Sometimes you just gotta let them win! The below picture popped up in my, “On This Day” section for Facebook the other day.
I wrote the following caption with the picture,
“What do you do when you realize the kids made a huge mess while you were giving yourself a mani/pedi?? Ignore it and get everyone ice cream!”
I’ve been a Jamberry Independent Consultant for 2 years now, and on this particular day I was doing a new video for my customers about putting your Jamberry nail wraps on by using different heat sources. My kids were being good and not bothering me while I was working and getting my video completed. Unfortunately, they were a bit too quiet! (For those curious, here’s the link to that video. I think it turned out pretty good! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFPaAkZBWN4 )
After I was done, I joined them in the living room. I looked around the room and couldn’t believe the mess! I remember that we had gotten a big stack of newspapers from Matt’s Grandma for us to use when we start our fires for our wood burning stove in the winter months. I hadn’t found a home for the stack yet and had left them in the living room. Apparently, that wasn’t a good idea. There were newspapers everywhere!! I remember my kids looking at me preparing themselves for me to explode. I had a choice to make. I could get mad and yell, or I could just roll with the punches. They were stunned and cheered when I asked, “Who wants ice cream??” It felt good to make that choice.
Sometimes (only sometimes) the best way to win a situation is to let the mess win. We enjoyed our ice cream cones together, laughed, smiled, and eventually got around to getting the mess picked up before bedtime. We made a memory. More importantly, we made a happy memory.
I’m glad this popped up in my news feed. This was such a great reminder for me. If I’m being completely honest, I’ve been kind of high-strung lately. I know I have been. I don’t mean to be. I’m aware of it but didn’t realize how bad it’s become until this memory popped up. I have so much currently going on, coming up, tasks that need to get done, and no time for re-filling my cup that I just don’t think straight and can lose my temper when I can’t get things accomplished.
I need to calm down and realize it’s not always going to go as planned, and that’s ok! It will eventually get done. Just not always as soon as I planned. It reminded me that it’s ok to bend the rules sometimes. It’s ok to take a chill pill and roll with the punches.
I want to use my blog to be completely honest about my feelings. Not only do I think this will help me be more aware of how I’m feeling and why I’m feeling the way I do, but I hope it helps someone else not feel so alone. I think too often we, as moms, feel alone in how we are feeling when in reality, if we are being COMPLETELY honest, most other moms are feeling the exact same way.
For me personally, I think what happens is that I feel like I must get all these “tasks” done in a timely fashion because that somehow determines how good of a housewife/mom I am. I understand that this is completely untrue. It doesn’t change the fact that I think all these things need to get done. I’ll talk to Matt about this sometimes. I’ll say sorry that I’ve let the house get so messy or let the dishes pile up high in the sink and on the counter. He always asks me if he has said anything to make me think that he was upset about the mess. I always say no. He always says that it’s not a big deal and that I’m too hard on myself. He’s right. I’m too hard on myself. I’m the only one putting those expectations on myself.
I don’t like feeling like a high-strung mommy. I don’t want my kids to have the memory of mommy always acting that way. I’m not quite sure how to fix or change this characteristic about myself yet. I may never figure it out. Maybe admitting to it is the first step of just being more aware. If I’m more aware of this characteristic, maybe I can do more to understand why the feelings come out and I can address them more frequently. One can hope, right?
Find the JOY. It’s there.