Sunshine and Rainclouds

I have been feeling like Super Mean Mommy lately. No time to snuggle- too many boxes to unpack. No time to joke around- too tired from unpacking said boxes. No time to just let things slide- trying like a Nazi to get my well-behaved children back. I've been snippy, impatient and well, not the Mommy I am... I wake up every morning and say to myself: "I will not yell at anyone today." And then sure enough- Olivia is in the bathroom singing to herself in the mirror for 10 minutes and is now running late to school. Or right as I start my morning chores, Luke comes in for the 15th time to ask me to turn back on his radio because HE can't resist touching the buttons! And I loose it. And I hate it. It is very hard trying to figure out how this whole 3 kids of such different ages thing goes. I can't seem to get the rhythm right- can't seem to figure out who should be doing what, when and where. It makes me nuts because I am SUCH a type A person and have to have order or I can't think straight. Such a perfectionist that I put too high of expectations on my little kids. A wise women (and you know who you are) once told me: "Just mess up. Forget something for once in your life. Make a mess or a mistake and let your kids see you do it."

So the other night Olivia was in the pantry poking around (which I'm sure I got on to her for)when she noticed a cookie mix that I had bought. I had just finished re-doing Luke's lamp for his room (New Unnecessary Project #421)- I had out the paint, glue gun, fabric- the whole she-bang. The kitchen was a mess!, and she says "Can we make these cookies?" Now- normally I would have given her the whole song-and-dance about how I don't have time, and I've got this huge mess to clean up, blah, blah, blah. But instead I left the mess. And we made the cookies. I commented on how well she broke the eggs, she complimented me on how strong I was mixing in the butter. We divided the dough and each had a cookie sheet to put ours on- being silly and trying to sneak our dough on each other's trays. We had a serious discussion about how we must never tell Mimi that we ate the raw cookie dough off the spoons when we were done. I put the cookies in the oven and she went off to her room to play until dinner.

Each night at dinner we go around the table and do our "Sunshines and Rainclouds", or the one best thing that happened that day and the one worst thing that happened that day and discuss, "Coffee Talk"-style. We all went around and when it got to O she said her raincloud was she didn't get to go hang out in the gym before school because she got there too late (thanks to the concert she performed to herself instead of brushing her teeth) and very simply her sunshine was "Getting to make cookies with Mom." It was the "getting to" part that got to me. I have been so busy doing things that REALLY don't matter that I haven't been spending time with my kids and they feel it. It made me realize that sometimes you need to leave the mess, not sweat the small (unnecessary) stuff and really realize how important "Mommy-time" truely is.

I think project #442 will have to be put on hold for now. I have cookies to bake.