Too Much to Thoroughly Blog

Lots can happen around here in 24 hours. Lots more than a person can thoroughly blog. Let’s just suffice it to say that last night I got a D- as a parent. I didn’t respond the way I wanted to, I didn’t keep things as calm as I had hoped, I even said some things that I regret.

Stress comes at odd times and for odd reasons in our house. It seems like everything is in a nice balance and then all of the sudden there is a moment of chaos when everything seems to be bombarding us at once, and as parents, there are times we handle it well and times that we don’t. Last night was one of those times. I had rented The Gospel and I wanted to get the dishes done so I could watch it before it got too late. Bart had worked hard to make an awesome meal of potato wedges with bacon and cheese for Salinda’s late birthday dinner. He wanted to go take a walk but had told the kids that he would give them a ride to the pool. A friend of MIke’s called and wanted to make arrangements to come over today right in the middle of the post-supper chaos. I knew I’d be at the wrestling district qualifier with Tony so I couldn’t answer. Bart said “yes” against his better judgment because he felt pressured when Mike was making the arrangements with the girl on the phone. Tony was screaming because he couldn’t find his swimming trunks....

I finally got to watch the movie and Bart and the girls joined me, but it was longer than we had thought and by the time the ending came, which is pretty intense, we were getting interrupted every 5-10 seconds. I snapped at Salinda, used my most patient voice with Mike which Bart labled “accusing”, and argued with Bart. Nobody would go to bed .... and on an on ... until I lay there thinking I was MUCH more effective as a human being when I was single, and what in the WORLD was I thinking when I decided I could be a wife or a mother.....

But every morning, you wake up, and you do it again, and you have those bad days, but you also have good ones, and then you just keep doing it again and again. And after a while you realize, in retrospect, that you’ve had lots of those days when you wonder what you were thinking and that you’ve recovered from all of them, and then the valleys don’t seem as deep any more, and the recovery time is quicker, and it takes less time to see the hope again.