Raise your hand if you are sick of my posts yet! Lol.

I felt like I had a lot of write about (based on the last like 3 days) so I decided to make it another OYS update all based on (you guessed it) shit-testing! I know, so different that all my other posts... Without further adieu,

Kids: I’ve continued to do fun activities with the kids which has been great. My 3yo is also just very content to play/do art projects/read at home as long as im giving her attention. Hard to find the delicate balance between giving her the good focused attention that she requires and allowing her to be overly demanding. My husband and I joke to each other she is really just shit testing all the time. It’s kind of true though, she is testing for many of the same reasons I shit test my husband.

She is testing to find exactly where the boundary lies. She is testing us for congruency (whether we will force that boundary every single time). She is testing what the consequences are for bad behavior, and deciding whether they are adequate to deter her behavior. She is testing if we can remain stoic/emotionally stable in the face of her psycho toddler breakdowns/emotions. Testing if we will cave to her demands if she is screams loudly enough, or whines long enough, or looks at us with her sad little toddler eyes. And sometimes she is testing for comfort. Testing if we will still love her/act loving towards her if she doesn’t behave well. It is all quite confusing and challenging to navigate.

Relationship: Better, not perfect. I am continuing to talk very overtly about everything. Something that concerns me a little- is the further we go down this path, basically the more I shit test. For example, I got home after a long outing with the kids on Thursday night, and I was a little tired and frazzled and I just wanted to calm down.

But he could tell that I was stressed and frazzled. And I could tell that he kept worrying about me- he kept checking in on me, it kind of felt like he was walking on eggshells. Which annoyed me.

So I felt like instead of his calm making me calm, my stress was making him stressed.

Subtle to explain but obvious as it was happening. And it made me feel really annoyed at him for the rest of the night. We talked about this later. He had already figure it out. From his pov, what he said was basically that he could tell that I was frazzled and he was worried about me. (He also wanted sex that night so wanted me to be in a good mood). But, he said he stopped himself from offering to do things for me to try to get me in a good mood.

And he said the next step for him is actually to untangle himself from my emotions so that he is not affected my bad moods.

Anyways, what Im worried about is basically that I will end up impossible to please and always be annoyed at something, because he is not (and never will be) perfect or have a perfect ‘frame’. And I obviously don’t want that. We are still in a positive place though, and husband remains confident and optimistic (basically he chuckled and said that his frame will have to be iron clad because I will find and poke every chink in his armor).