Imperfect

I still haven’t figured out how to be patient, especially with the kids. On days when I’m already feeling lousy, my capacity for patience seems significantly diminished. Take today, for example…

Our new door, courtesy of Jarom’s grandma, was finally being installed, and I’d gotten up around 7:30 since the installer was scheduled for 8. I went to bed early so I’d be rested, but that didn’t happen. And I was on edge because I was worried something would go wrong with the door, or we’d be stuck at home all day while they installed it (which, I realize, is not the end of the world), and also that whole thing about Tiny Baby. The kids were fairly well-behaved the whole time, and I didn’t even notice that it was getting toward the end of the “naptime safe zone.” You know, if I put June down too late, she won’t be tired at bedtime. (By the way, did you catch that I’m talking about June’s naps? She takes them again! Daily! Thank you to whoever prayed for that!!!)

I told June it was almost naptime, to which she sweetly replied, “No, it’s happy time!” As I went to pick her up she jumped – quite forcefully for her size – and slammed her head into my nose. For the second time today. It really hurt…a lot…and I was running out of energy/motivation/positive feelings anyway, so I didn’t exercise patience. I shouted at June, which made her cry, and I unlovingly put her in bed for her nap. I didn’t even look at her, I just shut the door and went in to my bed, where I cried about being a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad mom.

Then I fell asleep.

I woke up a few times, mainly because Evan kept coming in to show me the new Lego thing he’d built, and every time I woke up I was shaking. Not violently, but still – it was weird. June ended up sleeping over 2 hours, and by the time we were both done napping I wasn’t shaking anymore. Sadly, I also didn’t have any more patience. I hoped a nap would do some magic recharge on that.

Good news, though: at bedtime I had both kids clean up their rooms, and aside from supervising, I didn’t help at all. They picked up everything and put it all away. This is big, because it actually requires a lot of patience on my part to let them clean up in their distracted, very slow way. It would be so much quicker to do it myself. But Evan and June both managed to get things tidied (eventually), so maybe I’m making progress – even if I’m far from perfect.