Hiya!! (the karate chop, not the cheerful greeting)

After having kids, there's no such thing as a perfectly smooth, easy day*. All days are challenging and every once in awhile a doozy comes along. Today is my doozy and here's the crappiest thing: it's only 10:15 am.

One of my resolutions in January was to get up earlier so I could enjoy some quiet time alone and start off the day with a workout, devotions and a shower. When that doesn't happen Ryan ends up coming home to someone that resembles his wife but has an eye twitch and a mouth like a trucker. So this morning when I got back from the gym I really wanted to take a shower and get ready. In that order. All at once. Without interruption. Israel was awake when I got home and was happily hanging on our bed watching "Bolt", and I got done with the shower before Charlie woke up but then would get about two strands through my hair straightener before she was screaming for attention (she's sick - more on that in a minute). I decided to put off finishing my hair and makeup until she went down for a nap and thought I was okay with waiting...until I went downstairs to make breakfast, found that ants had invaded our pantry and went Bruce Lee on their asses with a microwave popcorn bag. Seriously, I smashed them so hard I'm pretty sure their little skeletons are imprinted on the cabinet walls. Maybe I'm not as ok giving up "my time" as I thought.

I don't get to this point very often (although the dent that my husband patched in the kitchen wall where I threw a water bottle two months ago would say otherwise), so when I do freak out I know I need to take a step back and get really...real. Figure out what issues were building up as kindling, what catalyst sparked the fire tantrum and how I'm gonna douse this mo fo. For this one the kindling issues are pretty easy - Charlie is still recovering from a nasty cold and is neeee-dy, Daylight Savings Time was real helpful as far as changing both kids' bed and wake times (middle finger salute to the troll who implemented that and the geniuses that still find it necessary) and I'm coming off a month of being somewhat out of commission cause I jacked up my neck and kept re-injuring it tending to my babes. Because of said neck injury I haven't been able to sleep well or work out - today was my first gym class in about 5 weeks, so I really wanted to go, get done and get going on my day. So there's the kindling, listed and accounted for.

The catalyst could be the second heytell my mother sent me. The first was at 8:00 saying that she wanted to come by and see the babies before she had to go into work at 10:30. The second came at 9:45 saying she had gotten "lost" in her devotions and journal that morning and wouldn't be over until after 10. My jealousy started causing my neck veins to spasm - you were able to get so into your reading time without distraction that you lost track of time completely. (Quick note: need to point out that the luxury of time seems to be ignored by a lot of teens and 20 somethings. When I see or hear a girl complain about how they want to be married or have kids I just want to say "shut uuuuuuuuup!" I want to say it like that too, where the "uuuuuuuup"is long and held out and I want to be holding their shoulders and shaking them or smacking them in the face because they're not enjoying and taking full advantage of the freedom that comes with being single and kid-free. If you really want to experience life with kids, try this exercise: take two stopwatches and set stopwatch A for 38 minutes and stopwatch B for 22 seconds. Start stopwatch A and sit on your hands in a corner facing the wall. When stopwatch A stops, start stopwatch B and get up and do what you need to do. Gotta be fast cause 22 seconds goes by real quick. As soon as that stops, go back to the corner and re-start Stopwatch A. Repeat this for the entirity of your day.) Back to the catalyst - maybe it was my hubby and his 25 minute session spent in the bathroom "reading". What is that. It happens every day and I know that he can't be going poo for that duration because he would be completely dehydrated and probably very ill. More than likely though, the true catalyst was Charlie's crying. That girl is determined. And when she's not feeling good she wants you to be holding her and she will let you know that.

Now onto how to curb this one. Not-so-shocking truth, I'm already over it. At this point it's now close to 5:00 in the afternoon and my husband is home entertaining the kids while I'm sitting on a comfy chair editing this. Parenting can be suffocatingly difficult, but it's the trials that make it rich. Just like anything worthy of great love, it can't come easy and I don't want it any other way because just as I'm blessed to shape those little lives, they're shaping mine in return.

Suffering is working in you perseverance, which produces character and through character comes hope. Romans 5:3-4

*It should be noted that I wrote this yesterday and today has been the most incredible, smooth and perfect day I've ever experienced as a mom. Real funny, God, reeeeeeeal funny.