So I don't know if it's PMS or the overwhelming stress of moving into our new home (probably both), but I had a very short fuse with BF's kids this weekend. They were not being particularly horrible either. It was me. Thankfully my response is just to get really quiet and remove myself from the situation before I put my foot in my mouth, but I had to bite my tongue so many times! I very rarely have to urge to snap at the kids, but it just kept coming. I would get all worked up, then realize what I was doing and feel guilty and try to move on, then something else would set me off and I'd be wound up all over again.

Things that drove me nuts:
- We have new kitties; they are super skittish still, but I have been working hard with them and they were starting to come out of their shells. FSS4 does NOT understand the concept of WALKING. He stomps all throughout the house. It's how he walks, I know, but it drove me nuts because I wanted the cats to use their litter-boxes and not pee on our new carpet, but they were too scared to come out from under the bed.

- FSS whines that he wants to watch cartoons if anything but cartoons or a car show is on the tv. BF is good about this and ignores or redirects FSS's whining, but it STILL grated on my nerves when I'd hear him softly mutter that he wanted to watch Phineas and Ferb.

- FSD9 pulling the waterworks in Jack in the Box because she wanted a milkshake. Seriously? Over a frickin milkshake? Again, BF was good about this and made her stop, but the fact that she did it at all annoyed me. Is she learning to cry on queue from her mother? I despise false emotions, and I know that's a really strong reaction from something that is probably just a kid trying to get their way, but that's how I felt.

- Going to Jack in the Box at all. I hate that place. We just got it because BF and I weren't hungry and it was right next door to Home Depot, but still, gross. We would not have gone there if the kids hadn't whined all throughout Home Depot that they were "starving."

- There are chickens in and around our yard at our new house. They don't belong to us, and we don't particularly care for the cock-a-doodle-doo at 4am. Still, I was really turned off by FSD's obsession with shooting the chickens with a water gun. She also asked if she could kick them. Mind you, she raises a chicken for 4-H. She loves her chicken. Why would she feel free to terrorize these animals? I'm no vegetarian, and I honestly don't think she would kill one of them, but it just seemed like an odd thing for her to WANT to do. She also found an egg in our yard. She really wanted to step on it and asked many times if she could. I guess I should be happy that she asked, right? Still, what is that urge all about???

- We went to a deli for lunch one day. FSS had a bag of chips that he kept eating instead of his sandwich. BF was eating some of them too. BF and I started talking about the ingredients in the chips and I picked up the bag to read the nutritional facts. FSS looked at me and said "those are MY chips." I explained that I was just reading the label, but I wanted to smack him.

- I also volunteer at an Animal Shelter on Sundays. I was happy to get away for a few hours this weekend, but even that wasn't an escape. All the little children in there want to pick up the cats, who are already annoyed with all the loud children, and I tell them no. Then they try anyway and their parents just watch like they're deaf. Then a kid gets scratched and I said, "I told them the kitty doesn't like to be picked up." Then the parents go on and on about how we shouldn't allow aggressive animals in the socializing room where they roam outside the cages. UGH! And then one of the families actually adopted two kittens and I almost wanted to say "No, you are not allowed to have cats you vile jerks. You can't even parent your own damn children, what makes you think you have the right to look out for another living creature!?!" Needless to say, this did not perk me up or predispose me to a better attitude with BF's kids.

Anyway, I know that none of those things are awful, and like I said I ended up feeling guilty for even getting upset about them at all. But every time I calmed myself down, I found myself getting quietly annoyed by something else. BF knows when I'm upset, and it makes him run a short fuse. I felt bad for stressing him out; he's had a very long week at work in addition to all of our moving. Furthermore, he did everything in his power to diffuse situations, and I did not. I am going to write this off as PMS and new-house stress, but it left me feeling awful. I felt so guilty when I heard that FSD was crying when BF put her to bed because she asked if she could stay here (in our new house), and he said no she still had to go back to her mom's house.

As a side note, this week and weekend BM's BF has been in the hospital with a serious case of pneumonia, so I think BM has been very distracted. I don't know the guy, and I can't say that I'm very fond of what I've heard, but I don't wish badly on him. If anything goes wrong with him, I know that BF worries that BM will be more engrossed in that than in the kids' well-being.

Ugh. I am not the kind of person who does well being upset at others. I don't like to be angry and I don't like to be mean. But hey, getting it out there helped, and this week is feeling better already!