Monday was an interesting sort of day. There was so much damage control from the weekend with absolutely non-stop action and that can lend itself to a very overwhelming Monday. Monday is my blocked off day. I rarely try to schedule anything on that day besides school, working out and cleaning.
The vacuum has been on its way out for a few years now but totally died 2 weeks ago. I could hardly stand not vacuuming so after my workout,and 1/2 our home cleaned, we headed to our local store to buy a new vacuum. That is kind of where the day started unraveling. Hannah is just all over the place. I can't remember quite having any child quite like this before. To be honest, I don't think I have.
When I arrive at the store, I have a mission: ( i.e.: I had researched what type of vacuum I wanted prior to going to the store), I pile the kids out the car, " Hold hands, hold hands,", run in, locate item, retrieve, hustle to check out, pay and leave. My internal goal is 7 minutes or LESS. I try to always shoot for the less.
Shopping casually is not an option for me at the moment and its not enjoyable. Well, Austen reminded me that I told him I would buy him a notebook and we still had to get crickets. Good thing, both of those store are next to each other, bad thing, that is two more store encounters. It just began to feel more and more overwhelming and much was do to the huge mess still at home and the school that needed to be accomplished.
We ran in, conquered and ran out. HOME finally. I put Hannah to bed, had the kids do quiet time and finished up downstairs. That's where I just felt so overwhelmed like, " How is this all going to happen?". I walked up stairs and the boys' room was a disaster. I could feel that tornado brewing in my head of everything piling on top of the other....where I was getting to the point where smiling was forced. The boys then asked, " Mama, could we do water balloons? The ones that look like grenades?"
Come, Holy Spirit. I felt the Holy Spirit nudging me and saying, " Go fill them up." We went downstairs and ended up filling up 30 balloons. As we stepped outside the stress of the day started falling off of me and we laughed, smiled, chased, ran, and became soaked.
Have you ever had to make "water balloon" choices? They are not easy to make. They take a lot of restraint and force us to decide what our attitude is going to be like, what atmosphere are we going to set for our family and our home. I'm thankful for the Holy Spirit. I'm thankful that I chose to not stay in my feelings of "whirlwind" and to remove myself and enjoy my children. We are faced with choices each day- next time you are feeling out of control, life is crushing down on you, school is not happening the way you thought, your house is a disaster, dinner is burnt, etc. Pick up a " water balloon", throw it and laugh. You'll be glad you did, and the Holy Spirit will be able to mold your hearts to his because you were able to remove yourself from your immediate circumstance. This doesn't mean your circumstances or situations go away, it just means you are choosing to walk through it with a Christ like attitude.
1 comment:
Amanda, SUCH a great post! I am right there with ya, sister! In fact, I just sent a guest post off called "The Big Meltdown" (a plate melted in our microwave, and it symbolized how I was fighting against my own bad mood that day).
I like picturing the water balloon!
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