here today to publicly proclaim that while life is pretty charmed, it feels pretty darn far from perfect the last few days.

Weird, right? I mean a 7 month old and 3 year old - how hard can that be? Let me just say this - today I am going to purchase The Strong Willed Child by James Dobson. Y'all, Emma Kate is a force to be reckoned with. She is amazing and I am so thankful she is mine, but whew - there are days when I think she is literally sucking the life right out of me. How can something so small do that to me? It'll be funny to look back at this when she's a teenager and think "Oh we saw this coming!" or "Wow! She's come a long way from those crazy days!" Yesterday I endured a 2 hour tantrum alone. Kicking, screaming, hitting, whining, jumping, the whole 9 yards! After dinner, Art and I pushed through about 45 minutes of tantrum during bedtime and then, wouldn't you know, she basically woke up and went straight to time out. Calmed down in about 10 minutes, but thats no way to start a day!

So all that to say that God is good and I know is with me during these moments, hours and days! Its so obvious that He's here. I could NOT get through this without Him. For instance, I had a great moment to snap at Art today about all this and in a way very unlike me, I held it in. We talked it through later and it turned out way better than it would have had I been rude as I can certainly be! That was God!!! Then I just had Joy on my brain. So thankfully I called her. She was so encouraging and is the reason I will be purchasing the book I mentioned! I figure if they write a book about kiddos like this, then surely I'm not the only one going through all of this!

Anyway, all that to say that there are days I just want to pull my hair out (Harper is pretty good at that all by herself though!). But there are even more days that are so wonderful that I cannot even believe this is my life. Why can't I think about that when we are in the midst of a rough patch?

My advice is to be slow to anger and quick quick quick to pray. Its the only way to get to the other side of the craziness in one peice. I am ashamed of the way I have let my anger get the best of me and not just given up and said, "God, HELP!" So from now on, I'm working on the anger and asking the Lord for Help!!! Just to get through it!
And please - if you have any helpful hints for eliminating tantrums (or at least making them more brief!) please let me know! I think she is who she is - I dont THINK I have created this. But its certainly possible that something I am doing in my parenting has led to this -if you're out there and want to correct me - please do!!! I can take it!!! I might cry - well, probably not, I dont have time for that! :)