I want to tell you all a little story about a day that I had recently, yesterday in fact!
I'll start where my day always seems to start: Six am on the dot with a mouth breathing Isabella standing right beside my bed. Anyone else have one of those type of children? The ones that wake at the same absurd hour of the early morning? Both of my children have inherited that lovely trait from their father, not from me!
Anywho, I could sense that she was there; standing beside me, staring at me, willing me to wake up. You know, that ability to feel someone's presence before you actually see them? Yep, that is how I wake up most mornings since Matthew left on his deployment.
And so the day started! Conner was already awake as well, I could hear him 'talking' to himself in his bedroom. So in we went to get Conner up and changed to bring downstairs with us. Only problem, Conner woke up on the wrong side of the bed on this particular morning. So begins that whining, that whining that is high pitch and long lasting and gets under your skin really quick....yeah that type of whining. He didn't want anything that I had to offer him, not a milk bottle, not breakfast, not cars or a television show. Kid should not have been awake yet, he was obviously still tired but didn't want to go back to bed and miss out on all the wonderful morning stuff that we'd be doing. (Like trying to resemble a normal human at 6am with a whining toddler.)
And yet there is a faint nudging from God:
Burn it down.
For those that don't know, we homeschool Isabella. So before we start school we have to have breakfast and get dressed. So that is what we did, just like any other normal day. They ate and we went upstairs to get dressed and groomed for the day. After dressing came the grooming and Isabella spotted the nail polish in her medicine cabinet. Of course she begged me to paint her nails and Conner whined because he now wanted the bottles since his sister had them. New plan! I tell Isabella that I will paint her nails after she finished her school work and hand over the bottles to Conner until then. That worked! For about 15 minutes.
Isabella did her school work and Conner played nicely. That's a win right? Why did I not consider that a win at the time!? Why did I only notice what was going wrong?
Burn it down.
As promised, we painted Isabella's nails. She knows she has to hold still to let the paint dry. She has had her nails painted before, plus I reminded her at least 3 times before, during and after said act. What does she do? She messes them up. Alright, slap a couple more coats on there and it'll be OK. This time I had her hold her hands like she was praying and I did her hair while her nail dried. That worked. Until she decided to play cars with Conner while the nails still weren't quite dry. Que messed up nails and Isabella not wanting Mommy to know about it.
Mean while, I am packing up to go to Bible study that we have on Wednesday mornings. Conner ventures upstairs to whine at my feet for only he knows what. That's when he sees the lunch box where I pack all of their snacks for our outings. Commence whining for snacks!
Guys, by this time I am just so ready to get a break from the whining and neediness that I rush us into the car to start heading over to the church. I start the car and realize that I need to go get gas! Didn't plan for that but since I rushed us we do have time. Isabella got into the van and was literally sitting on her hand and didn't want to show me her fingernails. I finally go her to show them to me at the gas station and she was nearly in tears because she didn't want to show anyone her messed up nails at the church. It broke my heart, we drove back home after the gas station to get the nail polish remover so that she would not be too busy hiding her hands at church to play with her friends. But that was one more thing that threw my morning off.
Burn it down!
Finally we get to Bible study! I am so relieved to have a break from the kids that I would seriously be up for learning anything! :). The study was wonderful. We read about Elijah and answered a lot of eye opening questions about him. I had a great time. That is a win too, right? I wish I could appreciate the wins more in the moment!
Time to go get the kids! After bible study I had a renewed vigor and I knew what my plan was going to be for the day. I felt better. For a moment. Then Conner fell asleep right before we got to the farmstead I was planning on going to AND the farm stand was closing up because they had already sold out for the day! Great, that means I would have to make a special trip to the grocery store (since I already went for the week) just for the veggies that I'd planned on getting there. Time to go home. For some reason this made me feel like my whole day had been shot. WHY!? Why do we let little things turn into big things like this?
Burn it down!
We are home now. Normally I can transfer Conner pretty easily from he car to his crib. This time, he woke up. I tried to coax him back to sleep but nothing worked. Since he had slept for about 20 minutes he thought that was his nap for the day and he was not going to sleep anymore. Isabella has long since given up naps and with Conner awake, she wasn't going to be able to have a rest period either.
I get Conner up and change his diaper. At this point I notice a little redness on his bottom so instead of putting on a new diaper I decided to let him air out for a bit. Not even 2 minutes later as he is climbing down the stairs, he poops!
SO, here we are, all wake, mom is exhausted and feeling like the day has been a wreck and now has to clean up poop off the carpeted stairs. What do we do? (Besides clean up the poop of course!)
BURN IT DOWN!
I put on a movie. I sat back while my children started to watch "Trolls" for the 23rd time and thought about the day. I thought about what went wrong. I thought about how tired I was. Then God nudged me. All day this saying has been in the back of my mind. I needed to burn it down. I needed to forget about the wrongs and redirect my thoughts. I needed to appreciate all the things that had gone right. I needed to burn down the need for control and predictability in my day. I needed to lose control.
So what did we do? I cleared the kitchen table, set out paint and paint brushes, brought in the pumpkins that they kids had picked out a few days prior and we painted! For those of you that know me, to let the kids paint pumpkins, inside and on my dining room table is pretty uncharacteristic. Normally I would have papers down or even have them do it outside. Today, I let go. I wanted to change the attitude of the day and essentially the outcome of the day. I burned down my need for cleanliness and order. I had to begin again in order to enjoy what was left of our day.
We had a great time painting pumpkins. We ended our painting session with a bath and even took the paint brushes in to clean as well. Double duty, and mom doesn't have to clean them! The kids enjoyed their bath and I was able to appreciate all the giggles with a new spirit for the day. I wanted to take advantage of the turn of attitude so we got bundled up and went to the park to play in the freshly fallen leaves. I even brought my camera along for some great fall photos of the kids.
Don't get me wrong, we still had our tough moments. Like when Conner tried to run away from me at the park or both kids whined that they were hungry the whole way home. But I chose to focus on the positives. Like how Isabella had helped Conner sit up on a bench with her at the park when he couldn't do it himself or how Conner had laughed when he threw leaves up into the air and they fell on his head.
Burn it down! It means that we don't all have it together. We may portray ourselves as perfect people because we wish that we could be but in reality, those highlight reels that we see on social media, they don't show the whole truth of what our days are like. We don't have to be afraid of being ourselves. I don't have to be afraid of being myself and showing the reality of my life. Don't fall for the trap of comparison or thinking that someone 'has it all together' by looking at their highlights. Now you know the real story behind the 'picture perfect' photos.
I hope that this helps some mom's heart to know that even if it looks like another mom has it all together, it is more likely that she doesn't. We don't have it all together but we do have an all together God that can help you turn your days around and redirect your focus on Him and what really matters.
I'll start where my day always seems to start: Six am on the dot with a mouth breathing Isabella standing right beside my bed. Anyone else have one of those type of children? The ones that wake at the same absurd hour of the early morning? Both of my children have inherited that lovely trait from their father, not from me!
Anywho, I could sense that she was there; standing beside me, staring at me, willing me to wake up. You know, that ability to feel someone's presence before you actually see them? Yep, that is how I wake up most mornings since Matthew left on his deployment.
And so the day started! Conner was already awake as well, I could hear him 'talking' to himself in his bedroom. So in we went to get Conner up and changed to bring downstairs with us. Only problem, Conner woke up on the wrong side of the bed on this particular morning. So begins that whining, that whining that is high pitch and long lasting and gets under your skin really quick....yeah that type of whining. He didn't want anything that I had to offer him, not a milk bottle, not breakfast, not cars or a television show. Kid should not have been awake yet, he was obviously still tired but didn't want to go back to bed and miss out on all the wonderful morning stuff that we'd be doing. (Like trying to resemble a normal human at 6am with a whining toddler.)
And yet there is a faint nudging from God:
Burn it down.
For those that don't know, we homeschool Isabella. So before we start school we have to have breakfast and get dressed. So that is what we did, just like any other normal day. They ate and we went upstairs to get dressed and groomed for the day. After dressing came the grooming and Isabella spotted the nail polish in her medicine cabinet. Of course she begged me to paint her nails and Conner whined because he now wanted the bottles since his sister had them. New plan! I tell Isabella that I will paint her nails after she finished her school work and hand over the bottles to Conner until then. That worked! For about 15 minutes.
Isabella did her school work and Conner played nicely. That's a win right? Why did I not consider that a win at the time!? Why did I only notice what was going wrong?
Burn it down.
As promised, we painted Isabella's nails. She knows she has to hold still to let the paint dry. She has had her nails painted before, plus I reminded her at least 3 times before, during and after said act. What does she do? She messes them up. Alright, slap a couple more coats on there and it'll be OK. This time I had her hold her hands like she was praying and I did her hair while her nail dried. That worked. Until she decided to play cars with Conner while the nails still weren't quite dry. Que messed up nails and Isabella not wanting Mommy to know about it.
Mean while, I am packing up to go to Bible study that we have on Wednesday mornings. Conner ventures upstairs to whine at my feet for only he knows what. That's when he sees the lunch box where I pack all of their snacks for our outings. Commence whining for snacks!
Guys, by this time I am just so ready to get a break from the whining and neediness that I rush us into the car to start heading over to the church. I start the car and realize that I need to go get gas! Didn't plan for that but since I rushed us we do have time. Isabella got into the van and was literally sitting on her hand and didn't want to show me her fingernails. I finally go her to show them to me at the gas station and she was nearly in tears because she didn't want to show anyone her messed up nails at the church. It broke my heart, we drove back home after the gas station to get the nail polish remover so that she would not be too busy hiding her hands at church to play with her friends. But that was one more thing that threw my morning off.
Burn it down!
Finally we get to Bible study! I am so relieved to have a break from the kids that I would seriously be up for learning anything! :). The study was wonderful. We read about Elijah and answered a lot of eye opening questions about him. I had a great time. That is a win too, right? I wish I could appreciate the wins more in the moment!
Time to go get the kids! After bible study I had a renewed vigor and I knew what my plan was going to be for the day. I felt better. For a moment. Then Conner fell asleep right before we got to the farmstead I was planning on going to AND the farm stand was closing up because they had already sold out for the day! Great, that means I would have to make a special trip to the grocery store (since I already went for the week) just for the veggies that I'd planned on getting there. Time to go home. For some reason this made me feel like my whole day had been shot. WHY!? Why do we let little things turn into big things like this?
Burn it down!
We are home now. Normally I can transfer Conner pretty easily from he car to his crib. This time, he woke up. I tried to coax him back to sleep but nothing worked. Since he had slept for about 20 minutes he thought that was his nap for the day and he was not going to sleep anymore. Isabella has long since given up naps and with Conner awake, she wasn't going to be able to have a rest period either.
I get Conner up and change his diaper. At this point I notice a little redness on his bottom so instead of putting on a new diaper I decided to let him air out for a bit. Not even 2 minutes later as he is climbing down the stairs, he poops!
SO, here we are, all wake, mom is exhausted and feeling like the day has been a wreck and now has to clean up poop off the carpeted stairs. What do we do? (Besides clean up the poop of course!)
BURN IT DOWN!
I put on a movie. I sat back while my children started to watch "Trolls" for the 23rd time and thought about the day. I thought about what went wrong. I thought about how tired I was. Then God nudged me. All day this saying has been in the back of my mind. I needed to burn it down. I needed to forget about the wrongs and redirect my thoughts. I needed to appreciate all the things that had gone right. I needed to burn down the need for control and predictability in my day. I needed to lose control.
So what did we do? I cleared the kitchen table, set out paint and paint brushes, brought in the pumpkins that they kids had picked out a few days prior and we painted! For those of you that know me, to let the kids paint pumpkins, inside and on my dining room table is pretty uncharacteristic. Normally I would have papers down or even have them do it outside. Today, I let go. I wanted to change the attitude of the day and essentially the outcome of the day. I burned down my need for cleanliness and order. I had to begin again in order to enjoy what was left of our day.
We had a great time painting pumpkins. We ended our painting session with a bath and even took the paint brushes in to clean as well. Double duty, and mom doesn't have to clean them! The kids enjoyed their bath and I was able to appreciate all the giggles with a new spirit for the day. I wanted to take advantage of the turn of attitude so we got bundled up and went to the park to play in the freshly fallen leaves. I even brought my camera along for some great fall photos of the kids.
Don't get me wrong, we still had our tough moments. Like when Conner tried to run away from me at the park or both kids whined that they were hungry the whole way home. But I chose to focus on the positives. Like how Isabella had helped Conner sit up on a bench with her at the park when he couldn't do it himself or how Conner had laughed when he threw leaves up into the air and they fell on his head.
Burn it down! It means that we don't all have it together. We may portray ourselves as perfect people because we wish that we could be but in reality, those highlight reels that we see on social media, they don't show the whole truth of what our days are like. We don't have to be afraid of being ourselves. I don't have to be afraid of being myself and showing the reality of my life. Don't fall for the trap of comparison or thinking that someone 'has it all together' by looking at their highlights. Now you know the real story behind the 'picture perfect' photos.
I hope that this helps some mom's heart to know that even if it looks like another mom has it all together, it is more likely that she doesn't. We don't have it all together but we do have an all together God that can help you turn your days around and redirect your focus on Him and what really matters.
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