A Plan

The other night I opened my icy heart a wee bit and started to talk about the place I've been in. I was nervous to publish it, I didn't even tell my husband I had posted until the next day. But the mere act of expressing my feelings along with the very lovely support I received made me feel so much better.

So let's keep that train rolling. You know, with the feelings and whatnot. My husband always asks me, "what will make you happy?" And I always whine, "I don't know." It occurred to me that I can't answer that question because I don't really have a grasp of what makes me sad. In special education when a student has behaviors that interfere with their education, a behavior support plan will be developed. A plan to identify the antecedents/triggers to the behavior and replacement behaviors. Well, being sad is interfering with my life so I need a little plan of my own. My first step is to try to identify my "triggers" that just send me into a pit or make me want to stab kittens.

In no particular order, here are the things that set me off (so to speak). Some may be profound, some may be silly, but all seem to have some kind of impact.

1. A rough drop-off at daycare.

A surefire way to destroy my day is for me to drop Leo off at daycare and see those little arms reach for me amidst his tears. It rips me apart. Even though I know he'll calm down and spend the day playing and learning. He's been having a great time at daycare lately and has even started a little gymnastics/music class.


These are cell phone pictures of the pictures printed by daycare, so kinda crappy.

2. Slow days at work.

When work is slow or I've been sitting at my desk for too long I freaking lose my lawyer shit. I have to be busy at work to be happy. I don't know why. Maybe to feel validated? Or like my work is important? I was like this before Leo so it isn't a working mom thing. When work is slow, I lose my concentration and motivation. Then I end up staring at pinterest and looking for pictures of Neville Longbottom to send to my sister.

3. When my husband doesn't like the food I cook.

I don't know why this bothers me so much. I don't seek this much approval from him in any other aspect of life but if he doesn't like dinner I turn into a pouty mess. Maybe it is because I spend a lot of time meal planning and such. Whatever the reason, this has gotten really annoying. He's become afraid to say anything about my cooking so much so that the other night when I completely failed at making homemade Mexican rice, he ate an entire plateful of it. Bite after crunchy, awful bite.

4. Eating junk food/not exercising.

This one is so obvious, when I'm not treating my body right, I feel like crap. Eating junk food makes me feel sluggish, bloated, and guilty that I ate the junk food in the first place. Then I get a poor self image and feel bad so I eat more junk food. A vicious, chubby cycle. One that needs to stop.

5. Snarky comments about working moms.

Whenever I get a "when is your husband going to let you stay home," or "you should save your money so you can stay home with your baby," (both have actually been said to me) I spiral into a hole of self-doubt about the choices I have made for my family. The same thing happens when I read articles/blogs/comments about how women need to be home with their children or else they will become ax murderers.

6. Family crap.

This is the big one that I'm not ready to talk about, but anytime I'm reminded of my disintegrating relationship with my parents I pretty much shut down.

There are many more things that happen in my life that cause me to shut down but, for right now, these are the ones that I can think of. My next step is to think of ways to positively react to these "triggers" instead of letting them get to me.