Colossal Domestic Failure

As we start this New Year off, I am reading. I am reading like no body’s business. I have to confess that normally I read the headlines and maybe the first and last paragraph. I love a new book, too…there’s just something precious and sacred about it. But, if I am honest with you, I read maybe the first three to four chapters, if I love it, I’ll read the last. It just takes something really spectacular to really get that hook to catch in this big mouth. But this year, I am committed to reading and to finishing what I start.

Yet, there have been certain articles and blogs that have caught my eye and I usually read them in totality. “Ten Things Wives Should Know about Their Husbands”, “The Five Biggest Regrets I Have as a Mother”, “What Teens Wish Their Parents Would Have Done Differently”…all of which, in my performance driven mind, sound like… “A Letter from the Perfect Wives and Mothers of the World…to you (me), the Colossal Domestic Failure”. Yet, I read them every time. I bet you do, too. Because as moms, I think we feel like it is punishment and may serve as a form of penitence.

Here’s a confession for you, those of us who feel as though the Father has called us to put pen to paper, usually give you the best we’ve got. When we give you a “Top 10 List of Activities that Saved Our Family from Disaster”…it is likely the best “10” we’ve got…and might I add sometimes when even we try to pull off our own #7…we burn the dinner along with our thumb and end up running to McDonalds at 8:00pm just to put something in our families stomachs, because we haven’t made it to the grocery store yet that week.

Something I’ve blogged about before and truly one of my very favorite mom activities is to wake one of my children up in the middle of the night for one on one time. We have popcorn, play Skipbo, or just sit on the lawn in blankets and talk. I LOVE IT. Well, here is an “epic fail”, as your teens would say: My daughter asked to sleep on the couch in the den. Brian and I told her “no, not tonight” for some really good parent-ish reasons. She got tearful. Made me so mad, what in the world is there to cry about?? I mean there are children starving and babies with no momma to hold them tonight! She doesn’t know how good she has it. And so…I let her have it good. She cried more. The next day or say, she asked me if I wanted to know why that had upset her so badly and of course, so that I could again clearly make my point to her about her selfishness, I said, “certainly dear”. “Mom, I had planned to wake you up. I made tickets for you to purchase snacks and I wanted to set the den up like a theater.” Umm, exhibit A of a colossal domestic failure. That makes no one’s list of Top 10 Things All Good Moms Do.

So I’ve decided I want us to each think about the things that we do personally, that are right and good. Because you are a great mom! You are loving your children, meeting their needs, spending time with them, praying for them, and pointing them down the path they should go. While at the same time, cooking dinner, doing laundry for the 14th time this week, taking the dog to the vet, writing a note for PE, selling cookies again, ironing everyone’s shirts in the morning, and running to the grocery store at midnight because you forgot it was teacher appreciation week and you signed up for home-made cinnamon rolls tomorrow! You are a good mom!

I would love for you begin thinking about the things you and your family are doing right! I’d love you to list them as comments here or with the next blog. My friend, Ana and I, will give you some ideas!

My love,

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Colossal Domestic Failure

Posted on January 17, 2014 in Uncategorized

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