Wednesday, October 9, 2013

I'm hopelessly in love with my kids

Fall break is an amazing time for me to sit back, relax and refocus on my real priorities in life. 

We're halfway through this amazing time of year and it hasn't all gone great but I'm kind of happy about that.

Our house looks like it was hit by a tornado inside and out. I explained to my boys that we would have all the fun you could fit in to a week long break as soon as we got the house cleaned up. They immediately balked, protested, whined, moaned, cried, ignored, yelled and otherwise declared their disdain for my plan.

Through yelling, talking, playing, forcing, bribing and of course teamwork, we managed to get it to a point where I wasn't disgusted by the sight or smell of the inside of the house.

So, yeah! Success!

Once we got past that we've had time to have friends come play, work on school projects, go to the dentist, see a movie, play board games, snuggle, go for walks and just be together. It is awesome!

My kids may drive me nuts but they sure are amazing. When I have time off like this I find that I have about 2 million percent more patience and even their worst habits can be smiled through.

For instance:

Beautiful baby and I have finally gotten tummy time, regular bath schedules full of bubbles and giggles and lots and lots of baby talk conversations where she stares deeply into my eyes. So when she has a night where she wakes up 6 times or an afternoon where she just won't take her nap and hates the world for making her try I can smile and sing my way through it instead of tearing my hair out and pacing the halls bouncing her too aggressively because I can't take the noise anymore. It's been pleasant.

Moe is my special soul who rarely ever pushes my buttons. This break we've read stories together and he's built amazing worlds out of Legos and knex and on minecraft and we've sat together as he shares them with me in minute detail. When he cries and blames his brothers for everything I've been able to keep a straight face as I listen to life's injustices through the eyes of a 7 year old and have a quiet teaching moment with him about personal responsibility. As he's gotten brave with our outside toys and taken tumbles, spills and all out crashes I've sat back and let him learn and bleed awhile instead of giving yelling sermons on safety. It's very pleasant.

Curly (fun fact, he is currently bald) is busy finding his voice this year which means his sassy, whiny and arguing levels have been a little off the chart. We've played games together, discussed his stresses and joys, baked together and danced our little hearts out. As he's had his moments where everything I say is wrong and something his brothers have done is now leading to the end of the world as we know it I've laughed and reminded him of his tools to get in control and make a plan to make things better next time. I've hugged him through the stress and had absolutely zero teeth grinding as he explained to me my obvious deficiencies in general rightness. I could grin and bear it and give him plenty of nap time to sleep it off. The pleasantries we can than exchange have been outstanding.

Larry is my combative one. Something about our personalities can make life hard. He's in a particularily "down" period right now which makes things extra difficult. We've been able to work on school projects and he actually acts like he likes me the whole time. We started a fitness challenge together that gives us one on one time. He's read at least 3 books this week already and we sit and discuss them like the worlds best book clubbers. As he melts down throughout the week and explains that he hates all of my efforts to make anything fun I can let it go instead of getting my feelings hurt. I can smile through his struggles and remind him to look for the positive even in the worst moments. Mostly I can try a little harder to walk a mile in his amazingly cool shoe collection instead of forcing him to conform to my socially acceptable orthopedics. Holy pleasantness batman!

I am thankful for this week and the opportunities I've been given. It reminds me of the 3 million ways I fall short on a daily basis but also gives me goals and hope for the future.

Now, I've done a lot of bragging about my awesomeness in this blog so I'll end with a little something to make you feel better. My kids ate pumpkin pie for breakfast at least twice this week, we're almost out of band aids thanks to a combination of sibling battles, thoughtless actions and poorly executed 360s in the driveway this week, and I stayed up late twice just to level up my kids video games without their permission after I had told them they couldn't play is week.

Hope your break into fall moments have been as outstanding and refreshing and pleasant as mine!

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