Come here my little pretty!

At various times throughout the day today, the children have burst into the room to declare, "Hey mom, your the scary monster who tries to come eat all the little children safe in their house," or "Oh, mom, now your the mean pirate who wants to steal all the toys on the boat from the little kids," and my favorite, "you're the evil dragon who's vacuuming and trying to suck up all the kids!" I have also had the unintentional privilege of being a hungry lion and some kind of ferocious beast who was forced to fight the sword wielding Peter with nothing more than a stack of laundry.

I am not sure if I should be pleased that none of them were willing to assume the role of such vile characters, or concerned that I was their constant favorite.

Mommy and all her sweet little prey

Small Successes

I am once again joining Faith & Family Live for the Thursday's Small Successes, because,

"It’s important for moms to recognize that all the small successes in our days can add up to one big triumph. So on Thursday of each week, we do exactly that."

1. I got up before all the children one morning and enjoyed a truly relaxing moment with our Lord during my morning prayer time. Although He never tires of their constant interruptions, my simple mind usually lacks the clarity of thought to construct a coherent thought through them. This simple success I owe to another, though...

2. That other being, I went to bed at the time I should, despite the piles of potential good I could have done and the anguish it caused to know I would be greeted by those same piles in the morning.

3. And for the third, I have to offer quite a great success actually. I ate a hamburger this weekend that was a little on the burnt side, and by a little I mean, it crunched right up to the very heart of it. Normally, upon picking up my burger and realizing my hands were as black from the patty as they were red from the ketchup, I would have cut my loses, chucked the black disc to the Frisbee players, and waited for the picnic food line to shorten before trying my chances at a second lunch. BUT, I have been trying to find a simple sacrifice at each meal to offer up, hoping to temper my senses with a simple gift to our Lord, so when I saw the eager teenage server select the patty most resembling a hockey puck, just for me, I knew my Lord was offering me the grace to persevere where I might have chosen simply to eat.

Diapers

One of the unfortunate disadvantages of having so many bundles of joy bouncing around our lives, is that occasionally a detail or two will go unnoticed. One of those details, overlooked somewhere between the potential peanut butter face paint for snack and the narrowly averted toilet eruption by an over zealous wiper, was Daniel's post snack attire, but, for the sack of five pounds of Greek Meatballs in which I was invested up to my elbows, this detail seemed hardly significant. That is, until Daniel realized the absent shirt and shorts were, until now, the only thing standing between him and a whole new experience of freedom beneath those two funny Velcro tabs.

Hoping his diaper ditching might be the first signs of a newly developing appreciation for the tiny tot pot, periodically presented with dramatic ooo's and ahhh's over that last few months, I began showering his exploits with praises for my big boy going to use that wonderful new potty, but unable to deceive myself beyond the devious grin spread across his little face, I, as any reasonable mother with a fist full of raw meat and a father surely in ear shot would, bellowed, as my little nudest bolted from the room, "you better not put any pee in my house, Mister!"

By the time I caught up with him, he was standing on the front porch, grinning ear to ear, by an exceptionally large puddle for such a sunny day, obviously pleased with himself for listening so well.

Small Successes

1. I didn't make that comment. The one I really wanted to. The one that wasn't really that bad, and was true anyway. The one that was hanging on my tongue, eying that perfect spot in the conversation to jump right in. NO, I closed my lips tights, and refused to let him out.

2. I asked my children to forgive me after I lost my temper.

3. When I was pulled away from the table, having savored only one sizzling bite of steak burger and merely the scent of crisp homemade oven fries neatly piled on my plate, I was joyfully able to offer it up, thanking our Lord for the opportunity to remember my suddenly sick baby was more important than the growling empty spot in my stomach.