Day 10: Love is unconditional, unless...

It's been hard to get back on track here after dealing with the kids being sick, but I swore I was going to stick with this, so here's to making a concerted effort to stay on task!

I have been dealing with PMDD for the past couple of days and have really noticed a drastic change in my behavior, especially my irritability. My fuse has been pretty short and I have been pretty rough on the kids and I even have snapped at Steve a couple times. I think he is especially disappointed--he's been enjoying having the kinder, gentler Suzi around.

An example of my stellar behavior happened this morning when I was packing lunch for the kids. I made the mistake of asking them what they wanted. Well, Max was saying "cheesy puffs," so I thought he meant cheese puffs. I grabbed the bag of organic Cheetos and he just screamed, "No!" So, then I got Cheetos crunchy and he screamed, "No!" again. I just kept yelling at him, "What do you want? What do you want?" and he was crying and saying, "Cheesy puffs." I took the bag of Cheetos and threw them on the counter and they bounced right off and hit Sophie on the head. I finally got it out of him that he wanted that nasty Puff 'n Corn, but not without a lot of tears and screaming. What a jerk I was. I think I need to revisit some of the earlier challenges.

This isn't even what I set out to write when I sat down at the computer, but there it is. I guess I view this as my Confessional where I'm truly held accountable for my actions...so, back to the topic at hand. If love is unconditional, then I guess I should not place conditions on my behavior just because I may not be feeling 100 percent. For example, I will be kind and loving unless I am premenstrual, in which event, anything goes.

Pretty crappy logic.

I am lucky that the kids are too young to place conditions on their love for me or I fear I would have lost them by now. If I continue down this path, they are going to learn these behaviors and I don't want that for them. I want theirs to be a happy, loving, innocent existence for as long as possible. I've got to step it up here and get back on track for the sake of my kids, as well as my husband.

So as my friend, Angie, did recently, I am declaring a do over. Tomorrow I will do something special for everyone in the family--something that shows them I love them just because and not unless...