**elise joy giveaway still open below!**
i’ll be honest here.
i lose my patience with my girls. sometimes i am sarcastic, or short,or downright impatient and mean.
sometimes?
i lose it and raise my voice.
i am not the sort of mother who will tell you i have never yelled at my children.
i wish i hadn’t.
i wish i was the woman with a soft, firm, gentle yet loving voice at all times.
but i’m not.
i could lie here and make it sound like i’m that mom. but i won’t. i’m not.
and i’m okay with that.
years of teaching combined with some experience w/ this mommy thing have taught me it’s all about the tone. not the volume.
but sometimes i still lose it.
like the time (i’ve told this one before) when sweet harper was talking and talking and talking and talking in the car. and i was TIRED. and had a headache. and the babies were screaming. and she was talking and talking and talking. and she asked me a question and i said “WHAT?” and then a little pause…and her voice said “nothing“.
or the time when j had been gone for almost a year, harper got into some markers. and sadie ripped something up. and the toilet overflowed. and the washing machine overflowed. and the roof was leaking.
and i stood in place, shook my fists in the air like an angry old man, and SCREAMED.
screamed “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH” like a devil-posessed banshee.
and it really? honestly? felt good.
but then i pulled myself together and looked at my girls faces and they were wide-eyed and silent.
and man i felt bad.
there’s a lesson here, though.
being a parent doesn’t mean you are always perfect. in fact, i believe putting on that facade can be damaging to your children. i don’t want to show my girls that they always have to be perfect.
put together. perfect makeup. with a spotless house and gourmet meals on the table every night.
heck.no.
but what i do want to teach them is that we are all human. fallible. except for our father in heaven, NO ONE is perfect.
i do want to teach them the words
“i’m sorry”.
when i am snarky or unkind, when i raise my voice or lose my patience…i stop.
i get down on their level, look in their eyes and say “i’m sorry. mommy is frustrated and i shouldn’t have spoken to you like that. i wasn’t kind.”
and every single time they hug me and say it’s okay. that they mess up too.
they end up comforting ME, believe it or not.
i do not want my girls to grow up into women that never say they are sorry. the sort of women that have an excuse, explanation, or flat out denial for every occasion.
i know women like that. and it’s not a good virtue. it’s not attractive. it’s just not.
everyone needs to know how to simply say “i am sorry”.
sidenote: there’s also apologizing TOO much, for everything, when you don’t need to. but that’s a whole other can of worms. 🙂
i full well know that i will yell again. again, i will immediately regret it and feel horrid.
but i will never be too proud to look in those little eyes and say “i am so sorry”.
because even when i’m a jerk…that’s a teachable moment.
here’s to praying today is a kind day. a gentle-spirited day.
as opposed to the “i want to scream as loud as i can into a pillow and then drink a bottle of wine” type of day like yesterday was.
and here’s hoping the same for you. 🙂
xoxo
s