Sometimes I yell at my kids.

After I do, I always hate myself.

I don’t want to yell at my kids, I try not to yell at my kids, but sometimes I am weak.

It usually happens when I am trying to work, there are crumbled gold fish all over my floor, my laundry is higher than Amy Winehouse, I haven’t showered, every step I take lands my foot on a lego, and my 2-year-old is screaming because her older brother won’t share.

That is usually the point that I get weak.  I feel suffocated by my responsibilities.  

Don’t get me wrong I want all of those responsibilities, I respect them and hold my role as a mother in the highest regard, I just get overwhelmed when I feel like I am utterly failing.

Then I yell.

It’s not their fault.

I think I’ve heard it called the “Kick the Dog Syndrome.”  

I feel disappointed in myself so I take it out on my children.  Trust me when I say that I understand how wrong that is.  I really do, and please don’t think that I am constantly berating and screaming at my offspring, the vast majority of the time, I keep my cool.  I am ashamed of the minority of the time.    

On Friday I found myself reaching my boiling point, then I happened upon some pictures of Haiti. 

I call that PERSPECTIVE.

I feel buried in my  responsibilities.  I feel overwhelmed. . . perspective.

I can’t imagine what those poor people are going through.  As I was looking at some of the pictures from Haiti on my computer, I was worried that my oldest son (6) would catch a glimpse of them and be emotionally damaged.  Then I thought about the kids there who are living in the pictures.  They aren’t seeing those heart wrenching images on a computer screen from some far distant place, that is their reality.  They are the images.  Their family members, their playmates, their teachers, they are  the mass graves and the lifeless bodies on the side of the road.

Their mothers aren’t feeling overwhelmed because of laundry.

How shallow am I?

Today I’m not going to yell at my kids.  I am going to hug them and constantly remind them how much they are loved.  I am going to remind myself that while they may be making messes and fighting over broken toys, I am blessed.  I know where my kids are.  They are safe under my roof.  My roof which still stands safely over my head.

Perspective.