Harsh

Last night, after making dinner, cleaning up the kitchen, giving the girls a bath and then settling in, Alyssa was playing some game on the computer.

I told her to turn the volume down like I always do. I don't know why she has to have the sound up so high every single time she plays games but I am constantly telling her to turn it down. I fear what the teenage years are going to bring.

I must have been harsher than I realized because Tom called me on it.

He said something off-hand about her blowing off the times when I yell at her.

I didn't think I'd yelled at her. But I might have. I was tired. I am always telling her to turn the computer's sound down, yes, I might have snapped the order at her.

But see, his comment just told me what I'd already feared. That I'm harder on Alyssa than necessary, harder than she deserves. She sometimes gets the brunt of my frustration, my annoyance.

And most of the time? She's not even the one that has frustrated me. She is just the one who happens to the very next thing that grates on my last nerve.

That's so unfair.

I love this girl so much. She makes me life so good, so amazing. I would die for this child.

But actions speak louder than words and while the words 'I love you' flow freely in our house, I sometimes wonder if she feels my love as much and as often as she hears of it.

So I didn't defend myself when Tom said what he said. I got reflective, I thought about his words and my own actions.

And today, I have been softer, gentler with both girls. I've been slower to react, thinking a few minutes about what is is they're doing that might be annoying me. I've given myself time to think before speaking, time to actually respond with appropriate emotion rather than jumping all over them when they do something that is completely age-appropriate.

I'm trying to be the kind of mother I always thought I'd be rather than the shrieky, annoyed mother I'd become.

They deserve this. I deserve it.

I'm angry about a lot of things right now. I've got a lot of work to do on myself. But these girls? They are two of the most precious, most important things in my life. And they deserve to know that, by word and by action.