Attitude Adjustment

I'd like to tell you it's the toddler I watch that needs the attitude adjustment, but sadly that's not the case.  The one in need of the attitude adjustment is me.

This morning I was cranky and honestly I couldn't tell you why.  In fact I didn't realize just how cranky I was until lunchtime. 

Lunchtime is the one time of the day I let the dogs roam free in the house during child care days because all of the kids are in high chairs.  The dogs want to be where we are so they are of course in the dining room.  This used to work well for the most part.  There was the time I realized the toddler's high chair was too close to the couch because our older dog realized if she sat on the back of the couch she had a better angle at potentially sharing the toddler's lunch, but once I made that minor adjustment we were good to go.   The other two kids were just eating purres so the dogs had no interest, so the dogs would hang out nearby but there was really no interaction.  However, now all three kids are eating varying degrees of finger foods so the potential puppy smorgasbord has tripled and at least ONE of the kids wants to help these puppies out any way she can.

Isabella LOVES hand delivering bits of her food to the dogs.  At first she would laugh hysterically which immediately gave her away if I was distracted with another kiddo, but now she just grins so it's sometimes harder to catch.  The other two kids are less direct and morsels of food only fall from their tray by accident.  However, monitoring Isabella has become like a full time job at lunch.  When I keep the dogs in the kitchen (which is their homebase) they can see us at the table and whine and cry pitifully which is sooo annoying.

 For some reason at lunch today this exchange became too much and I came pretty dang close to yelling (it was directed at the dogs and not the kids if that helps at all).  I took a deep breath and we got through the rest of the meal, but I couldn't shake the dark cloud over my mood. 

Then suddenly phrase popped into my head:

I immediately opened the gratitude journal app on my phone.  I downloaded it a couple of years ago and used it daily for about 6 months then when we started into the summer of IVF I got out of the habit.  I started again on January 1, but hadn't opened it for the day yet.  Honestly it was kind of like magic.  I jotted down a couple of positives about the day and immediately felt better.  

Isn't it amazing that such a little thing that is so easy to do makes such a big impact?  Isn't it equally amazing how quickly we forget?