Learning to soak in the sweet moments when it all seems so overwelming.

   My husband asked me why I only write when I'm at my wits end and struggling. I told him I write to reflect and process my thoughts. He said that was his point what about the good times, do I reflect and think upon them?

 

   His question made me realize how rarely I processes the good sweet memories of the day. At the end of the day what I reflect most on are my regrets. I wonder what would happen if I put as much thought into the beautiful, fun and enjoyable times of the day as I do my hardships. I wonder if at the end of the day if I focused on the laughter I had with my kids as much as the tantrums, cleaning and chaos would my heart change? I'm not sure about you but when I lay down at the end of the day I tend to think about all the hard things rather than the beauty of the day. I think about the messes I still have or the times I yelled at my kids when I was so desperately  trying to keep my cool. These memories are easy for me to remember and reflect upon. I easily forget about the laughter I shared with my kids as we played animal tag or the talks we had as we dug in the dirt for worms.

 

For the next two weeks at the end of the day I am making a conscious effort to reflect, write and talk more about the sweet moments of the day. I'm not going to ignore or pretend my days are a piece of cake and my kids are perfect. Instead I'm going to try and remember as many wonderful memories as hard ones. When I lay down at night I'm going to reflect on and cherish the talks and fun I had with my kids besides the regrets. I'm going to remember the beauty I see all around me. I am thankful for this time and opportunity to be a mother to 5 kids. Its a crazy adventure and most days my goal is to not get overwhelmed and keep my cool. My new goal is no matter the craziness may I learn to soak in the sweet memories! I'll post my update in two weeks!

 

Embracing the journey

I found it hard to embrace mother’s day this year. I was feeling inadequet as a mother and physically tired. I arrived home after a day with family and I put the kids to bed while my husband went into work. Afterwards, I had a good cry. I know many if not all mothers go through times of hardship, being worn out, tired and disappointed. That was where I was at. I was feeling inadequate, inadequate to be a mother of 5 kids. I watched my children play and thought of the mother I wanted to be. I hadn’t been that mother and knew I wanted to change. I had been in survival mode. Our littlest was 2 months old so survival mode is where we had been. Just getting through the days without much planning besides surviving the day. Survival mood is not where I wanted to stay and on that mother’s day I knew it was time to start fading out of survival mode and living more purposefully.  So after my cry I opened a book to get some encouragement and read this,

The wise woman builds her house, But the foolish tears it down with her own hands. Proverbs 14:1

I realized I need to take time again to not just run through the day with my kids but to take some time to build my house. What that means to me is that I need to take time to refocus. Like any job when you hit a rough patch it’s important to re-focus, re commit. I thought of my boys and all their planning they do to build the biggest towers or lego houses. I thought of the planning that goes into building a house and the preparations.  Yet to tear their lego house down or tower just takes a swift knock or kick but to build seems to me much more thought out. So after my tears dried I  realized I needed to be more purposeful in my journey as a mother. Not putting to much pressure on myself I just took 10 minutes to planned a few things for the following day. I wrote down a flexible schedule of things I could do with the kids and things that needed to get done around the house. I set new goals, new schedules and re focused myself. I felt a bit more prepared and had a sense of excitement with a new focus. I felt ready for the challenge of building my house and investing in my kids. I knew that even if tomorrow didn’t go as planned or the kids woke up sick that it was going to be ok.  I am a mother, a mother that will keep trucking along. I refuse to tear down my own house. I refuse to let my pity or my sleeplessness get the best of my days. On that mother’s day I re committed to the journey of being a mom to 5 amazing kids. I knew that to be the best mother I could required a bit more planning and being purposeful with my time and my day. I also, realized that some days are just survival and having grace with myself is good but to get out of the survival mentality meant that I needed encouragement to embracing this journey.

(Galatians 6:9 has been encouraging to me as well in this time)