Things that make me go Hmmmm....

Ok so I'm trying to be a trooper, we still aren't able to move into our house. I haven't been bloggin cause I've been packin' and to no avail. We have stuff all over the place literally trying to ready to move to the new house and are we able to yet?? NO! The carpet guys scheduled 4 days for vinyl and carpet. It's been 6 work days for them and they still aren't done. I don't know why it's taking so long, a word that starts with L and ends with azy, comes to mind but not quite sure if that's the real reason. So I'm not tolerating this whole limbo deal too well. If you call I may actually sound chipper cause you'll probably catch me not ticked but beware..... if I freak out you might want to hang up! It would be in both our best interests!!

So speaking of freaking out, with the stress of new move, new job, Jas working on the new house and not home a lot, I've been oh, what's a good word?? Edgy? Yeah that will do. I'm 'edgy'. Sidenote - Hope is about one of the funniest kids I know who single handily can put me to my 'nice mommy' limit in roughly 5 seconds flat. Ok so the kids are in the tub, swimming, I'll let you imagine that. And I'm trying to get them out the door. Faithie had school, Hope MIkey and I had to get to my job and we were running out of time. So my tone quickly went from calmly saying " Please get out of the tub, do not put your hands on each other rudely, I don't want to be wet please don't splash around...etc etc" So we were there for a bit to frantically looking at the clock and rushing about high pitched words like " GET OUT NOW, YOUR GONNA BE LATE, IT LOOKS LIKE SOME LITTLE GIRLS JUST LOST PRIVILEGES TODAY - ALL DAY!!!!"
No more mister oh I mean ms. nice guy. I was not havin it. Another sidenote, my kids mood and tone is a reflection of my mood and tone most days so if I'm stressed, they're stressed. Following? So what happens next? What I try to avoid which would be almost utter chaos. Water everywhere, Mikey's crying, Faith's crying cause Hope hit her. I'm about it tears realizing I totally handled this the wrong way. I calmly got down and looked at them and said " Ok listen, I'm gonna try to be the best mommy I can be. Will you please be the best sisters and daughters you can be? That means obey mommy and daddy, be helpful and respectful? Can you do that?" And their mood changed. Faith decided that was a good idea and because Hope wants to show off how 'good' she can be she followed along. I'm pretty sure at this point Mikey was picking his nose but that's beside the point. So off we go, they shaped up, obeyed and we had a much better morning.

So this incident was a few days ago, and yesterday I was talking to the kids in the car as we headed into the grocery store and was saying something like " Ok, now I'm gonna be the nicest mommy I can be and you guys are gonna be the nicest kids you can be right? I want you to be helpful and not give me any funny business." Faith's response was "Wait a minute we have to do that for more than 1 day? I thought that was just for the other day?" And I lost it. I was laughing so hard I thought I was gonna cry.
My goal is to not be a meany, I used to yell and have tried to remove that from my tone all together (it got me nowhere and my kids didn't deal with it well, and I hated how I sounded). I want to be calm, loving, and respectful so my kids will be calm, loving and respectful. But I am also human and struggle with controlling my mouth and temper sometimes. Enter apologizing. I've gotten very good at humbly asking my kids to forgive me for my rudeness. And it works! Now when they get in trouble for their tone, they are starting to see why it's important to not only stop the bad tone but to apologize. Man, nobody told me parenting was gonna require this much patience! Jeez.
This is why I'm so stinkin glad that God delicately teaches me little ways to show me how to be better. Be a better wife, mother, daughter, sister, aunt, daughter in law. In all these areas of my life I need peace, patience, a humble heart and a spirit of love. I think this will be a battle that will not be over soon. Not even in this lifetime perhaps, but I'm so excited for the renewing each morning that I can start again. Today doesn't have to be like yesterday. Amen!!

Oh I read a friends blog the other day who talked about her word for the year:
CHILL is my 2009 word. This year will require more patience, understanding and ability to just let it go with our new church transition and bringing our boy home so my word is chill. What's yours??