Frustrating 4, flustered mom

I'm not sure if my fuse has been shortened lately or if Lucas has been extremely testing. I find myself yelling, scolding, threatening, smacking his arms way too much. Of course there are times when he is obviously deserving of a punishment, such as the very elaborate lie he cooked up about his friend giving him a chocolate when he had in fact took it from the teacher's cupboard. But at other times, I'm not so sure if he was entirely at fault or was it because I was just too flustered with the increased duties and the decreased time. Plus my recent unhappiness at work.

I don't know... But I do know I have been very frustrated with him. Take today for instance, we brought him to Ajisen to have his favourite Ramen after his chinese class. It was 1 pm. He took a 45 mins to finish half the bowl of ramen... Throughout the lunch, he appeared to be drifting off to sleep. I was convinced he was pretending, but I wasn't sure. His eyeballs were rolling whites and his eyelids were droopy. In any case, I caught my blood boiling and my voice and pitch escalating. I pity the diners nearby as I would have been really irritated by my own constant reminder to "chew your food!", "swallow!", "you need a smack to wake you up!", "hurry up!", "quickly!", "CHEW!CHEW!" etc etc... My frustration got the better of me, and I gave up on the meal. He barely finished 1/2 bowl.

I reflected the whole afternoon. I was quite disappointed with myself for not holding my temper. I'm not sure what happened to my normal ability to 'tahan'. I was even more upset and guilt ridden that I had made his lunch entirely miserable. I was a classic example of the mom I would have hated.

What made me change? Was it because I'm now always pressed for time? Like in the mornings and evenings, how I would be barking orders for him to hurry up so that we can get to office/pick Lyra in time? Or is it I'm really biased against him (now with Lyra in the picture)? Or is it his terrible 4s attitude and behaviour? I don't know and I don't trust myself to be objective.

All I know is that my fuse is blowing ALL the time and even when I make my best attempt to tolerate and be patient, I was never as patient as I used to be. And Lucas's bahaviour and attitude is really going from bad to worse... I'm not sure if it was his bad bahaviour that's causing me to be a mom from hell or whether my gnashing of teeth and screamings are causing him to turn bad. Chicken and egg question.

Simon Sim ( a family educator) told me last Friday at an event that "all children need are love and encouragement and they will turn out fine"... I thought for a second and asked him, "what if Love is not enough?"... Simon looked slightly taken aback and was quiet. I think he never thought that love would not be enough to parent a child and he looked a little sad on that reflection.

What if love is not enough?... ...