I am not a yeller. I try to remain calm if something upsets me, and while I may use a stern tone of voice sometimes with the girls, I don't yell. Tonight, I yelled.

We had a nice night when I got home from work. I gave the girls a bath, and after they got dressed, we were sitting on the downstairs couch reading books. After A's book, she told me she was still hungry. I asked her what she wanted to eat. She said, "a cookie." I said, well, you've already had half a hamentaschen, but if you want a cookie, go get one because M is sitting on my lap and I don't want to get up. She fussed about that, but eventually got up to get an oreo cookie. She said she was having trouble opening the box, so I went over and helped her. She took out one cookie and asked if she could have two. I said no, only one.

That was the end of our peacfeul night. First, she moped back to the couch and said she didn't want to have any cookie. I brought the cookie to her, but she wouldn't take it. Then she started saying that I told her she couldn't have any cookie. This went on for about 5 minutes – me saying that I said she could have one cookie but not two, and her saying that I told her she couldn't have any. I lost patience and resumed reading to M. A went upstairs. We finished the book and went up, and she was under her bed. We brushed M's teeth. Then A started crying – wouldn't let me even look at her – and then came out and said her "boo boo hurt". I think she was referring to a scrape on her leg from the playground yesterday. When she wouldn't even let me look at it and started crying louder, that's when I got really annoyed.

I yelled at her, picked her up, and put her on my bed in the other room. That got her to stop crying – I think she was surprised. M and I snuggled and I put her to bed. I checked on A, she said she wanted to  be alone in the dark, and I went downstairs. Within a few minutes (maybe 5?), she was calling me and said she wanted to get in bed. So we got in her bed and I rubbed her back for a while. She told me two more ridiculous things: 1) that a friend of Imogene's said she doesn't like A; and 2) that I made her sit in the dark in her room, which is also not true because I told her I wanted to put the light on and she asked me to not to and to close the door.

I don't think I did anything wrong – I didn't want her to have another cookie, and I didn't want to give in to the tantrum. And sad to say, the yelling worked. But it's not something I want to do anymore.

I had some cute things to write today, but I will save them for another post.