There are those days

My friend, Sarah, asked me as we were walking, "How is motherhood?"

I answered, "A lesson in not murdering people." I was dead serious.

Why didn't anyone ever tell me? Why do other mothers hide the truth? Before you're a parent, moms spin the sunshine and the glory stories. They tell you the cute stories, show the adorable pictures. They don't tell you the nightmare stories.

They don't tell you that sometimes timeout is so you don't strangle your child. That you need to cool off and just not see that child for a while. And that sometimes you forget the child is even in timeout because they've sensed they've pushed you to the limit so it's in their best interest to just stay quiet and out of sight.

So an hour or so later, when they ask, "Mommy, can I go play now?"

You remember putting them in timeout and are ready to calmly talk to them about the behavior that drove you to the edge.

Some behaviors, words said, certain actions make you not see your beloved child, but instead see the "God, why didn't you just let us stay in slavery and die in Egypt" Israelite side of your child. I would read about the Israelites and I thought God why didn't you kill them? Selfish, self-absorbed people....Never really thought I'd be raising one or three, even when He made it clear that I was reading about myself.

It is truly amazing we make it to the age of eighteen. On a radio show, a man suggested to the parents having problems with their twelve-year-old boy to buy him a thirteenth birthday card and put a question mark after the number thirteen. I laughed as did the parents on the radio show because we got it. Some days, they act like they don't want to make it to eighteen.

God loves us. Once your child starts thinking thoughts and you start thinking, is it their goal in life to drive me crazy, it's then that you should hug and kiss your parents for letting you live to see eighteen. That you realize God is real and on His throne and loves us endlessly....That is by His grace we live, that if He removed His hand from us- - yikes can't even go there.

He loves us and chastises us because He loves us. So I must do the same because I love TTT just sometimes the chastising comes after the urge to strangle subsides.


"Were you hanging on to the ceiling fan?" I asked as I see the ceiling fan rocking back and forth.

"No," Jory and Rowan assured me as they shook their heads.

"Then why is the fan shaking? Were you jumping off the bed?"

Jory nodded. "We were jumping on your bed so high that we kept hitting the ceiling fan."

"Then we jumped off the bed," Rowan added.

Are you serious?!?! Are you serious?! Deep breaths. Deep breaths. One day, this story will be funny. Just not today or at this very moment.

Kids...