Guiltless.

So, it's been just over a week.

I'm parenting with less guilt.
I have three kids. They each have their own fabulous-ness and bring joy in different ways. They also each have their own way of annoying the hell out of their parents. My girls, the two youngest, live to irritate each other (and, thereby, irritate their parents with the endless bickering and finger pointing). Guess what? I care so very much less about that. I can stand aside and let them do it. And, use the ultimate battle tool, walk away. When we are together and they start up with the teasing/arguing/tattling on each other, I just say, Oh you're going to do that? Well, I have to go. Then I walk away. Refreshing!

I am now realizing that I'd start off fairly patient (except for when the two girls go at it, oh man, that always tightened my chest no matter what time of day), then as the day would go on, my irritation would rise up and I'd be raw by 3 or 4, and start planning the wine to relax me. Then, I'd start drinking and become the opposite of relaxed:
These kids were interrupting constantly!
These girls bicker and draw me into their dramas!
These kids are irritating me!
Can't I just enjoy my wine in peace?

So, I'd get my wine and retreat. To the kitchen with the internet on my phone, my room to watch tv, just try to retreat. Husband comes home so I 'punch out' (our term for no longer on the parenting clock), and leave him to manage them.

But I feel different now. Yes, all the daily irritations are still there, but the wine is not. So, I manage. And, since the alcohol is not there, I do not feel guilty and I do not retreat.

I used to get so irritated that I would snap and yell at the kids for whatever minor infraction pissed me off that day, then would feel so much guilt I would have to confess to my husband when he arrived home. The burden of losing my shit on my kids would be so great, it would eat at me for hours or days even.

Now, I'm not feeling that guilt. My youngest can push my buttons like no other. She's three, so she's in the constantly testing phase. And she's freaking good at it. A prodigy, even. After a long day of testingtestingtesting (and a lot of deep breathing on my part), she decided to pee on her bedroom floor. Correction: her bedroom carpet. Just because. She's been potty-trained for years. She rarely has an accident, and if she does, it's because she's asleep. No, this was just to see what would happen. Well, nothing good happened. I sort of lost my schmidt. Yelled, smacked her bum, made her stay in her room with the door shut, no dinner, just go to bed. She doesn't just stay in her room so I just locked all the other doors on that floor, shut the top of the stairs gate, and left her. Went down, took the dog into the yard, let her yell.

Husband came home, told him the story (but not as a confession, just as a reason he could hear her yelling from the driveway) and then I waited her out. I didn't give in to stop her from yelling, didn't care if the neighbors could hear and would judge my parenting skills...or lack thereof. And, most importantly, I didn't feel guilty about my behavior. We are not spankers in general. If we've ever laid a hand on the kids it was more in the stern sit-you-down-in-timeout sort of way. Yes, they've been smacked in their lives, but it's not our go-to discipline. In fact, whenever I've smacked one of our children, for whatever reason, I was consumed by so much guilt I had to confess to my husband. Sometimes not even waiting for him to get home, I'd have to call/email/text my confession.

But that day, when I told my husband the story, I realized: I didn't feel guilty. I felt calm, strong, in control, but not guilty.

I also related the part of the story where, upon hearing me yell loudly at her sister, my middle girl reacted by randomly yelling. I went downstairs and calmly walked over and yelled at her (well, spoke sternly in a loud tone): I get to yell at your sister when she behaves badly, you cannot yell because you don't like it, you just have to suck it up and deal with it! Got it? She nodded and apparently 'got it' because she went about her business.

And, instead of feeling guilty about the exchange, I thought: Yes, it's true. I get to yell about bad behavior. I was not 8 ounces into a bottle of wine, I was clear-headed, what she did was bad, she should not do it again, she should not think it's funny (as she did when confronted with the puddle), I did what a parent should do. It's ok. And I didn't feel a shred of guilt. Not even about the smack to her bum.

Today is the first full day of school vacation. I will have the girls together all day. I am going to do a lot of deep breathing and walking away from bickering, I'm sure. But I feel good. Better than I have in ages. I sit here and type this as my youngest sits on my back, playing with a contraband tape measure, and I feel good. Happy. Joyful. Yay me!