NOTHING TO SHOUT ABOUT?

There's loads of stuff I do as a mama that I'm not TOTALLY proud of. I almost certainly give her fish fingers and baked beans way too much, I'm not great a taking the time to get stains out of her clothes properly, I'm pretty slack on the TV, I occasionally skip pages during her bed time story, I let her watch Peppa Pig on the iPhone while I race around M&S trying to find bras for my ever burgeoning breast and *whispers furtively* I shout.  Yep. That's right. I'm a shouter. Of all the things I just confessed to that one makes me feel the most guilty. I'm not sure why. It doesn't help that my husband doesn't shout. He manages to get her through the day alive, fed and (generally) unhurt without losing his shit. Me, on the other hand, not so much. It's not like I haven't tried - I start almost every day with a mantra that goes something like, "Today I will not be a bitch mama. Today I will be zen. And quiet. So very, very, quiet. "

Then maybe, ten minutes later, I'm picking a cheerio out of my eye while the Small is killing herself laughing because, let's face it, pouring milk into your nappy while you try and balance cheerios on your eyelashes with one hand and flicking them randomly with the other is hilarious if you're two feet tall and in no control of your bodily functions. Because I'm not two feet tall and (mostly) control of my bodily functions (damn my pelvic floor and trampolining) laughing. I'm shouting.

"BILLIE Scout sims, if you don't not eat your (*) breakfast and stop (*) messing around I am going to put you in timeout and there will be no (*) cbeebies ever again. Or pom bears."

*insert appropriate silent swear word

And she eats. That's the problem. It seems to work. Of course, a bi-product of my tactic is that it seems to suck the joy out of the room. I'm not a monster after all. I mean I do wish that I could deal with the food throwing, milk tipping, the stomping, the refusal to follow any basic instruction with more finesse than just opening my massive gob and bellowing but when something works, you get lazy right?

I come from a shouty family. My mama is a shouter, so was my dad. My family are loud, in your face type people and so, there was a lot of shouting - both of the fun and frowny kind - as I was growing up. My husband, on the other hand, doesn't come from a shouty family. They are super kind, measured people - a much quieter, far less obnoxious breed of people than my own tribe. There's no better or worse, I guess it just explains why I'm the shouty parent, and my husband isn't.

I know I'm not the only shouty mama in the world who suffers from a chronic lack of patience, especially in the early morning, but I'm starting to wish I had better tools or maybe just more patience to implement the other tools. There are times I could definitely spare the time to not shout and take the scenic route to all-round satisfaction but there are times when time is not a luxury we have and that's when the bellowing starts.

Anyway, it would be nice if you could let me know that I'm not the only one. It would be cool if you could share your own shouty stories and perhaps we can all feel a little bit better about our bad-ass selves if we just remind each other that we're not all perfect and kids are ok with a bit of shouting.

Right?