As I reflect on what actually happened - of course it wasn't as bad as it felt. But here's how the morning went: Liam and I both woke up late meaning that I didn't have the chance to make Z's coffee for his drive to work. I am no saint of a wife - but it's a little something he looooves and I love doing it because he loves receiving it. Did I mention we both woke up late? That got us off to a wonky start because I had a meeting late morning and there was no way around it - yesterday had to be a shower day.
I try to negotiate out of showering...well really, out of fixing my hair post-showering... on just about any occasion that I can. But it was non-negotiable yesterday. Please don't judge - but Liam took a shower with me. He usually loves it but yesterday was a challenge from minute one. So what is usually fun play time in the water while Mommy showers turned into Mommy washing that hair as fast as her hands could move...cue blood pressure rising. And let's see - that put us at about 8:30 getting out of the shower. I'm out of quickie breakfast options at the moment - so eggs it is. Not that eggs are hard but where is a Nutri-Grain bar when you need one??
I had to dry my hair immediately after the eggs were made. Do you have curly hair? If you do, you know that there is a VERY REAL window of time in which you can start the process of drying curly hair into straight hair. I was on the verge of expiration and that precious little clock was a tickin! SO I put Liam in my bed to eat breakfast and watch Curious George while I dried my hair. What ensued from there was just a little snowball of guilt-thoughts: My mom would have never put me in bed to eat breakfast! Three episodes later plus a Daniel Tiger episode (not kidding) 'um I think we're getting pretty much to the two hour point of tv watching.' Yay ME!!!!!!!!!
Now - in the midst of drying the aforementioned head of curly hair into straight hair - I remembered that I needed to go create a quick word doc and email it to be printed off for the women's ministries bulletin board before the meeting. And - I needed to start drafting an email to gather a group of women for a brainstorming night because frankly, the inviting was supposed to happen yesterday and today. Hmph. So - I'm drying one section of the hair and then running in and writing an email, back and forth etc. All the while - hating that Liam is on his forth episode of tv!
The hair finally got dried. The make-up was hastily applied. The emails were sent. And then it was time to dress Liam. Can I just say that it's SO MUCH FUN to dress a two year old these days! :) He has opinions and he's decided that most of the time this is an opportunity to play a game of 'No I don't want to get dressed!' Two year old running from Mommy. Mommy really really trying not to scream. Bottom line - he got dressed. It wasn't too ugly - but you would have thought I was fighting a real war with how frazzled I was.
And then most of all - there was this. This question that had been asked of me the night before: Abi, what do you do most days? It came from a good friend who is a question-asker-extraordinaire. There was zero mal-intent on his part - only genuine curiosity. But can I tell you that during all of these little battle-esque moments of the morning - that question and more accurately my answer were running through the background of my thoughts. In retrospect, I hated the way I answered it more than anything. I seem to ALWAYS FREEZE when a question like this is posed to me. It's as if I suddenly have no earthly clue what fills my time and I feel like I'm answering 'Uh uh uh uh.' I rambled on about cleaning the kitchen a lot and doing laundry. Seriously.
So as I'm having the not-so-great shower, as I'm feeding my child eggs in bed and asking Curious George to work his magic, as I'm drying my hair and writing emails at the same time, as I'm chasing a two year old to clothe - I'm thinking "Who am I kidding? How do I spend my time? Taking three hours to get showered and dressed."
Ahhhhhh the glory of days like that right? You've been there. You know that feeling when literally nothing feels easy and even keeping your hair dryer plugged in is hard (it happened).
Liam and I finally got into the car. It was my first chance to sit that morning so as we're driving away I start quietly saying "Oh Jesus help me, oh Jesus help me, oh Jesus help me...." Which, as is our norm these days, elicits an unbelievably cute voice asking "Mommy, what happened?" I told him that Mommy had just gotten too stressed out that morning and that she was asking Jesus to come and settle her insides. And you know what? Just like that, peace started to come.
As we continued our drive, a Scripture popped into my mind from Colossians 3:
"If then you have been raised with Christ, set your mind on things that are above, where Christ is - seated at the right hand of God."
When you've had the kind of morning I'd just experienced, you start saying words with some attitude! There we are driving down the road and I'm saying out loud - 'Wait a second, I HAVE been raised with Christ and right now I CHOOSE to set my mind on Christ. Yeah! Bring it!' Where was my coach to slap me on the hiney and tell me to get back out there???
Sometimes all it takes is one moment of truth to break the cycle of crazy going on inside of us.
Being that yesterday was Halloween, there were some pretty precious moments to follow that crazy morning.
I got to do dishes (I did somehow remember to recall to my friend all of the time I spend doing dishes and how significant that is to my destiny <right!!>) and look at this and see God yesterday:
And then, be still my heart, I got to meet the two most adorable Super Men ever.
Moments like these help me to remember that, by the grace of God, crazy days can find peace. Bad starts don't have to mean ugly endings to my day. God is there. I pray that your day is covered by grace and that you stop to allow yourself to be settled a lot faster than I did yesterday!
lol...I try to negotiate out of showering... I can so relate!! :) Love!!
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