My son has a bad temper, just like his mother (ahem!) For the most part we're both pretty good about choosing not to let our temper have free reign. But we both struggle more with our tempers at certain times. My son's temper generally rears it's ugly head when he's hungry and/or tired. My big issue is when I'm tired, which unfortunately is most of the time because I have chosen to put too much into my life. But that's an issue for another post. The real fun starts when we're having issues keeping our tempers under control at the same time. As you can imagine, my husband and daughter generally run for cover when that happens.
Yesterday was the first day back on the regular schedule after two weeks of winter break. So we were all tired last night, and it wasn't much fun to be in our house. My son can be pretty hurtful when he gets angry as he lashes out verbally with such gems as: "I hate this family, I wish I could run away from it. I'm never going to get together with this family once I'm grown up." Interestingly, I can remember having those same thoughts; but I was a teenager and he's six. I don't know if I had those thoughts at six or not, but we've still got a long road ahead until he reaches the teenage years. I can't imagine what he'll be thinking then. Hopefully we'll succeed in at least teaching him to keep those thoughts to himself by then.
I'm a stress eater. When things are stressful I want to "treat" myself with fat and sugar. That's exactly how I felt last night before I finally got my son in bed. I still have some of the delicious cut-out cookies that my sister-in-law makes for Christmas in my pantry. I wanted nothing more than to have one of those cookies with a glass of milk. Luckily I recognized why I wanted the cookie and watched an episode of The Two Fat Ladies instead of eating. They're a joy to watch and sometimes the food is appealing, but the food on last night's episode didn't look very good so it was rather curative! I actually scored two wins last night: I chose not to eat a sugar cookie, and I chose not to yell at my kids (my daughter had a rare melt-down before bed last night too). I was pretty proud of that accomplishment since I was just as tired as they were.
Today I chose not to eat an unhealthy snack (not even sure what I was planning to eat, I just know it was going to have sugar and fat, maybe one of those cookies in my pantry)! The method for avoiding the food was different today. I was working at home and had just exercised. It was probably the endorphins, but I decided that I didn't want to waste all that hard work by taking in too many calories after burning a few. I think that the real key is making healthier food choices is consciously choosing the food.
Of course consciously choosing the right thing is the real key to everything in life. As Sirius Black said to Harry Potter in The Chamber of Secrets (movie version), "We all have light and dark inside us; it's the part we choose to act on that defines us." It's not our intentions or inner thoughts that make us who we are. It's the choices we make every second of every day that add up to the person we end up being.
No comments:
Post a Comment