Completion and Frustration



The good news: The new kids' room is complete!! The bad news: I've been feeling so crummy that I haven't been able to pull it together like I want to. I'll put one photo up so that all the hard work of the wainscoting can be appreciated. But I'll wait until I can do the finishing touches before posting before/after pictures.


Last Friday, I started feeling yicky, only to realize that I was plagued with a fever (accompanied with body aches). As of yesterday, I still had the fever and the aches. Since I went through this in February as well, I'm ready to be done with fevers!

I'm ashamed to say that yesterday was a very low moment in my three-and-a-half years as a mother. I felt so worn out and achy that I wasn't any fun to be around. And Adrianna let me know that, too. She used bossy words to me all morning. "Mom, carry me now... Mom, you need to go get that." That was hardly okay with me! But she started reacting to how I was acting, and both of our ugly sides reared their heads. My ugliest moment was when I sliced my shoulder on her dresser after wiping up her potty mess on her carpet. I just started sobbing, shaking with pain and frustration. I tried to pull myself together to take her to the bathroom. She looked me in the eye and said, "Mom, stop crying!!" Not quite the sympathy I was looking for. As a rule, I don't believe in spanking, but I spanked her. And we had a discussion after that, believe me!

Boy, did I pray last night and this morning. I did not want a repeat of yesterday, for either of us. Today, she hasn't even tried being "Miss Bossy" and I have tried very hard not to be a kill-joy. And, as I type, I think she might even been taking a nap (first one this week).

God's grace is sufficient even for me -- Thank You, God!

Comments

Bloom Where You Are Planted said…
Oh, Sweet Sister! We've ALL been there! You are human, we all are. You handled it beautifully after when you talked with her about it...believe me, God can use those "mommy moments" to teach powerful lessons to our kids and ourselves.

Grace. You need to really offer it to yourself, the TAKE it. Then, forgiveness needs to follow.

We just completed the book, "She's Gonna Blow" with a women's group at church. What we all learned from it was that we ALL struggle with the pressures of mommyhood. We WILL make mistakes with our kids.

What matters most is what we do with the mistakes afterwards.

I am amazed that this is your first mommy moment like this! I've had so many. You are not alone.

You are not a bad mom and not even close to one. Just human.
April 2, 2009 at 3:18 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Driving on

Image
After eleven years and 127,000 miles, Scott's Saturn has driven on.  That amazing little economical Saturn saw us through life in the college dorms, life in married student housing, our first apartment, our first home, our first relocation, and the addition of our two kids.   We're happy to say it ended up in good hands, with my cousin, Angei, and her husband, Adam.  We had a wonderful time visiting with them for a speedy 12 hours, before they needed to drive it on to its new home.  We even got to show them some small town fun at our annual Christmas parade. Thank you for the loyal service, Saturn.
Read more

Meet Abel!

Image
We are praising God this morning!  After two unsuccessful court dates, we passed court in Ethiopia today! And what verse should I read this morning, but Psalm 34:3... "Oh, magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together."    (When I read it, I was hoping beyond hope that I would be able to post it on here after we passed court!) Now we are finally allowed to introduce our son to you!  His name is Abel (which means "breath").  We love his name and are so excited to raise our son in the legacy of the Biblical Abel, a faithful and righteous man, and the first prophet (Luke 11:46-51). These are the pictures I have been longing to share.  The first is the referral picture -- the first glimpse we got of our little boy. Here are the pictures we took of us with Abel's picture, which we put together on a ring to send to him.  (We're hoping he'll get to see those now that we have passed court!) The following are ones that families trav...
Read more

Teaching supplies

Image
I have an inkling that teaching supplies do not spark a wide-eyed wonder in most of the readers of this blog.  I also have a feeling that most people would wonder why I "wasted" my time, staying up until 1:00 am on Friday night and working another three hours on Saturday morning to reorganize the aforementioned supplies. Well, teaching supplies do spark wide-eyed wonder in me -- always have.  And over the years that my supplies have been in my garage, they have gone through times where they have become very hard to reach -- through the layer of lawn mowers, ladders, strollers, spare chairs, and so forth.  The whole reason I have these supplies (and have added to them from garage sale finds over the years) is to use with my children and with children whom I teach.  Having all these goodies available while teaching Adrianna and her friends preschool over the last two years has been invaluable.   But it reached the point with my supplies where that lay...
Read more