Our Sunday started with a high point. Pollution was not too bad, the air was cool. I left 5:15am to start my run. I was being photographed doing deep breathing, relaxed jog. There are many photographers on the car free days. I don’t follow any of them. But Tony’s coach who’s also a runner spotted me when he was browsing IG. I contacted the photographer, paid USD 7 dollars to get his pic in high resolution. I like it because it captured the state of my running mind, and I wanted to support the photographers (they took a lot of pics with probably very few who actually buy them).
because the day was very nice, I took the girls out for rollerblading. They had a blast playing for almost two hours.
we spotted this cool cat when stopping to try fishballs.
once home, girls did chores (mostly Sofia), I rested, then prepared lunch for the family. Girls love burger but watching this documentary made me afraid of eating burgers out at restaurants. So I made them at home.
then the sudden shift happened. Sofia dropped the sauce on the floor and the table. I told her to clean them, she gave me attitude of (I KNOW!!!), and I flipped. I yelled at her for being ungrateful. I didn’t talk to her for the rest of the day. Maybe I over-reacted, but lately her reactions have been very annoying, so I exploded. Is this the beginning of teenager years? I hope not.
Sofia had a trial chess class. Although i found the teacher old and boring, when I asked her if she wants to continue the lessons, she said yes. Lizzy was not interested.
both husband and I had 90 min home massage which was fantastic!
I went to bed a bit sad because our Sunday could have ended in a high note too if not because of the flip second reaction from both me and Sofia. Oh well…. that’s life.
Our New Journey 
Parenting is so tough. It’s hard to keep cool and I feel like we’ve been in a “pre-teen” parenting phase for YEARS now. The eye-rolling and sass is very exhausting to me and sometimes I lose my cool, but I try to take each day at a time and focus on the good. But it’s hard, especially with girls I think,who are going through so many hormonal changes at this point in life and tend to have a harder time with emotional regulation? I know this is 100% true for me! I get so irritable around my cycle and I KNOW what’s going on with my body. I also think that kids tend to take things out on their parents because it’s a safe space. They learn early to put on certain “masks” in public, but they can get out their angst and emotion at home.
What an amazing running picture. LOVE it!
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Yes, some attitude definitely comes with the teen years. You’d be best to learn to deal with it. 😉 Not saying it should be allowed exactly, and of course there are limits to what is appropriate/acceptable, but it’s best to pick your battles. Not every little comment is worth blowing up over, if that makes sense! We don’t have major issues with this really- I think boys are not quite as “moody”- but sometimes just saying something sternly like one word “Tone” lets them know you noticed the tone was sassy, and please watch it. And then you can drop it and move on. If it continues or escalates, that’s different. I wouldn’t tolerate the kids yelling at me or being total brats of course. But I would ideally not ruin a whole afternoon over a pretty small offense, either. I know it can be frustrating though!! I hear you. 🙂
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Thanks! I know what I should do, but failed to do sometimes when I’m thin on patience. We started talking again yesterday and her attitude was much better.
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I can struggle w/ the boys’ behavior, especially at the end of a weekday when it’s likely not our first challenging behavior. Phil and I have gotten good at seeing that the other person is being pushed to their brink and taking over.
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I lose it with my kids more than I would like. I try to remind myself that they are trying to figure things out too, and pushing boundaries is part of them growing up, but it doesn’t make it any easier when they won’t pick up, or act irresponsibly, or are disrespectful. I get what you mean about it really putting a damper on your day. (Though it seems like it was a lovely day, so I’m glad you took time to record the parts of the day that felt good.) I wish that I could shake it off when I have a bad parenting moment, the way I shake off a mistake at work, but somehow it feels so much more important to get the parenting “right”, I’m more invested. But there is no “right” a lot of the time, I don’t think -because every kid and parent combination is different.
I read somewhere that what is important is not the moment of conflict, but the way you repair and re-connect and grow from it.
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That’s a great photo of you during your run. I would have bought it ($7 is a hefty price, but I’ve seen much worse at races). But tell me, what are the car-free days and why are there photographers out taking pictures of runners? (Maybe I missed the background to this story?)
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This is pretty unique to Jakarta. On sundays, the main road is closed for runners, walkers, roller blades, cyclists to exercise, and running races almost every Sunday. There are many photographers on the sides to take pics of people, they have a sign of their IG accounts where they post pics taken, then you can contact them to buy the pics. One needs to go through a lot of accounts to find them so I never do. This one was spotted by my husband’s coach, so I saw it. It’s quite fun.
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