Five spills. A bowl of cereal on the kitchen floor. A glass of water in someone’s lap. A glass of juice all over the breakfast table. A cup of milk spread across the lunch table. Mom’s coffee all down her front. And it isn’t even noon yet! Have you ever had one of those days? What’s a mom to do?!
- She can cry. Or she can laugh.
- She can scream and holler and let everyone know how displeased she is. Or she can take a deep breath and let it out slowly before speaking.
- She can yell out all the reasons she’ll never let another person have a glass of anything to drink in their entire lives. Or she can silently count to ten and ask for someone to hand her a rag. Again.
- She can remind all who might be within ear-shot of all the spills ever spilled. Or she can conveniently ‘forget’ all the other spills ever spilled.
- She can let the spills ruin her day (and everyone else’s.) Or she can quickly move forward, bestowing grace on the spill-ers.
We moms have choices. Have you seen those cartoons with the tiny devil holding a pitchfork whispering over one shoulder, while an angel wearing a shiny halo whispers over the other? I get that conflict. It’s real. It’s also the perfect illustration of the choices we constantly have before us.
Sometimes we make the choice to give in because all our hard work isn’t doing any good. Or maybe we are feeling like no one is paying any attention to our efforts to train and teach and clean and sort and, you know. So, we just give in to the emotion of the situation, speaking and responding with our knee-jerk initial reactions. We all do it. It’s normal, I guess. But we don’t have to let those feeling rule us. Taking a step back and giving ourselves a little grace, a little understanding, will spill over and bless our children and teach them even greater lessons that just how to clean up spilled milk.
When the glasses are tipped and the cereal bowls are poured out, let’s remind ourselves that other moms are cleaning up similar messes yet still are doing a great job raising their family. And then let’s remind ourselves that we are too! In the midst of our own mess, we are our harshest judge and critic. That’s the devil talking, don’ t listen!
Instead, listen to encouraging friends and other moms who can share a positive word. Moms like the two in this video (click on image below to go to video) who share encouraging words for those of us who feel like we are failing at this motherhood thing. (NOTE: video no longer available – you are welcome to visit the site and sign up for news of future bundles, though)
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