Slice of Life Day 7: Anxiety and Anger--Bring on the Kindness!

During March, I am participating in the Slice of Life challenge, hosted by twowritingteachers.wordpress.com. Bloggers from around the world are posting daily, committed to the practice of sharing, reflecting, remembering...writing! Feel free to stop by this incredible March happening and check out other posts or even join in--there's no rule that says you have to start on March 1st!

Isn't it so true that anxiety leads to anger? Seems that there was a lot of anxiety in our house yesterday...

Many of you know that we live together with my parents and my dad has dementia. In addition to the eight of us, we also have three dogs. My father loves to feed the dogs. Their dinner. Their cookies. His nightly peanuts. Any available table scraps...He has them pretty trained to do whatever it takes to get treats from him since he gives them anything he can find. My mom has hidden the dog cookies in an effort to keep the canines svelte. However, she did not hide the heartworm pills that the dogs get monthly. Her dogs are small and mine is an 80 pound lab named Sonny. Today, Doc came across Sonny's heartworm pills and split one in two for a treat for his dogs, Phoebe and Holly. My mom came upon the scene as they were licking up the crumbs. Although she knew that yelling at Doc is futile, she admitted to yelling, and I can understand--she was scared, really scared, that the medicine would make Phoebe and Holly really sick. She found out later that they'd be fine--turns out heartworm medicine is pretty mild--but nothing like a good scare to inspire a good yell.

My second daughter, Julia (almost 16), came in late tonight. She'd had basketball practice, followed by a pasta party (there's a big game tonight), followed by soccer practice (yes, she does two sports--she's crazy, no we're crazy...) Guess what? She was anxious. She had a lot of homework, not a lot of time, and she was ready for a shower. Just as she was about to head for the bathroom, Daughter Number Three, Clare, jumped ahead of her and into the shower. So much for the household peace. That was over, as the two of them battled it out for first shower rights. Clare won out, but Julia hid all the towels. Nothing like comic relief.

I wasn't immune to the anxiety of the day. Clare had gotten to me, as well, earlier in the afternoon. I worry about her; she's working hard to follow through on things and to figure out her goals and priorities, but it's sometimes a shadowy path. I found myself inappropriately angry with her as we drove home from the post office, having not been able to get the pictures that we need to have taken (that's another blog post--stay tuned!) We worked it out, but I need to own my anxiety, as the issues were more mine than hers today.

My OLW for 2014 is kindness and I can't tell you how many times I have already reminded myself of this, and it's only March 7th. I'm on my way now to give Clare a hug. Maybe she'll pass one along to Julia--I'll let you know.

Enjoy your Friday!