Its not been a secret that things have been tricky over here, age and stage wise. This morning, we had a lovely moment of hope, and a reminder to me that things are still sinking in, and my continued efforts to parent diligently and consistently are paying off. Its worth it, no matter how exhausting these weeks have been. No joke, we spent a comfy, relaxed day at my moms yesterday and still I was cashed out asleep at 9:15pm. I am SO tired.
This morning, a few of the kids were playing in the bedrooms. They love to play in the bedrooms, but lately its been something I haven’t allowed. The reason for this is that they fight almost non-stop and I’m either getting up and breaking up the fights every two minutes or I have to literally scream to get their attention. Its awful, and I HATE yelling at them 🙁 I’ve done more of that than I care to admit recently, and I’m working hard to turn that around. However, today, they began playing in the bedrooms and they weren’t fighting, so I figured I’d let it go and see how long it would last.
After just a few minutes, Laela popped out and told me she had made Dekker’s bed! I usually have the kids straighten their beds in the mornings, but it had just gotten missed on this lazy home day. She had seen it and done it all on her own. I thanked her, and told her she was very thoughtful to do that job, especially for someone else. She was very pleased with herself and ran off to make Rowan’s bed. Dekker popped out from behind a couch (no joke) and agreed with me, saying Laela was being SO nice! The lightbulb went off, and he exclaimed “I should go make Laela’s bed for her!!” and off he scampered.
Once all beds were straightened, the kids came out to brag up their good work, and instead of me getting to praise them up right away, they all thanked each other and had a group hug. No word of a lie. I’m SO smitten with them!
These moments save my life some days, haha! We haven’t had many “its working!” moments in the recent past, but I’m SO thankful when they come along! In the midst of the days where my kids scream and snap at each other and disobey at positively every turn, they still have it built into their brains and hearts to think of each other and perform good deeds and give gifts of love. I’m SO thrilled that its in there!! Silly little (brutal) stages won’t change the roads that have been set.
At least I suuuper hope not!!