Today. My terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. And then some. No, I’m not complaining. Not now. Just telling it like it is. Now it’s almost humorous. I said ALMOST. Remember that as you continue reading and try not to laugh too hard.
I should have just pulled the covers back over my head and gone back to sleep when I awoke to the hushed whispering of two little boys. Normally, whispers don’t bother me, but when they come from my offspring, they make me cringe in absolute dread. What have they gotten in to this time? Groggily, still feeling the effects of my cold and flu meds from the night, I crawled out of bed and crept, as stealthily as one can while tripping on air (who does that?), down the hallway and peeked around the corner. Before me were two cherubic faces beaming up at me as the contents of my purse lay strewn all around them. Their reason for upending my bag onto the floor? “We were looking for cotton candy.” (What?) I started in on the stern lecture I felt was warranted, only to be interrupted by my 4 year old. “Oh and C ate your eye stuff.” Eye stuff. What eye stuff? Mascara? I look quickly at the little one, but then I remember my mascara isn’t in my purse. Lightbulb goes on. “You mean my lip gloss?” “Yup.” On closer inspection, I can see the glittery shimmer of my lip gloss decorating the skin around the little’s mouth. There are no words. But I throw a few very frustrated ones at them anyways and go to my room to breathe for a moment.
Breakfast followed. Pretty normal. My 2 year old spilled his milk all over the floor and then fell off his chair while trying to twirl, the 4 year old got up and danced around the kitchen about 50 times (OK, maybe a slight exaggeration), while talking my ear off, my socks were stuck to the floor with wet Cheerios from his impersonation of a dog eating at the table (all while I carry on a monologue about sitting down and eating properly), and my breakfast was soggy by the time I got a chance to finish it. So, you know…routine for us. I thought our day had been redeemed.
After breakfast, the boys asked to play downstairs in the play/guest room. Thinking I could lift the ban on them playing down there unsupervised – a ban which was instated because of an unfortunate episode where they emptied the contents of my storage room and its bins into their play room – I sent them down with the admonition (don’t you love that word?) that they stay out of the storage area. I kept checking on them every little bit and then satisfied that they were playing nicely, went to search something I needed to order online. They were down there maybe 20 minutes. And then I realized that it was quiet. I don’t know what that means at your house, but at mine, it means my boys are cooperating. And that usually means doing something they shouldn’t be. I head downstairs, just as the 4 year old is coming to tell me that his brother got into something he was not supposed to. After he had already helped make the mess, he thought by tattling, he could pin everything on his little brother. I rounded the corner to a pile of ceiling tiles strewn all about the room. Ceiling tiles that were previously stacked neatly in the corner of the adjacent room, which is NOT part of the play area. Aaannnd…another lecture and the loss of their weekly movie night sent them into frenzied tears. So, with that reverberating through my already pounding skull (I hate head colds!), we went upstairs for lunch.
Lunch was fun (sarcasm is dripping here). In between lamenting the lost movie night, both children felt the need to tell me every few minutes that they didn’t like what I had prepared for lunch and that they wanted something else. I said no and that they should eat it if they were hungry. After about half an hour of complaining both of them agreed that they were no longer hungry (unless I was planning to serve them something else) and left the table. At least half of their lunch was still uneaten.
Following lunch we have quiet time – one hour of quiet reading and quiet play. Basically, mommy’s sanity hour. Before beginning quiet time, I was indisposed for a few moments. Ahem. (In the bathroom, if you must know – ALONE, can you believe it?!). I can hear them laughing and playing something together. I go to wash my hands only to hear a blood curdling scream from the living room and rush in to find the 2 year old crying while his brother explains that they were using the curtain as a swing and it broke and he hit his head on the window. That’s when I look at the window in horror to realize that they have literally bent the rod supports down and pulled the left side completely from the wall. The little one stops crying, probably because he saw the look on my face, and that’s the moment I lose it. One of those, full volume, you hate yourself when it’s all over yelling moments with your kids (please tell me you have those sometimes too! I’m not the only one, right?). And then I hauled them off to their room for quiet time.
Finally, a moment to regroup and try to get a handle on things. Or so I thought. Well, that lasted about 5 minutes, before the first one popped out to ask if quiet time was over yet. Seriously?! That went on for the next hour, while I tried to get through my bible study homework and repeatedly yelled at them to return to their room. (Don’t you just love the disparity in that scene.) Finally, I gave up. And let the boys into my room. Turns out, they just wanted to spend time with me. (Why couldn’t they just say that?) After a good cuddle, an apology from me on handling things badly today, and reading of a few books together, it was like a reset. For the most part.
I’d like to say that was the end of things for the day, but it wasn’t. I guess not finishing your lunch and having to wait until supper is more difficult than the boys expected. The afternoon stretched out and then I was surrounded by whining and petty arguments while I tried to make supper and waited for my husband to get home, late (thank you Click and Collect – an hour wait? Really??? And then you bring out the wrong order? Sigh). But once the food was served we had a few moments of blessed silence. Food…the answer to cranky children, who knew? Oh, wait…that was me.
Now that they are all tucked away in bed and the house is quiet, I have some time to reflect. Now, I can laugh (okay, smile…I’m not quite at laughing…yet). Now, I can look back and see all of the things I would have done differently. More importantly, I can pray and learn (hopefully) from the mistakes I made today. Not that I didn’t pray throughout the day, but they were more the “Help” prayers: where you tell God what you need Him to do, and would He hurry, and “oh my goodness what is taking so long” kind of prayers, instead of asking for guidance and waiting to hear what He has to say. How often could that moment of listening change our entire situation around, even if the change only happened in us instead of our circumstances?
Sitting here now and pouring out my heart about how this day has gone and just how frustrating it is when my children disobey, I could have sworn I heard Him say “Tell me about it. You should see how my children act all the time.” Touché. Isn’t grace a wonderful thing? Something we can never earn, but is freely given. A gift. And it’s given daily, minutely even. His love poured out on us, shaping us, changing us if we let it, waiting patiently for our repentance if we don’t. Something I long to walk in more of every day. So, (raising my cup of tea…yes, tea, not wine, though that is tempting) here’s to grace. Grace for a new day. Grace poured out on us – freely given so that we can give it. Here’s to living our lives a little more like Jesus every day, as we let Him work in our hearts and move forward from our failings. Here’s to knowing His Love never fails. Here’s to finding the moments of grace and being thankful for them in the middle of the chaos. Here’s to tomorrow. May it be better than today.
“So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.” Colossians 2:6-7
Of Shattered Things 