Trigger situations

[Guest guest]

I'm listening to the episodes on trigger situations, identifying them

and planning to how to better handle them.

I have several trigger situations that I pretty quickly came up with

a good plan for but one is really stumping me. My husband travels

frquently for business so about every other week I am a " single

parent " for my kids age 5 and 7.(really the situation occurs when

he's in town as well but is more challenging when I know he's not

coming home for dinner or bedtime that night). Sometimes the kids and

I have a great time and we have created some " traditions " that we do

when dad is " out " as we say. But other times, the kids come home

with lots of need for attention, lots of homework, lots of pent up

energy or all of those and I just feel overwhelmed. I spend the next

4-5 hours trying to divide my attention between them (helping my 7 yr

old with homework while giving my 5 yr old the attention he wants to

tell me all about his day, trying to mediate what game we play before

dinner, trying to get them to agree on what books we read before

bed,trying to fix a healthy dinner, trying to get them to go to bed !)

Rereading what I have written, I feel kind of wimpy that this is a

trigger situation - but it feels " out of control " to me and mentally

that is hard for me.Food is the easiest thing to give me a bit of

pleasure and help in dealing with the boredom (helping with 2nd

grade math or reading the same book over and over does get boring!

esp without adult conversation later in the evening). A lot of the

traditional advice for when you are wanting to eat for emotional

reasons is out- I can't go for a walk (well, in summer the kids and I

bike to the park but it's winter in Chicago so that won't work now)

or take a bath or call a friend when both kids are talking to me at

once.

I try to prepare by having dinner planned and partially prepared and

by listening to relaxing music on the way to pick the kids up after

work.

I have thought of dancing as a way to get my stress reduced and

reduce the kids energy level.

Does anyone else have other thoughts/ suggestions?

I almost feel like I need a " mantra " that i can repeat to myself when

the craziness is increasing.