Temper, temper

I have a bit of a temper. My mother will tell you all about it. Lately, my kids have been mentioning it too. So, with my wonderful new ipod Touch, I'm on a mission to improve it. I'm using (free) Daily Tracker -- I added a "Temper?" question, and every day I can answer yes or no. If I don't answer, it puts in a grayed out No for me, but doesn't count it in the statistics it compiles. Day one, before I decided to start, I lost it when our oldest broke a pretty wedding gift, but that, with the yelling a couple days before were what propelled me to this new effort, so they had a purpose.

It's day 2 that's worth talking about. It was a Sunday, which means I didn't have to direct the kids too much, and I didn't do any yelling. We just needed to get to church and home again, and keep the boys out of too much trouble. M (7) and I went to Family Yoga together. He went reluctantly, but he loved it. I wish it was more than once a month. The day is already fading into memory, but it was joyful, a really lovely day, and I have to think that my new resolution was part of that.

The days since have not been as good. One of them I yelled -- it bubbled out of me (with some cause that I don't know remember) so quickly that I didn't have a chance to quell it. The next day I didn't yell, but I was trying to get the boys to do some schoolwork, and they didn't appreciate it. In fact, the oldest ran away from home for about 45 minutes over math homework.

But I will hold the glow of that one day and hope that if I continue to work, it will be repeated.