Parenting over tired toddlers

You don't tend to put your difficult parenting pictures online. But sometimes parenting doesn't give you all smiles. Some days we're all simply tired...thanks to a few interrupted nights with growing teeth and a coughing cold.  And then we're all tired and hungry when we come home.  All we want is peace and quiet.

Then giving the wrong cookies to a toddler can be a big disaster.
Then refusing a 2nd cookie before dinner can turn you in the worst mom ever.
Then of course 2 little brats alternate crying.
Then they cry because they want a cookie, because they don't want a cookie, because they don't know, because toddler's life is tough.

Fortunately I've learned to keep my calm better after 4 years of parenting. Well sometimes at least.
In the past I have yelled to them to stop and be quiet, but that's apparently not a good tactic. In the past I've phoned Jan crying that I had a headache and the children were being difficult.  Often in such situations I put one of the children aside for a brief time-out.  This time I had the strength to just hug the children, explain them my choices, ignore their crying for a while and then hug them again, asking them to calm down which eventually worked.  And there was a sort of beauty in the moment too, to sit on the floor with an angry crying child.

But please not every day!