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"Parenting. Perimenopause. Patience. Which of these things is not like the others?  Yesterday I had a mommie dearest afternoon, minus the alcohol. I had gone to pick up Max after school, and found out he wasn&amp;#039;t in the afterschool class I&amp;#039;d signed him up for but instead had spent the afternoon with a friend making business cards for a new venture. I was annoyed. I told him he&amp;#039;d made a poor choice, that I&amp;#039;d paid for him to be in his after school class, not hanging out with a friend. I yelled a bit. OK. A lot. I spoke of the importance of making good decisions, of keeping one&amp;#039;s commitments, of letting the after school staff know where he was, etc. etc.  And then a few hours later, I got an email from a teacher saying how proud she was of Max and his friend for their new electronics cleaning business. How they worked so hard during lunch and recess cleaning computer screens and keyboards for 5 and 10 cents. How she stayed after school and helped them make business cards. How they are donating all their money. To charity.  I felt like a shrew. I apologized to Max and said I was wrong, and he showed me his business cards, and we hugged and made up. But I still feel like a bad mother. Yes, there was a breakdown in communication somewhere with the afterschool staff and the teacher and Max not being where he was supposed to. But there was also a breakdown in my reaction to this. Call it lack of sleep, erratic hormones, the inability to stop the rollercoaster of emotions, or all three which hijacked my rational self.  So tell me readers, how do you successful combine parenting young children in perimenopause ? "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.womansday.com/health-fitness/a42006/mommie-dearest-16304/>