Heart Attacks

Do you guys have these?

Sometimes I'm in a panic that arms aren't going into sleeves as quickly as they should.  They're singing a song together when they should be brushing teeth.  They're lying in the floor hugging Lucy right under my feet, at the stove!  And somehow in my mind, at that moment, dinner is more important than hugs, efficiency is more important than really listening, and my heart has made an idol of accomplishing such-and-such, rather than listening to their sweet voices, and listening to the story that slows their focus on getting those arms into the darn sleeves.

Ya, we're really not supposed to be late for school, and it's possibly dangerous for me to be sautéing onions with people between me and the hot food, but I need to breathe slower through these things.

I've read great posts about hurried moms.  They break my heart because I'm a hurried mom.  How dare I hurry a tender-hearted, tiny, person who learns smiling from me.  If I smile through a situation, my calm and joy will be contagious to her and she'll learn peace.  See how smart I am?  I know what I'm doing to them, even at the time of my panic and rush, and I still put efficiency first.  Yikes.  That's sad and I'm mean. :(

This morning Claire had one more homework page to do (after doing 3 different subjects last night), Kate has a 100 days of school celebration and we needed to count out 100 yogurt covered raisins for snack time and 100 rainbow loom bands for...well, for the sake of bringing 100 things to school.  Lucy was eating their muffins.  Everyone had rats-nest hair.  I broke my electric hot water kettle. :(  Lots of stressful things!

Nathan started laughing at me because Claire is one of the slowest moving children we know, and her  belt was not going into belt loops very fast, and her arms were just not getting into the coat sleeves.  I had to confess to her, "I'm panicking, Claire.  I'm having a heart attack because your arms are not going in here."  She doesn't mind. :)

Anyway, I just wanted to publicly acknowledge and confess that to my friends and family. :)

Also, I'm (still) reading Brennan Manning's book, Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging.  And it is very great.

Also, I'm back to drinking spinach smoothies, because I need more iron.

Also, I've switched to half-caff, in hopes of possibly maybe becoming and a decaf person.  Why in the world?  I don't know, so I can sleep better, and maybe it's better for me.
And I love being better. :)

Short story:
Because of the freezing weather, I just never go out to pick up poop piles.  And then on the snow day after taking all the kids to the grocery store, I was unloading groceries and they decided to run through the backyard to greet Lucy on their way into the house.  Lola brought in, on her snow boots, great globs of snow-poo mud onto every rug.  The rugs were due for a cleaning anyway.  So, it smells better in here now.

Oh ya, also, I give up on walking the dog, and that is very freeing.  When I was telling one of my friends how time-consuming and energy-taking, and knee-hurting it was to have to walk the dog every day, she was like, "Uh, don't you have a backyard?"  And I was like, "Ya. ya, we do..."  Okay, so she gets to run in the backyard when she becomes crazy.  It's good to have smart friends who ask good questions that really cause me to think.