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Am I doing this right? Feels like Drowning
This week, life feels a bit like drowning. I’m fairly certain I’m not doing this stay-at-home-mom thing right. At the very least, other people are doing it better. I look at the crusty kitchen counter, the dog hair infested floor, the math worksheet she doodled all over (the I LOVE YOU’s are sweet, but what is 5+2?!), the three other subjects we didn’t get to, exercise bike taunting me, the completely unhealthy frozen pizza that is probably going to be dinner (again), and when was my last shower?! Other moms text me like – wanna hang out? and I stare at the message feeling like a failure. Obviously, they have…
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Previewing
Today isn’t going to be super deep, just celebrating getting something right and seeing the fruits of my preparation blossom, and I wanted to share this skill because I know I’ve seen how this improves our lives time and time again. Something I have seen as a teacher is the importance of previewing activities. As a teacher, we preview to help students understand the objectives in a new lesson, to tie in previous learning to the new skills, and to clarify the purpose and procedure of the activity. Previewing is literally the best tool in my parenting toolbox because it prevents issues. Rather than be reactive to a crisis, previewing…
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Faith Mountain
I am standing in the muck right now, spiritual muck. Life got real hard spiritually during the past week. From the outside, everything looks great or at least no different, but from the inside I’m standing in front of a faith mountain pounding my fists against its craggy surface, screaming, “MOVE!!!” But it doesn’t budge. I’m feeling discouraged, defeated, depressed, wounded, alone. I spent several days last week near tears every second of the day. My heart felt like an albatross around my neck. I had moments of laughter, but the sadness just kind of hung around. The situation grew into a mountain. It was a mountain that I have…
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Reaction Time
This morning my daughter kept getting distracted from making her bed. She’s four. I expect a certain amount of distraction. First, she had to potty. Then, she found a piece of paper on the floor. Around the third time, I said, “Ok, it’s time to set the timer.” We’ve been using a timer to encourage her focused attention on a task. I always set the time to be several minutes longer than I anticipate a task requiring. The goal is to help her focus, not make her rush. But this morning, when I said I was setting the timer, she squealed and began to get upset. “I can’t do it!”…
