Most people know me as a calm, level headed, soft spoken mom. But my family knows different. They see the me that is rigid and always in need to be in control of things. I do not like it when my house is a mess and the children are not doing their work. When there are toys all over the floor and the carpet is covered in dirt, scraps of paper and pencil erasures, muddy dog footprints on the tile, beds unmade and laundry not done I feel like the house is in shambles and that we should be on an episode of hoarders! My skin crawls and I feel my stress level rising.
On a good day I will do a quick clean up and be just fine. On a bad day I will clean while complaining to the kids that if they would just do their chores every day they wouldn't have to hear me yelling at them and calling them little piggies.
I do know that I need to be somewhere in the middle of the two extremes. The girls do need to learn responsibility and clean up after themselves. Getting dressed, and brushing their teeth in the morning should be automatic. I do not believe I should have to tell them every day.
It drives me crazy when they are singing and laughing instead of doing their math, or splashing water all over the counter top and mirror instead of brushing their teeth and washing their sweet little faces.
I fight anger on a daily basis, trying to ignore the little things that get under my skin. I'm usually unsuccessful and I end up telling them to be quite and to do their work. I feel like I need to control every aspect of their life. I wonder where that came from?
I only get this way (controlling and demanding) about things that are my responsibility. If it is my job to make something into a finish product, I will do my very best to make it the best that it can be. But, with children, there are so many uncontrollable variables. How irritating! It is my job that they learn the materials that they need to know for each grade level. Some day they will be going back into public school and I don't want them to be behind in any way. I don't know, maybe that is my pride speaking and not love. Love wants them to grow and mature and to improve themselves, pride wants to turn them into little robots that do not have their own thoughts and imaginations.
God gave me free will, and I have to admit that He also gave it to my children. They love me even when i am mad at them, just as God loves us even when we mess up. Don't get me wrong, I do love my children no matter what! love never comes into question, but the way I'm loving them does.
I love my darling baby girl (who is now 4) when she is dancing around and singing sweetly or cuddling up in my lap much more than when I'm unclogging the toilet from the roll of toilet paper that she decided she needed to use to clean the poo out of her pants. And when I'm cleaning that same poo off the toilet, carpet and out of her underwear, and off her little hinny. I get frustrated by her lack of self control, or her outright rebellion in refusing to go to the bathroom in the toilet, and the mess she makes all over herself and the floor and the toilet and her clothes when trying to clean the mess up herself.
Many times after yelling at the kids for one act of disobedience or another I walk away and reflect. It seams like I always regret yelling or raising my voice at them, and sometimes saying things that I shouldn't. I think about my own mistakes and how I must be giving God the same frustrations my children are giving me. Why can't I just behave and do what God created me to do?
Because, I am human and I am not capable of doing His will on my own. How can I expect more from my children than I do from myself? The fact that I know these things does not change my behavior, and it does not change theirs. All we can do is love each other
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