Whooooo! Day One and Done!

It’s the first day and I was faced with the ultimate attitude challenge…being a passenger of my husband’s driving. HIS DRIVING, let’s just say it has caused a few arguments in the past. He tends to get easily distracted while driving and it definitely has put my patience to the test a time or two. I’ve gotten so accustomed to it that I’ve pondered up ideas in my head of what potential situation we could end up in if he continues to drive the way he does. I’ve become the worst passenger seat driver there is when it comes to riding with him. Today, I made my VALIANT effort to just be silent. DEEP BREATH IN, NOW OUT. ALLOW HIM TO FIX HIS OWN MISTAKES. LET HIM DRIVE. Haha. Well it was a successful complain-free car ride. YAYYYY!

Now to back up a little during the day…

Sweet texts back and forth while he’s at work. We had that pretty well down pat already, but I always struggled to turn into the “text version” of myself when he got home. Today was a little different in the typical everyday schedule and I actually wasn’t home when he arrived. When I did get home I started to get very distracted by the unloading of cranky kids from the car.Wait, stop. I made myself get “undistracted” and paused to consciously make an effort to give him a kiss. Boy did his face light up.

Bonus uno.

We had a couple of errands to run this evening so we hopped to it, which led to my very “patient car ride”. As we prepped the kids to leave (diapers changed, diaper bag repacked, youngest breastfed…) there’s always something that I end up needing help with because I was unfortunately not created with 8 arms.

Next conscious effort…ask and not command.

“Babe, can you do me a favor and put this in the diaper bag?” Whereas before it may have sounded like, “Put this in the diaper bag”. Be mindful of punctuation and tone, they make all the difference in the world. When I changed the way I phrased things, HIS attitude changed. Go figure! Instead of him sighing or getting that “look” on his face because I got him to do yet another thing, he replied “sure babe.”

Bonus dos. 

During the time we had in the car, besides my silent deep breaths : ), we had our typical conversations. One thing that I need to work on is the WAY I listen. Listening doesn’t always mean being silent. In fact, in conversation, it makes the other person feel like you’re doing the exact opposite of listening. When my husband talks about what happened to him at work that day (though a lot of it goes above my area of expertise) I want to be receptive and show him I actually care. Replace the silence with “oh wow” or “geez babe, I’m sorry” or ask him questions. It doesn’t take much. Even two words make a difference. It allows him to vent about frustrations instead of him bottling it up to only take it out on me later.

Bonus tres.

Later in the night, after a few hours of dealing with high maintenance kids (oh how I love my kids…no I really do lol ), it got a little harder for both of us to maintain good attitudes. One of my husband’s stressors is being in the car too long. As soon as he started to show stress, I would have to remind myself… good attitude, have a good attitude….”babe, it’s ok”. The moments where stress really became apparent…. “babe you’re making it really hard for me during this no attitude challenge”. It was then when we both just had to give a big chuckle… back to ourselves again.

Once we got back home, there were  a couple more things that had to be done. Because my youngest feeds around the clock, I was stuck like chuck on the couch and couldn’t do much other than breastfeed. It was up to my husband to do those couple of things until I could get free. I could tell, after a little while, he was getting worn down after having a long day. Instead of having my typical thought of well, join the club, I called him over and asked him to sit right in front of me. I grabbed my essential oils and gave him a back rub with my one free hand. This was something I hadn’t done in so long. Why? Because I’m always thinking of how bad I need the back rub.

 I, I, I.

Time to put those thoughts away.

Him. It needs to be about him. When you put others first, especially your spouse, things change. I can’t explain it. It’s just good. It definitely was a nice surprise for him. It immediately changed his attitude. Isn’t it funny? The whole point of this is to work on my attitude, but in the meantime, it’s changing his??

Bonus quatro.

By the end of the night, when it was time to put the oldest two (6 and 2) to bed, we were both worn out. Usually my husband lays down with them and ends up falling asleep himself. This has caused A LOT of turmoil in our relationship. We RARELY get OUR time before bed because of him falling asleep. I know I shouldn’t blame him because he works so hard, but sometimes I just can’t help it. Because our schedules are so busy and can be quite opposite from one another’s, sometimes the only time we have would be right before bed, hence why I’m so protective of that time. I tend to give him a lot of “flack” for falling asleep every night before I get to really talk to him. As soon as my husband’s head hits a pillow, out…….like a light. This time, it was different. I expected him to fall asleep so I grabbed munchkin 3 (7wks old), put him in a sling carrier, and hopped to my late night chores before bed. An hour goes by… my husband walks out of the room! Whaaaat??? He didn’t fall asleep?? I definitely showed him my utter disbelief when he walked out. He came out to tell me good night before he fell asleep. THIS HARDLY EVER HAPPENS. Not that he doesn’t mean well or that he doesn’t want to, he just can never lay down for that long without falling asleep. I don’t know how, or if my ATTITUDE change had anything to do with it, but I liked it. The kiss before bed.

Bonus cinco.

I’m so glad I decided to do this challenge. I’m so glad I realized how screwed up in my thoughts I was. I still have SO much to work on and it’s a definite daily process, but I’m glad I started this conscious effort to change my attitude. It makes such an unspoken difference. My advice to whomever may be reading this is to challenge yourself. Keep yourself accountable somehow. Writing this is definitely putting things into perspective for me and keeping me accountable throughout the day. Like I said, it’s a daily effort with each day throwing something new at me.

So here’s to tomorrow.