A Change Of Attitude

I've know for awhile that I have a tendency to get easily frustrated and I usually have a negative way of dealing with the frustration. This usually happens towards the evening when I'm tired and Grace is choosing to not listen and get wild on me. Yet, I get aggravated with Grace for 1. getting easily frustrated and 2. dealing with it negatively, which is not right! I am teaching her to deal with things that way and she's only following my lead.

It is time to change!

I've been praying for years, since the day she was born, about this. I really want to make an effort to stop these bad habits and instead create new wonderful ones. Time is flying by too fast and I don't want to waste another second.

Tonight I had a breakthrough. It was a rough afternoon with Grace. We had a play date and 75% of it she spent in melt down mode. I was not sure what was going on, but it was happening none the less. Thank goodness we have wonderful friends (Shannon and Kai) who understand and would never judge and loved her through it. I felt bad for Grace but she didn't want much consoling so I had to let her just "be" most of the time. Nothing really seemed to help and everything seemed to set her off. I was worried as we had to go grocery shopping. We had not been in two weeks, it was pay day and food was a must. I made a split decision to "splurge" and go through the McDonald's drive through and get her something to eat while we shopped. Best idea ever. Well, that's a bit of an exaggeration but it worked. She did great, had a full belly and was pretty much a delight to be around the whole 1.5 hours we were there.

When we get home, she continues to listen. Then it's bath time. This is when things usually start to go down hill for us. I was about to leave to get her room ready when I decided to turn around and blow her a kiss. What does she do? She eats my kiss. Again about to leave I change my mind. I sat on a stool and spent the next 5 minutes have giggly fun with my girl. THE BEST MOMENT OF THE ENTIRE DAY!!! And, I almost missed it trying to cop out of spending extra time with her in "fear" of having a stressful experience. She said my kisses tasted like "cranberries." Then they tasted like "trail mix with peanuts and M&M." She blew me big and small kisses as well and I gobbled them up with delight. Then an even bigger thing happened on my end. She decided it would be funny to taste my hand with a little lick. Normally, I would have freaked out and told her that I don't like being licked and to stop-and I probably would have said it rather rudely as it's something I tell her at least 3 times a day and I dislike repeating myself. This time I let her do it over and over again. She was laughing so hard and I my heart was full. And, it made me wonder why am I so "strict" with her about silly things like that. Why don't I let her be at 3 year old 100% of the time. Yes, there need to be rules and guidelines and routine but she also needs to be able to express herself and be a kid with in those boundaries. She's not trying to be cruel, just funny and boy is she funny.

Now, she would have kept licking my hand all night long but it was bed time, a non-negotiable, so we got out. It was at this time that she invented another new game called Statue! On a side note, this girl is wicked creative. I hope it never goes away. Grace made it up all by herself and it was the most fun I've had getting her out of the tub in months and usually I would have squelched her fun and said we had to rush to get ready for bed.
Now, fast foward a bit to story time. We usually read one book and that's it., not more This evening she asked me to read the book one more time. The "no" was slipping out of my mouth and I paused for a minute and thought to myself-what harm would it really do? And, I read it again! She was loving on me and smiling the entire time. After that she told me on her own that tonight she was going to give me "hugs, snuggles and kisses" a routine of hers she came up with a few months ago but hadn't done in weeks. What a glorious night.

-My fear has always been that one day, when she's grown, I'll look back and have a million regrets and wish I had done things differently. No more. Not going to let that happen. No more regrets! Yes, my girl can be stubborn and disobedient. She can be sassy and wild. But, that's no excuse for me, an adult, to overreact the way I do some times. I am allowed to get frustrated but it's my reactions that are going to change.
-Yes, I'll make mistakes but I am setting forth to make a stronger effort than ever to change. And, in order to do that I need to humble myself daily, realize I can't do it alone and pray.

I love being a Mom!