I Got A New Attitude!

Just when your kids are annoying you and you think you can't stand another minute of the attitude, they do something precious that melts your heart and makes you cry. Or at least it does me!

My "friend" Sarah at In The Midst Of It- I say "friend" because I have never met this sweet lady in person, but her blog is the first one I ever found and I was hooked! I love her title, In The Midst Of It...doesn't that just describe life with young children? Possibly even teenagers, but I'm not there yet, thank God. I've been known to just bring Sarah up in a conversation with Marc and say something like, "Ya, my friend Sarah said...." And at first I would get a blank stare from Marc, followed by "Who's Sarah?" He doesn't ask anymore, because he knows and now when I say something like that, he will sometimes add on "Yes, I know, she's your blogging friend that you've never met in real life." Yep, that would be her. She is so encouraging and always shares from her heart.

ANYWAY, all that to say...I've really felt like I was "in the midst of it" lately...in the midst of attitude, tantrums (mine and theirs!), time outs, toilets, food battles, etc. I was feeling very defeated as a mom and just really struggling. I was convincing myself that I am not really cut out to be a mom, that it was too hard for me to do...oh, the lies we believe! Last night, Marc had gone over to a friend's house to watch the Cowboy game (we don't have the channel that show NFL games, I'm terribly sad about can't you tell? but don't worry, we get all the college games) and I was home alone. The house was quiet and the girls were fast asleep. I lit a candle and sat down to read my Bible and I just started crying. I felt so overwhelmed and frustrated, so I just let it all out and talked to God about how incapable I was as a mom and how I never thought it would be this hard. I never felt any different, just more tired from all the crying I did.

This morning, I was bound and determined to be positive and make it a good day. It did not start out well. Cerys woke up in a mood of all moods and we had several fits and crying spells BEFORE breakfast. I remained calm and patient, all the while thinking, "See God, I told you, I just can't do anything right! She doesn't want pig-tails in her hair, she asks for blueberries on her cereal and now she won't eat them!" Today was our first Music and Movement class down at this arts centre in town. I enrolled the girls thinking it would be a fun thing to do since they both love dancing and wriggling around, and hey, it gets us out of the house once a week. By the time we were at the bus stop waiting for our bus, Cerys had calmed down a bit, thankfully (because I had threatened a million times that if she did not behave we would not be going to our music class! what? more torture for me to stay home with a moody 3 year old, why do I even threaten with such a thing!). Anyway, we made it to our class and both girls were semi-cooperative during the 45 minutes of pretending we were insects and butterflies, fluttering around the room. Did I mention it was raining (big surprise, I know!) today and we got slightly wet on the way to our class? We were doing just fine, Bailey under her rain covered stroller, Cerys on the buggy board in her rain coat and wellies and me, with a rain coat on and the hood secured on my head...or so I thought! We turned the corner and WHOOSH! Our hoods flew off and Cerys Princess umbrella blew inside out. Nice. And pretty much the same thing happened on our way back home.

So, after a fairly uneventful afternoon and evening, we were getting the girls ready for bed and had just read our Bible story when we started singing Jesus Loves Me. All in one moment, Cerys leaned over on me, put her arm around me and for the first time Bailey opened her sweet little mouth and said "Ge-shush" and sounded all high pitched like she was singing. And of course I started crying! It was a sweet moment for us as a family and for the first time in a while I didn't feel like a frustrated, fed-up momma.

It's those moments that like I said when I started this novel-post that just when I think I can't handle anything else, they go and do something so precious and it just melts my heart. To hear the name of Jesus come from a chubby little toddlers' mouth is just priceless to me.

"From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise..." Psalm 8:2 NIV

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