Undeserved gift

Saturday was a busy busy day. Well all Saturdays are but this one was start to finish full of things to do and places to be. Of course if Mom had been able to get this weekend off we would have met up in Chamberlain for our gift exchange and holiday time together but that has been rescheduled to the Monday after Christmas. Instead it was off to Yankton for a birthday party for my niece Raelynn.

The birthday party was not scheduled to start until 2 and it was ok if we could show up a little late since we did have to travel a distance to get there. The loving husband takes Hapkido classes twice a month and this Saturday was one of those days. He needed to be in Brookings by 10 for the two hour class. Brookings is one hour north of Sioux Falls so even if he left a few minutes early he would not get to Sioux Falls til 1 and Yankton is an hour and a half south of us. Complicating matters was the loving husband's Christmas gift I (he) got him. It was a very large and heavy gun safe. It was at Sam's Club and needed to be picked up. Jim's mom has a pick-up so he planned on driving the truck back, picking the safe up and dropping it off at our house and then taking the truck back the next day. After much debate and deliberating we came up with a plan of action for the day.

The plan was for him to do class and meet up with me and the kids at the Wellness Center and we would take both vehicles down so I would not have to drive back to Yankton the next day and pick him up after he gave the truck back to his mom. While he was at class I would get the kids ready and go to the Wellness Center and do the cardio box class at 10:15. We also offer our help to any of our fellow Tae Kwan Do students on Saturdays after the cardio class is over so if our usual 2 takers showed up I would do a short help session and then take the kids and feed them and be back by 1 or so and hopefully be ready to take off for the party.

As we all know, the best laid plans never play out as we want them to. When the loving husband left all children were awake....and that was about it. Weekends usually mean pancakes and eggs for breakfast but I really did not have time to make pancakes so I just did 2 minute microwave scrambled eggs and cinnamon toast instead. I wanted to have the kids dressed and fed and out to the car by 9:30ish or no later than 9:45 because it is a 20 minute drive to get there and another 5-10 minutes parking and getting 3 kids signed into the nursery. I quickly realized the kids did not share my time frame of events. They were stuck in slow mode with zero sense of urgency. Repeated attempts to persuade child A,B,or C to sit at the table and eat the food and please put on the clothing I have set out for you fell upon deaf ears. Did I mention this was a pool party so I also had to make sure I had every one's swim suits, towels, and swim diapers packed along with my gym bag and the birthday gift too. Yeah, it was one of those mornings.

During the time I was attempting to heard cats (wrangle children) my stress level started to climb. The closer I came to realize there was no way I was going make my timeline and would miss the class the crabbier I got. All I wanted to do was leave and no matter what I did or did not do I could not get things going in the manner I wanted them to. I began to do what all stressed out crabby people do, blame someone else. As I was going from task to task and back to task A and back over to task C and so on and so forth I started to mumble and grumble to myself under my breath. They were not nice mumbles and grumbles either. I was on the "poor me" road and having my very own pity party. Poor me has to do all this work and poor me has to get the kids ready and poor me has to pack things and poor me etc. and etc. Of course while "poor me" was getting elevated to martyrdom the not so loving husband was being demoted to the doghouse. It's HIS fault that..... and why didn't HE...... and doesn't HE realize that I.... and you get the picture. Don't worry, I never once picked up the phone and communicated my feelings to him, I know sometimes it's better to leave some things unsaid. I'd also like to say that the loving husband was the only target of my irritation but of course that would not be telling the truth. Sad to say my tone was quite sharp with the kids as I tried in vain to get everyone dressed and loaded. Poor Matthew, he seems to sense when I'm stressed or in a bad mood and he acts out. He was picking fights with Carolyn and of course she was playing right into it and Andrew decided to protest wearing clothes. I think I lost count of how many times I snapped at the kids and elevated the yell level up to playground level. It was not pretty.

At some point in all of this I realized I was indeed acting like a selfish spoiled brat with my whining and complaining. Unfortunately for me even though I realize what I'm doing I don't always make myself stop. It's like watching a train wreck, you know it's gonna be messy but you just can't look away. Knowing I was behaving horridly, I offered apologies to God for my thoughts and actions. Nothing fancy or formal, just basically your "I'm so sorry God, I know I should not be doing this I really am sorry." Just so you all know, I don't do the formal prayer thing very often. I usually just do the look up and talk to God method of communicating. I find that if I just start speaking to Him like I would to a person in the room with me I convey my thoughts and feeling so much better than if I try to kneel down and bow my head. I knew I was stressed and taking it out on others and all I could hope for was to make it through the day without causing further distress on others and ruining every one's day.

Well I made it to the Wellness Center too late for my class so I instead did a quick work out. That did make me feel better and the half hour I spent with the 2 red belts was very productive. I was still a little on the crabby side and not looking forward to the long drive with the kids but compared to the morning I was much much better. Due to the time and lunch efforts we decided to meet at a nearby Burger King and the loving husband agreed to stop by Taco John's to get us something tasty. We both are not huge fans of either McDonald's or Burger King so if possible we do TJ's and the kids do burgers.

After eating it was time to make travel arraignments. I have the DVD player in my van but the loving husband has the "daddy's car" factor. I don't know why the kids like to ride in the Malibu but they do. I expected Matthew and Carolyn would opt for the car but Andrew has now decided that he needs to do what the older kids do and made it a point to open up the door and sit in Jim's car sans car seat. That meant 3 votes for daddy's car. I happily helped load the booster and car seats into the Malibu. I kissed the loving husband bye and off he went.

I got back into my now empty van, looked up and said 'Thank you for the incredible gift you just gave me Lord". Alone, by myself, solo, oh the wonder, oh the joy, oh the indescribable feeling of happiness. I had a whole hour and a half of just me and whatever radio station I wanted to listen to. No breaking up fights, no listening to whatever annoying DVD the kids picked (and fought over) to watch, no having to answer strange questions or remind someone that "poop" or any form of the word is not appropriate conversation. This was exactly what I needed.

As I was driving to Yankton, I wondered in amazement at how I had been so blessed to get this precious alone time. I really did not deserve to be rewarded for my morning behavior. If one of my children had acted the way I did they would have received some sort of punishment or consequence. By all rights I should have been in the van with all children enduring the trip and all the misery I would have assigned it. Yes, I needed the break, and yes I could have asked the loving husband to take all children but no, I would never have done that. Crabby as I was I would never in a million years suggested to the loving husband that I wanted to drive solo just to get a break. I'm not sure why I don't always ask for the help, maybe it's my pride or the guilt I would feel "dumping" the kids on daddy. Either way, God knew what I needed and even though I acted horridly and reverted to a child's level in my petty (and unfounded) complaints, he still gave it to me. I took that time and de-stressed. I recharged the batteries that had been so worn down and adjusted my attitude. I had been shown mercy and compassion when I deserved reprimand and punishment so I let gratitude take hold of my heart. As a parent I hate it when my children whine and complain endlessly and go on and on and expect me to fix things for them. Actually, it drives me nuts when they do that and all I want to do is get rid of them ASAP. It still boggles my mind that I can do the same things the kids do and instead of driving God crazy and making Him want to brush me off at the first opportunity He listens to my complaints, looks into my heart and does what He can to fix it. My parenting skills suck compared to His, but I also strive harder to be more like Him when it comes to parenting. I can parent my children the way He parents me. I know it's hard and I'm going to make mistakes but at least I know He has my back.

ps. In case you were wondering about the rest of the day, it went great. The party was loud and chaotic with lots of crazy kids running around and then we got to go swimming and we had a blast. I even went down the HUGE water slide but that's a different post.