Keeping your cool

For as timid a person as I am with strangers, people who know me well know I have a vicious temper.  Just this past weekend, Mr. Berry and I were playing a card game and I misread one of the rules that affected how I'd been playing the game for at least 5 turns.  When I was informed of my mistake, I flipped my shit.  Granted, right now I'm blaming it on pregnancy hormones because I would have found only that mildly annoying before I was up the duff.

Maybe the hormones are making me much more sensitive to things that piss me off.  The stupid 8 year olds riding in a limo the other day, standing up through the moon roof and making asses of themselves?  Most days I'f just roll my eyes, maybe smile a bit.  But instead I yelled "put on a damn seatbelt, you freaking monkeys" out my window.

That was unfair of me.  They were going down the equivalent of Main Street in a tiny suburb - the speed limit was maybe 20, and I know the limo wasn't going nearly that fast.  The kids (whom, by the way, I have no damn clue as to why they were in a limo in the first place - they were wearing street clothes, so I doubt it was a wedding or something) were just being kids.  Stupid, irresponsible kids.  Because that's what kids do - they make stupid choices and then they live through them and they're (hopefully) smarter when they wake up the next morning.

The reason why I'm rambling about being a pissypants is because I lost my cool yesterday with my youngest daughter about bedtime.  She has trouble sleeping sometimes, and can stay awake as late as 11pm some night, just playing in her bed.  This usually doesn't bother me because
1. I know she can't help it
2. She usually plays quietly or looks at books

However, for some unknown reason, last night was the night that she decided to try to rearrange her bedroom.  At 11pm. This includes a large armchair and her freaking 10 gallon fish tank. This clearly makes a LOT of noise, plus it blatantly defies my rule about getting out of bed after bedtime for anything except the bathroom or a drink.

You can see were I'm going with this.


Thankfully, it didn't get that far.  She didn't knock the tank over, thank God - but she did knock the hood lamp into the tank, and could have fried herself - as I've explained to her countless times. And trying to open her door when there's an overstuffed chair shoved in front of the door is NOT.FUN.

So today, the armchair is being removed, as well as the fish tank and 1/2 her toys.  And she is HELLA PISSED. And I frankly don't care, because if it means me staying calm for this baby because I'm not worrying about her knocking over a fish tank or breaking her arm, then that's a pretty easy choice. 

Now if I could only get her to get dressed in the morning without a virtual kick in the ass...life would be so much simpler.

Also, maybe if she didn't look like a little Joe Dirt.