Ups and downs

Yesterday was 'one of those days'. You know them. For some reason everything goes wrong. The heart of the matter was Michael. There may be a tooth coming through or something was wrong, but he did NOT.. STOP.. CRYING until naptime at 3 pm. I have read and truely believe that mothers who have gone through colic with their baby are long afterwards extra sensitive to the sound of crying children. Intolerant almost. I am not sure whether that is scientific or not, but I can certainly attest to it. I just could not put him down for a single moment and nothing I did seemed to help. Then of course Joseph got upset because he couldn't get any atention and whenever I tried to put Michael down, he veered straight for Joseph's traintracks and dismantled them. Joseph had some trouble with one of the tracks. He had put a bridge over a curved track which meant that the trains could not get through. And that frustrated him. I tried to help, but each time I put Michael down he veered towards it. I dealt with the tantrums calmly, maturely, while trying to be heard over the ever wailing Michael.
Finally, during a full sized tantrum, with my arms aching, my head pounding, I snapped and yelled at Joseph: JUST BECAUSE A TOY DOES NOT WORK IS NO REASON TO START SCREAMING." Not my finest mothering moment. And not the example of how to teach my son how to deal with frustration.
Still.. as a compassionate friend shared with me: One day does not a childhood make. After naptime, things seemed to have settled down, and we managed a pleasant evening. Today I seem to have different children. Happy, playful.. of course still a handful, but not seemingly intent anymore on driving mommy into the madhouse. We went to pick up photos, we played at the mall playground, we went grocery shopping, we played outside, we planted some seeds. Whew.. what a difference a day makes.