Reflecting on this through today with extra little prompts from other blogs that I read, I am starting to realise how much I can hide behind my worries. There is much going on for me at present. Rather than lay it all before God and leave it with him I often just take it all right back again and stew on it.The result of this is a totally distracted and self-absorbed mother. I then start to get cross about how little I am doing with the children and my husband and rather than stopping there and trying to change my behaviour, I dwell on it some more and get even crosser. This inevitably leads me to being short tempered with both my husband and children!
How thankful I am for having a very patient husband and very loving children. Today I resolved that after school pick up I would me the mum that I want to be. Plans had to change slightly when my daughter came home in her PE trainers because her shoes were hurting her - but I was not going to be distracted!! We came home, did the usual 'jobs' (I am trying to get my children to be a bit more responsible for their school stuff - emptying their own lunch boxes etc.) The children were told that I needed time to cook tea before we went to the shoe shop. I suggested that while I did this they got their homework done - which they did together - my older son helping his little sister! We got to the shoe shop, discovered my daughter had grown a whole size (felt quite bad and apologised to her for not believing when she told me they were rubbing!). We managed to get home before the rush hour traffic - tea is now on, they are having a nice play. Yey! I feel like I've been the mum I want to be today (and I had been at work all morning!). Praise God - I'm praying that I can turn a new leaf with this one today and not be the mum that I think I ought to be (my standards are way to unrealistic), but try and be the one that I want to be with the resources that I have.
Well done you, on noticing where you don't like what's happening and taking steps to be different. And every time we manage one occasion when we do it better that we would have done, we are learning the new way, and giving our children those memories and that model.
ReplyDeleteThank you Gaynor - discovered this morning that the shoes aren't comfortable!! I will not be swayed though, we will just have to go shopping again tomorrow - suspect A loves to do this anyway!
ReplyDeleteHi there!
ReplyDeleteYou sound like me: becoming short-tempered at my shortcomings with my family instead of taking the time to do something about it. How cool that you were able to be the mom that you wanted to be today! Thanks for your comment on SCL today. Ironically, on a day that I had planned to spend glued to my computer, God had other plans -- I received a call from the school nurse informing me that my daughter had a fever, so I spent most of the day being the mommy that I needed to be!
I've never thought of having an accountability email pen pal. That's pretty cool!
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