Can anyone lend me a......

I feel drained.  It has not been a good morning and so with a two-fold nod at http://nowineonwednesdays.blogspot.com/ post called "Can anyone lend me a tenner?", I'm now asking, can anyone lend me some tolerance? Or maybe some patience, or a little bit of understanding, perhaps a smattering of skillful parenting would do the trick.

I am once again at a point where I feel like I just can't get it right.  I'm sure my child isn't really doing anything too horrendous and maybe it is me overreacting, but I feel like she has mastered the art of pressing my 'shouty' mummy buttons.  She presents this attitude of 'I know'.  Am I being over sensitive to the 'tone' of her voice when she finally responds to my question?  I have no idea.  There is, for the most part, no-one here to talk to about it.  There is no-one here to observe me or her in action.  There is no-one here to say 'ok, I'll take over, you have a break'.  I find myself questioning 'me' all the time.  In striving to move on with my personal struggles of single life, single mother and fulltime student, am I creating an emotional conflict between myself and my daughter?  Am I looking for issues that aren't really there?

Our lives seemed to be ruled by the clock.  We are always on some sort of schedule and this means that we do not have the luxury of time.  I would love to not have to say 'hurry up' about 20 times every morning.  Even on weekends, there seems to be this issue of timing.  If she is staying at my mum's then I have to get there to drop the car off and pick up my girl.  So we both have to be ready at a certain time.  And that's another thing, not that I want to criticise my mum but I feel like she is being critical of me.  She will tell me when I'm being too hard on my child.  She will tell me to just let her get on with it, allow her to play or whatever.  But my mum doesn't know what it is like to be a single mother.  She doesn't know what it is like to worry about money or feel that sole weight of responsibility for another person.  I sometimes wonder if she really understands why I'm chose to do the degree that I am doing.  I love my mother and we are close and maybe that is why she is part of my frustrations.  But I do find that I have to hold back with her.  I think that our ways of communicating will have to adapt as she edges closer to being elderly and also accepting that our lives, as mothers, are completely different.

I find that I have to resist saying things a certain way to my child, as sarcasm won't work with her.  She is too young still to understand 'reasoning'.  I am trying to teach her that her actions have a consequence, that it is her behaviour that we need to review.  But I do have to remind myself that she is only 7.  For all her show of bravado, her show of knowledge, her show of confidence, she is still only 7.

And that leaves me wondering how I, as the parent of my child and as a daughter to my mum, how I go forward in the coming years.  There is that old adage, 'pick your battles' and in this ongoing adventure of my life, as it unfolds, I find that I am struggling to pick the correct battles.