Feeling a bit overly underwhelmed today. Not much in the mood to do anything and truthfully don't have all that much calling for me to do, other than Bible study (oops, still have to finish that...)
I have just been reading some really great blogs from UndertheSycamore (see previous blog). That woman has more energy and creativity than I could even hope to know what to do with! She combines the two things that I most respect in mothers, the desire to be WITH her children, and the ability to still accomplish things worthwhile, at least to her. There is a lot of photography stuff in there, which I tend to skim over, but she is a good reminder to me that I need to be more appreciative of my family. And I need to take more pictures.
Today was a bit of a mess getting the kids out of the house. And it was mostly my fault because I want things done the moment the idea comes out of my mouth (or two seconds before). Surprisingly, that doesn't always work with other people's schedules, or the bathroom capacity, or the kitchen capacity. I had those poor kids running every which way today and though I felt bad about it, it didn't stop me from being grumpy with them every time I opened my mouth. I have a hard time believeing that we have been doing this for over 5 years now and we STILL don't seem to get it (notice I included myself in that). At least not in my presence, and maybe that is the problem. You see, every time I am NOT in the picture (ie at school or at other people's houses), apparently my kids are great! So maybe the solution is that I sleep in until 9 and let them have the run of the house in the morning.
Oh God, just the thought of that gives me hives.
But seriously, I need to really work on removing myself from their lives every second. They have a list of what needs to be done in the morning and a clock. Do they REALLY need me there counting down the minutes for them and mentioning the things that still need to be done? Granted, there would probably be a few REALLY horrible days while they figured things out, but theoretically it would, in the end, make them more responsible for themselves. Right?
Okay, my fear is that it wouldn't. My fear is that certain of my kids just really don't care if they get to school on time or not. They don't care if they get late slips, or miss out on opportunities. They don't care if they don't pack a lunch because the school will feed them anyway. I fear they won't learn from disappointments, only try and assign blame elsewhere to assuage their guilt. Fear is a nasty thing. It is the opposite of Faith. How sad that I am admitting that I do not have faith in my children. Does this mean that I do not have faith in God that He will watch over them and keep them from growing up to be monsters and leaches on society?
Okay, so here is my plan. I am going to go out and buy each of my children an alarm clock (well, two already have them, so I only have to buy two). At 7 a.m. (or 6:45 on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays) I am going to be tying my shoes and heading out the door as their alarms go off. I will spend the next hour OUTSIDE working on my faith issues. Happily for me, it is supposed to start raining nonstop for the rest of my life today, so this will be a GREAT exercise for faith building. I am hoping that Jeff will be able to survive, but I have strong faith that he will. He seems to usually do better at ignoring them than I do, and even better when I am not there. I will aim to be home at least 5 minutes before they head out the door so that I can help hand out doubloons and such but I WILL NOT BE CRITICAL if they are lacking. Starting Monday, we will take a look and see how we are doing according to our To Do lists and doubloon counts. At this point I get to be critical :-). But hopefully I will fortify myself beforehand with a prayer for calmness and fairness before I rip into them (I know better than to ask for patience!).
Okay, I am off to practice my not-being-critical face in the mirror.....
No comments:
Post a Comment