Good Days and Not So Good Days

Yesterday was just one of those days. The kind you wish you could go back and rewind to try again. It started out great. I was able to wake up early and have time to myself with the Bible and coffee in hand all before Zoe came downstairs demanding breakfast. She woke up in a particularly great mood and was sweet and snuggly. The other two woke up not long after that. As I was feeding everyone breakfast I was excited to tell them we were going on a filed trip to Aww Shucks corn maze and Farm. They were very excited. Ty started getting a little grumpy and I questioned a time or two if the field trip was worth it. In reality I’d much rather had been home cleaning and getting stuff done but decided to seize the moment. I picked up my mom and off we went. The farm was awesome and the kids had a great time. We fed animals, played on their many playgrounds, had a hay ride, and a picnic lunch.

These are some of our, “Perfect looking” day pictures:)

Sounds good so far right? That is until we got home. Oh let me tel ya, this momma was a grouch. It hit me all of a sudden of how exhausted I was from all the running around we had been doing lately. The kids wouldn’t nap, and as I’m sure most of you know, when mammas in a bad mood it spreads like wild-fire. There was fighting, yelling, spankings, Willow getting stuck in a tree outside then getting a splinter, Zoe loosing her blanket, Ty pulling out the entire flower out of my flower-pot, and him  learning to scream to get his point made….the list goes on and on. On top of all this, I had a tutor meeting for our home school group that night. Tim was at the fire station so I had my aunt Debbie come over to hang out with the kids. As I was preparing supper I started wondering what happened and where did it all go wrong.

Just a couple of days ago I was on cloud nine as far as momma time goes. The kids and I had an awesome productive day. We did school that morning since I knew we would miss some this week. We read books outside, went on a walk, got some cleaning done, laughed, snuggled and enjoyed each other. I crashed in bed that night feeling accomplished as if I had conquered the day.

It finally dawned on me that the difference is that we were at home all day on my good day and were running around like crazy people on my bad day. I suddenly felt God’s gentle nudge telling me to slow down. It’s not worth the frustration. God led me through this day to help me prioritize in order to live the most effective life possible. I want to be intentional about the relationships between the kids and I and the ones they form with each other. I want to be intentional about time well spent as a family learning, helping, laughing, and loving or way through this life. All the things we are doing are great, but not at the expense of a grumpy momma and grumpy children. My motto for a while will be less is more!!! What’s your motto to get though the bad days?