Opportunities

"If someone prays for patience, do you think God gives them patience? Or does he give them the opportunity to be patient?"
--Morgan Freeman in Evan Almighty--

Apparently someone thinks I need lots of opportunity to be patient. I'm not really very patient and even more so lately. Even as I type The Boss is alternately talking in an unnatural, ear-splittingly high voice at the dog and climbing on my chair and telling me "go back, go back" to whatever he wants to see on the internet.
I had to say "get down" and "lower your voice" about five times before he obeyed and I did it in my very best pretend patient manner.

Yesterday should have been an easy day with Sparky and Drama Boy gone for a few days with a friend, but the little boys were wild in the afternoon while Ana was out. Running, shrieking, jumping on furniture and each other, knocking down the blinds, and playing at dinner (The Boss also complaining about he doesn't like cheese or mayonnaise on his sandwich....well good for your chloresterol, now hush and eat). I finally had to tell him to come on upstairs and get jammies on early. Completely disregulated by that point, he screamed solidly for 45 minutes.

The girls spent the night with a neighbor friend but not before Lucky had pestered me dozens of times asking to go outside, play video games, use the phone, and so on while I was trying to finish work for the day. She bug, bug, bugs all the time as if the answer is going to change from when she asked it five minutes ago. She also "shops around" asking one of us and then the other if she doesn't get the answer she wants. We're working on that.

Meanwhile, I guess I am working on responding patiently. It's not the big things that get me cranky like the trash-talking, house-trashing tantrums as much as the constant badgering, banging, bickering, making noises just for the sake of noise, mess and clutter, and asking for stuff all the time.

Lots of opportunity, I guess.