Almost Perfect

Mothering is hard.  There are plenty of good days, but there are rough days too.  Sometimes, it is easier to focus on the hard days, or the bits of days that had hard moments.

Yesterday was a perfect day.  I woke up grumpy after a week of lost sleep hit me hard.  Children were grumpy because their mother was grumpy.  I saw that things were going to escalate pretty fast if I didn't snap out of my grumpy self.  We got ready for the day and headed out to run a few errands.  Running errands with a 5 year old, 3 year old and 11 month old is always, um, exciting.  But we made it work and had some fun along the way.  Derek was a super hero and opened all the doors for me and our ginormous stroller.  We had a little lunch at the mall and everyone was well-behaved.  No fighting over drinks or ketchup.

We made it home in time to cuddle on the couch and watch Sesame Street.  I decided to bake some cookies and could hear the kids napping/playing happily.  Some neighborhood kids came over later and stayed until dinnertime when they were called home.  Dinner was ready in record time because I made a meal plan this week.  (no spending an hour beforehand deciding what to make).   While I was making dinner, I challenged the older boys to name every episode of Season Three of Scooby Doo (the only Scooby Doo we have).  We had great fun yelling out the names of all 16 episodes and then checking to see how many we got right.  Derek surprised me by coming up with at least half of the names.  

After dinner, Matt went to a meeting and I decided to get the boys to bed.  Bedtime is a tricky time of day sometimes.  We had fun getting ready, everyone was very obedient and when I pulled out a new bottle of flouride, I may or may not have told the kids it was poison and that they should never, NEVER, swallow it.  It was really funny to see how fast they spit it out.  Mom, was that fast?  Am I poisoned?  haaaahaaa

We then read and prayed and they all sat on Austin's bed where we read one more book.  Derek then found an old Disney songbook (like from the 60s) and brought it to me.  We went through the whole book and I sang all the songs at the top of my voice and the boys were so excited when it was a song they recognized.  (zipidee do dah, chim chiminee, etc.)  Bedtime still took a while, but I was having fun and so were my kids.  I kept thinking why it was such an extra good day, the kids were mostly well-behaved, but not perfect.  I was mostly well-behaved, but not perfect.  What made the biggest difference was me choosing to focus on the positive aspects of the day.  It was a good reminder to me that my attitude makes a huge difference. 

Sometimes I feel like we (I) am rushing to get from one part of the day to the next, and forget to have fun.  Yesterday was fun!  So much fun that I am going to get off the computer and go get my kids ready to go to the library.  Hurray for great days of playing and teaching and listening and understanding!!!