There's a tempest in the teacup...

Mistress is going through the first part of the rituals around putting little S to sleep. When she's done with reading stories and giving her the bottle, I'll take over and nurse and rock her to sleep in her dark bedroom, before I lay her down in her little bed. I try to have her half-awake when I put her down, so that she'll know what's happening and wont come traipsing out again after five minutes, looking for me. But it's a balance; too awake, and she'll make a game out of it, and it'll take another half hour.

When she's finally gone to sleep, Mistress and I have an hour or so before we go to bed, and that's the best part of the whole day. Usually we don't do much, we cuddle on the couch in front of the tv, and drink some tea before bed. It's our time to talk, our time to re-connect, to hug without being screamed at. Understandably, anything that postpone that time is highly annoying. And yet, any stress or rush will get little S worked up and angry, so somehow, we both have to accept the time it takes, and make the most of it.

That's one of the reason we've split it in two. There has been periods of time where we've taken every other night instead, and other periods when it's been only one of us all nights. Right now this works best. You can only take so much of too tired, difficult 2,5-year old and not lose your temper, so switching it up has it's advantages.

But just now, Mistress came out alone from the nursery, with a deep, irritated sigh. I asked if I could help, and got a grumpy "No!" as answer. She went out in the kitchen and started cutting something, and I figure little S had declared hunger and wanted fruit.

It's not my fault. It's not something I could have prevented, or helped with, or done differently. In my head, I realise Mistress isn't really annoyed with me - she's annoyed with the child, for very good reasons. Not to mention that she prepared the fruit, went back in, and now are back to reading stories.

But my stomach clench up and ache, as do my throat. My neck muscles tense. I can feel my whole body prepare for attack. I hate that tone of voice. I hate hearing her being disgruntled. I hate her anger, her temper, her irritation. It scares me, it fills me with despair and fear, and it makes me want to cry, to fight, to run.

And I hate that I react this way. I haven't yet figure out how not to care.

Now I need to relax and gather myself, so that I'm able to be calm and balanced and full of patience when they call for me from the nursery. And I hate that too - that I can't get a hug, or a reassurance, or something. And also, I have to get over it so that I don't pick a fight the first thing I do when little S has finally gone to sleep, because then it'll ruin the whole evening, and probably tomorrow too, and we can't afford that.

I'm not good at self-soothing. Or reasonable responses to others anger. I'm just not good at it.