Linking up with Five Minute Friday today! The theme?

A week ago, I left for a trip to Florida. It was a great gig – a speaking opportunity for the Intervention Project for Nurses, and it was awesome and I’ll write more about it later.

But.

What I’m gonna write about TODAY is how right before I left I was just awful.

I don’t really know why.

Well, I guess I do. I was stressed and tired – I had been packing and cleaning and cooking because when I leave I expect the house to blow up with germs and then they all starve and I come home to a messy house and they’re all gonna look like it’s the Middle Ages, wondering around hungry and dirty, in a peat bog. Possible exaggeration, but you get the idea.

Sometimes when I leave on a speaking trip, I think the world HERE sort of doesn’t… keep… going. You, know, they have done tests on toddlers who are asked what happens when they leave a room and the toddler says, “Nothing, it’s not there any more” because they have no concept of time and space without them IN there too? That’s me. I am right with you, toddlers. You get me.

Anyhow. I promise, I’m gonna get to my point. The cheering thing.

I might have yelled at my boys. Just a weensy bit. While we were driving home from groceries. And you KNOW grocery shopping is the gateway to crazy.

They got yelled at because this:

Me: Would you guys like an ice cream cone from McBadForYou?

Them: Yes! No! Wait! And a burger and fries and on one of those happy meals with the toy that is useless and made in China tooooooooooo.

Me: Sigh. No. Just ice cream.

Them: But WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYY my life is meaningless and small without the toyyyyyyyy that does nothinggggg it completes meeeeeeeee.

Me: OK Y’ALL I HAVE HAD JUST ABOUT ENOUGH.

Let me just stop right here. Because this is where I launched into Mom Lecture #456 about Let’s Be Grateful for All the Things or So Help Me, and nobody needs to listen to all that.

It was a lecture that went on a teensy weensy bit longer than needed. And there might have been some loud voices. And yes, it was really not a good Mom moment.

So, finally, as I was taking a breath, and revving up for Mom Lecture #457 called And Another Thing! I hear it:

A small voice from the back seat.

“Mom. You’re leaving tomorrow. Don’t get mad before you leave.”

I know. He’s good.

The voice was from Blonde, and I have to say – he really knows how to work a room. And what followed was a good solid ten minute drive of silence and me stewing in total Mom Guilt + self loathing + anxiety about my children + future therapy bills + all the awfulness of the world.

So, as the ten minutes passed I decided that I was too terrible for air. And when I get that way I usually do one of two things:

1. Sob uncontrollably until hiccups.
2. Pray.

Bet you can’t guess which one is the better option?

I prayed, out loud, and asked for forgiveness and a steadfast spirit and please, PLEASE better Mom skills because Lord I am so being sent back to the minors here.

And then I said:

“Boys? Do you forgive me? ‘Cuz, I am sorry I yelled. I do want us to work on gratitude, but I’m pretty sure there are better ways to be grateful than being yelled at for it.’

And Blonde and Red forgave me.

And then we all CHEERED UP.

And so, my final, tie it all together, end with the big lesson, huge hurrah, here is this:

God asks us to be cheerful. It’s the bravest thing we can do, every day.

And when we aren’t cheerful and we are awful to each other? Whiney? Ungrateful? Screechy? We can ask for forgiveness.

Asking forgiveness = instant CHEER!

Boom. It’s a powerful formula.

You’re welcome.  🙂