My Moments

Day to day life as mothers can be rough.  Can I get an AMEN?!

Some days go so smoothly and after the kids are in bed and I am in comfy cozy with the hubs, I thank the Lord for the great day. 

Some days are are just a big disaster from the beginning and after the kids are forced to bed and I am alone trying to de-stress, I thank God that everyone is still alive and ask for a better day tomorrow. 

Yall relate?

But you know what?

I have realized that even a bad day can be turned around, just as long as I see it.  I have noticed in my later years, at the ripe old age of almost 31 :), that I need to see and realize the moments from the Lord that can make ANY day better.  I have seen now, how the Lord can even use my little ones to help me.

You see, my kids feed off of me.  Shane is pretty much even all the time. Yeah, he gets stressed at work and can bring it home sometimes, but overall, he is as stable as one can get.  Myself, on the other hand, can fly off the handle pretty easy and may or may not have been known to lose it in certain situations.  Thanks to motherhood, experience, maturity, and medication, I have gotten better.  But I have realized that when I am able to keep myself calm and maintained, my kids are easily deterred from the stressful situations. I am still guilty of not calming down, and that is when I see how the Lord always listens.  He never fails me. He always shows me the glimpse of sunshine.  I pray every night for patience with the kids and to be a better mama.  The crazy thing, it sometimes takes me forever to see it. 

One day this week, we slept in. Like didn't get out of bed until 715.  Of course this is one of those days that I did not have clothes laid out for everyone, and needed to get up earlier than usual.  By the time we were in the car, Owen had cried for at least 20 minutes straight because he was tired and boy cannot be rushed, Claire was furious with her outfit, and I was fuming.  We get to school and we barely talk all the way there.  I feel bad as we are walking up to school and getting them checked in.  I am walking ahead of them, trying to get them to their classes, already 15 minutes late.  We drop Claire off and start the walk to Owen's class room.  I am holding his hand and just looking straight ahead and thinking about the conference call I am going to have to call into in the car as I am REALLY late to work.  Just then, Owen starts tickling the inside of my hand he is holding.  I ALWAYS do that to him when we are holding hands and he can barely stand it.  The kid is so ticklish, that even barely tickling the inside of his hand can practically take him to the ground in a laughing fit.  I look down at him and he is grinning so big.  We are to the door of his classroom and give him a huge hug with tears in my eyes, tell him bye and I love him.  He was just fine.  I get to my car and thank the Lord for my sweet Owen and that sweet moment.  The rest of the day was fine and not as bad as I expected it to be (I didn't even get a shower for heaven's sake!)  I thanked the Lord all day for fixing my day and Owen's.  I will never forget that moment.

Next week is Claire's first dance competition of the season. I am not at the studio as often as I used to be due to work, so I feel a bit disconnected.  A month ago she brought home many costumes, tried them on, and was supposed to be put them away in my closet.  All of sudden this week, it hit me how close we were to competition as I was seeing all the emails coming out on all the accessories, tights, shoes, etc, she was going to need next week. I started to panic as I know Claire, and she is not the most organized (and only 8) and I had not seen any of the accessories mentioned in the emails.  I knew she had cleaned out her dance bag a couple times and if these things were in her bag (where she stuffed her costume every time, and these things were sent home with costumes), they were long gone!  So, I prepared myself (read: got good and mad at me and Claire for not being better organized) to go through her costumes and do some inventory. I was going to have to eat crow and go to the studio and ask where I can buy the missing items.  Of course I forgot about it by the time I got home. Suddenly I remembered last night about 11.  I was immediately mad (mostly at myself) because I had waited too long and this was going to be stressful.  I get all the costumes out.  I find that not only had my big girl hung them all up nicely in my closet, but she had hung a bag on the hangers with the mentioned accessories folded with each costume. I got big tears in my eyes as I realized how she was such a good girl and responsible.  I thanked the Lord for that small moment that I needed and didn't know it.  I told Claire this morning how proud I was of her and was RELIEVED today at lunch when it was not spent running around like a wild person.  That moment was awesome.

Even on the mornings we get up on time, we are almost always acting like we have never gotten up for school once in our life.  Some days, Owen gets up fine and does as he should/told, but most of the time, he is walking zombie and needs parental assistance :). Claire is pretty self sufficient and I as long as I holler every once in awhile to make sure she is on task, I don't have to worry about her.  Bree sleeps in until right before I take her across the street to Nonna's house.  One day this week, we were up on time, everyone was in a good mood, but Owen was in his own world.  We are gathering bags and doing our last task of putting on our coats and Owen suddenly realizes he cannot find his coat.  We just put a coat rack by the door for heaven's sake and he cannot find his coat.  I am immediately stressed as it is 22 degrees outside.  I send him upstairs to look, Claire to Nonna's to see if he left it over there, and I am looking everywhere.  Just when I think he has lost it at school, and ready to blow up as this is the only coat he will wear, Bree comes around the corner in her pjs, a fur vest, rainboots, a fur hat, and carrying Ruby and a purse.  She was ready to go :).  I immediately started laughing, grab her up and stop and thank the Lord for keeping me from losing my cool over a stupid coat.  By the way, Claire walked in with the coat from Nonna's.  I laughed all day about Bree's gear :).  That was a moment to remember.

All of these moments are so small in the great scheme of things, but these are the moments I will never forget as a mother.  This blog explains this so well. She calls these moments "kairos".  No one ever said this motherhood gig was going to be easy or wonderful all the time.  But there is are alwasy going to be moments that we will only see if we keep our eyes open for them. 

Thank the Lord for days slept in, lost coats, and over filled dance bags.  Without them, I would not have these memories. 

Happy Friday bloggers!! Enjoy yourself this weekend!!