Patience

Patience is the one thing I pray for most as a mother. After the health and safety of my children, of course. I like to think I am a pretty easygoing person. I like to think that I go with the flow and all. But when it comes to my children, especially if it is after 5 o'clock, I feel like sometimes I am stretched so thin, I just can't bend and give any more. I want to stomp my feet and cry and yell and throw a tantrum that I"M NOT GETTING MY WAY, WAAAHHH!

But, then, who would listen? It wouldn't make Jack stop licking flour off the counter. It wouldn't make the basket of laundry that's been sitting in the baby's room for three days get put away any faster. It wouldn't make my noisy angels go to bed any sooner. It also wouldn't finish my husband's homework so that he could relax and play with us.

So, I remind myself that it doesn't hurt anything if Jack licks flour from the counter or clean clothes sit in a basket yet another day. If I just sit and breathe, then, this too shall pass.

Before I can blink, I will be begging Jack to bake cookies with me and laughing about how he used to eat straight flour and tell me how it was so good. I will be barking at Sarah to pick up the dirty clothes off of her floor and reminiscing about the little pink dresses she used to wear.

This is hard. This is a hard hard job. I do menial tasks that glare at me, why can't you just get these things done? And I have little dependant people who need me for everything: eating, drinking, changing, playing. And I just can't seem to make everybody follow my schedule. I can't dictate when we do things, including going to the bathroom and going to bed. When I type it out it seems ridiculous. I certainly can't condition my family so that every hour goes as planned where I get plenty of rest and everybody has clean clothes and delicious meals to eat.

And so, I will have patience. Patience knowing that these babies are only babies for a short time. Patience knowing that they may not remember every single thing we have done together, but I sure don't want them to remember their mama snapping at them when all they wanted to do was play.