Day 4--Keepin' it Real

I was confident in my plan for today, which involved making the kids' lunches for school.  Lunches are one of Barney's regular responsibilities, and he has mentioned on a couple of fairly recent occasions that it would be nice if I pitched in to help.  He always makes them in the mornings, last thing before it is time to head out the door, but I decided to make them last night and did just that.  They were ready and waiting when we got up this morning then, which was good because I knew that today was going to be a crazy day (and it was).

Tomorrow morning, we are heading to my parent's house to celebrate Christmas with my side of the family, and I had a lot of stuff on today's to-do list as a result.  When I was falling into bed last night completely exhausted and sad that it was my fourth night in a row to be up until after 1:00am, I decided to check with Barney in the morning to see if he would take the morning shift and let me sleep in exchange for taking the next two days in a row.  I thought I might have a good chance at success with this based on the way that yesterday went.  But, I asked and was denied. (I shouldn't resent him for this because it was his day to sleep in, and I would not want to give it up any more than he did.  Sometimes we resent even when we know better).

So, this morning when he finally rolled out of bed at 9:00am with over nine and a half hours of sleep under his belt, while I had been up for two hours with less than six hours of sleep, my mood was less than charitable.  The best I could do was to avoid him so as not to speak harshly or to pick a fight, which I was kind of itching to do (like I said--I'm keeping it real here).  Thus, when he found the lunches, I am pretty sure that he was well aware of my mood at this point and the moment went by without comment. 

I struggled throughout the whole day today to get back my positive spirit of the days before today, and I never really succeeded.  My hypothesis after today's results is that my mood plays as much a role in this experiment as my little gifts.  A gift given in a surly mood, no matter how thoughtful or good the gift, does not seem to compare to a gift given in the right spirit.

So, I am off to bed and to try to come up with my plan for tomorrow to get things back on track.  Hopefully I will quickly rebound!