This morning was one of those mornings where you wish lots about it had been different.  It all started amazingly well with me waking and getting up before the kids.  That NEVER happens.  I actually started drinking a cup of coffee and making lists before the kids started calling for me.  Maybe the lists were the problem.

The day starts to slowly unravel from there.  That fifteen minutes of bliss didn’t prepare me for the next 5 hours!

Rea woke up with diarrhea all over her and her bedding.  After cleaning her and that all up, we did breakfast and made it out the door to take Caleb to school.  After dropping Caleb off, I was going to run three short errands with the other two.  J starts telling me on the way to Hobby Lobby that he will stay with me in the store if I allow him to walk (instead of getting in the cart’s buggy).  After running into the post office and getting back in the car, he is still negotiating and making promises that he later did not keep.  I said we could try, and if he really did obey he could play with Caleb’s leepPad on the way to our last stop.

To make a boring story shorter…he did not keep that promise.  I had to tell him he did not earn the privilege to play with Caleb’s “Ipad”.  Oh the tears, yelling, kicking, and tantrum fit that came from that one simple sentence.  I decided to still try to get to Trader Joes.  We have been creatively coming up with meals for a few days now.  This time he was in the buggy…till my buggy was too full and then he was walking.  Same stuff happened all over again, but this time Rea was a pretty big part of it too.  The girl (sweet girl) is crying non-stop today.

Coming home, I was exhausted, embarrassed, and just plain emotionally tired.  I had to give J his “consequence” and follow through on his discipline.  He cried, and that brought out my tears.  We just held each other and sobbed…more must have been going on in both of us than that actual “consequence”.  We let it out together.

Somehow I got all the groceries put away in between Rea hanging on my leg and me stopping to pick her up, before having to leave to get Caleb from school.  J threw another fit in the car right when Caleb got in.  I don’t even know what about.  All I know is it was it was about the 10th one that morning and I had a hard time hearing the sweet comments Caleb’s amazing teacher was telling me through his noise.

Parenting is so hard.  The boys didn’t do “quiet time” today, and I really wanted just a little quiet.  I mean like thirty minutes of quiet.  It didn’t happen, so more tears came.

I finally got the boys settled for a few min and I started flipping through my pictures and found these from stuff we have done this week.  They made me smile.  Parenting is hard, but it’s also the best job in the world.

 

1.  I love that I have “surprises” that come through the wash that both amaze and astonish me. What these boys find and come up with is amazing!  I am told these were their “power ranger phones”.

2.  I am thankful that I have two legs that allow me to run my cuties to the park and that I have a park close enough to my house that is not too insane to run to!

3.  We walked and picked Caleb up from school!  The conversations that happened here and that I over heard between these best friends warm my heart.

4.  My J loves me so much that he wants to ALWAYS be in the same room as me.  Even if I am just putting on my makeup…these two want to BE WITH ME!  They want to be with me.  ME! That is a gift.

5.  Watching Caleb and his friends during field day at RPP made me laugh out loud.  It was adorable!  I mean look at Caleb’s tongue!  Such determination!

6.  So much squeezable cuteness in this one picture!!  My beautiful, sweet, Ms. Pris is strutting her cute self along with her cell…that she can’t go very far without.

Maybe I shouldn’t have started my day with lists because now I see them and everything that didn’t happen.  My first job is my kids…and that doesn’t have a slot to cross off.  I should have written that at the top of my lists.  In this moment I am choosing to have a smile on my face and continue to LOVE my sweet kids the best I can.  Now to go back to holding my sweet Rea who is cuddled in my arm, so that I get to finish typing this with one hand.  🙂