Tag Archives: moods

Changing Moods

Your face can give you away. Sometimes I watch people while Mick and I are shopping or driving and some people constantly wear a sour look – they go about glaring at the world. It doesn’t make them easy to relate to but tends to turn people away. I admit sometimes for no apparent reason I am not in a good mood. I just feel down. Things go wrong and suddenly that bad mood escalates. At that point I have a choice. I can continue in that mood. Or I can try and look at the positives in my life, … Continue reading →

That Extra Ingredient

The ingredient I left off my recipe for a happy marriage was being attuned to each other’s moods. This never became more obvious than on Tuesday. I was feeling rather flat-I suspect because I’d been confined to the house so much lately. ‘I feel rather flat,’ Mick announced. ‘Me Too,’I agreed. Mick then proposed we take ourselves out for a day date, ‘if you can spare the time from work.’ I’d been thinking exactly the same. As so often we were in tune with each other’s feelings and thought processes, which I comes from having been married so many years … Continue reading →

Kids who Wake up Crabby or Crying

Years ago, when I was still a teenager, I used to babysit for a couple of rambunctious little brothers. The younger one was really a very happy, humorous and playful little guy but every time he woke up from a nap or when he woke up in the morning, he would wake up crying. It would take him a good half hour of sitting on someone’s lap and being crabby and tearful before he would suddenly get himself fully awake, grin, climb down off the lap and go off to play or eat. Since then, I have met other children … Continue reading →

Can Everybody be Happy All at Once?

I have often pondered if it is possible to really keep a family with more than one child (or even more than one person for that matter) happy all around? Is it really possible for three children, for example, to all have great days and be happy at the same time? Does it go against the law of nature? Are we only allotted so much in terms of the happiness capacity for a household for any one 24-hour period and if one person uses it all up, the rest have to go without? Is there anything I can do as … Continue reading →

Anticipating Short Tempers

The holiday season can bring out the best in people—and it can also bring out the worst. In single parent families, there can be all sorts of additional stress and strain that can bring on cranky reactions and short tempers (in both our children and us). Anticipating the possibility of those short-tempers and learning to recognize the triggers can help to eliminate some of the tantrums and outbursts that can happen this time of year. Too much stimulation and visiting can be a trigger for many children. Even if it is exciting and wonderful to connect with people who haven’t … Continue reading →

What I Love About a Home Business—Not Having to Deal with Crabby, Moody Co-workers

One of the realities of working in a traditional job with an office full of co-workers, is that one often has to put up with moodiness, crabbiness and other behaviors from our co-workers. Sure, it can be character-building and help us develop tolerance and appreciation for the differences in other people, but when one is working from her own home-based business—this is not as big of a factor. Okay, so we still have to deal with moody customers or clients and we might even also be coping with our crabby children during the work day—but all in all, we are … Continue reading →

“Mom, I’m in a Funk”

My kids are getting increasingly verbal, expressive and creative in the ways they talk to me. Instead of my having to try to pry things out of them or figure out what might be going on, they are getting better at telling me (when they want to) what is going down. While there is still plenty of adolescent moodiness and I know there are certainly plenty of things that they have no intention of talking to me about, they also do sometimes tell me when things are going awry. Instead of the “Leave me Alone!” that reverberated a couple years … Continue reading →

Taking a Crabby Day Out on Your Kids

I can’t always get grumpy at the people I want to get grumpy at. Okay, maybe I COULD get grumpy at them, but I’m choosing not to for whatever reason. As much as I’d like to be the pleasant, angelic mother—there are days when I walk through the door, or bring along all my crabbiness from the day that was, and dump it all out in my living room. Just as it is often easier for my kids to take their crabby days out on me, I have to work extra-hard some days not to take my crabby days out … Continue reading →

Nurturing Temperamental Traits – Mood

Everyone has a bad day sometimes, but how does your child generally look at the world? Does your child always have a smile on her face? Is he usually serious? Is he usually happy? Is she always complaining about something? Positive Every parent wants a positive child, the child that looks for the best in others, themselves, and the world and then finds it. The positive child will make the best of any situation. They will be slower to anger and get over hurt feelings easier. They will look for the good in people. The positive child is not one … Continue reading →