The people we've always wanted to be...

On a typical day, I go to bed feeling like I have made some big mistakes throughout the day. I yelled at Miriam for this, got impatient with Seth for that and spoke harshly to Eric for no good reason etc...

When I wake up and think of how I would like my day to pan out, it usually involves fun playtime with my kids, being open and considerate of their opinions and concerns and being non-judgemental about their feelings.  It all gets blown out of the water once I pour Miriam a bowl of cereal and she starts screaming, "I wanted it in a BIG bowl.  There needs to be more cereal!  Now I need more milk!  NO! I wanted chocolate milk!!  I don't want Seth to look at me!  Lucy touched me!"  and on and on for the rest of the day...

Well - for the first time in a long, long time, I made it through the day feeling good about the way I acted ALL day!    Wednesday was one of several gorgeous days we had this week.  We spent much of the day between the driveway, where we were painting and drawing with chalk, the backyard, where we played with the sandbox, and the school playground, where we played with other kids.

On the way home from the playground 2 brothers were playing on the sidewalk, one on a bike and one on a scooter.  The little guy on the scooter tried to go around us, following his brother's example and went on the grass, promptly flew off the scooter and scraped his face across someone's driveway.  My girls were so well behaved, we walked the boy home and got him to his mommy and continued on our way.

When I got home Lucy was asleep in the stroller so I grabbed us all a freezee and sat outside in the sun.  A couple minutes later 2 fine looking young men from World Vision approached us.  They were dressed nicely, spoke politely and ended up convincing me to sponsor a child close to Seth's age.  I let them sit down, got them a tasty freezee and sat and chatted with them for a while when all of a sudden my neighbours kids came running through the backyard.  (there was a small hole which the kids were climbing through to sneak into our backyard but it kept snagging them and there was rusty nails hanging out so we opened up a bigger hole and now the foreseeable future involves 2 extra little awesome guys and their equally awesome mom hanging out in the backyard, which I think is awesome)  So they had some freezee's too and Seth got to show them the caterpillar he found while walking home from school.

I'm not saying all this to toot my own horn, I am saying this because there are days when I think I will NEVER be the patient, loving and understanding person I am always trying to be.  I always think I need to be a good example to my children, and go to bed feeling like there was something I did that I need to apologize for.  But if this was possible one day this week, maybe it will be possible 2 days next month... and 3 days the following month... and maybe no days the next month because summer break the coming and that means more kids will be here, but who knows!?!?!

I guess the point is, I hope my kids remember days like Wednesday when they have grown up and are raising their own kids.  I hope they forget the days I snapped a little to early or didn't answer their calls immediately.  I'm sure that won't be the way it works out, but hopefully we will all be able to look back on these crazy child rearing years and laugh about the insanity and chaos that seems to completely consumes me on a daily basis.