Drops of Awesome

Tuesday morning I woke up with the sun streaming through my bedroom window.  Mr. Level-Headed had told me to go back to sleep when the alarm clock went off.  I think he enjoys sleeping vicariously through me.  The last thing I remember was him closing the bedroom door and assuring me that he had the lunches under control.  Seriously, I have the best husband ever!

Unfortunately, what he didn't know was that this small act of kindness, which I truly appreciated, started a series of events that lead to one ginormously ugly, crummy day.

When I woke up, I groggily made my way over to the desk, I turned the computer on, grabbed a couple of oranges from the kitchen, and started writing my blog post.  When I was three quarters done, I heard the boys get up.  Avery, who always needs a snuggle to wake up, came in and sat on my lap.  I hugged him, gave him a kiss, and then shooed him off to the shower.  Unfortunately, he did not get too far before Elliot got in his face and bombarded him with facts on World War I.  Being the good mom I am, I wished Avery luck under my breath, and carried on writing.

Mom, can you please tell Avery that more people were killed by the Spanish flu than in World War I?  He does not believe me.

Leave your brother alone, Elliot.

But, he needs to know this stuff!

No, he needs a shower.  Eat your breakfast and stop talking, PLEASE.

I turned back to my computer screen just as Elliot whizzed by me, screaming for his life:

Mom, he is going to kill me!  He is going to kill me!

Avery, get in the shower!  Elliot go get your breakfast!

But, it was too late.  Elliot, fearing for his life, hit Avery and Avery exploded.  I jumped out of my chair, grabbed Avery and told him to get his butt into the shower and that I would deal with Mr. Man (aka Elliot).

ELLIOT, that's it!  No screen for you today.  Hand over the Ipod and get your breakfast NOW!

I hate you!  You always side with Avery!  He was going to kill me!

Go!

Then he slammed my door and went back to bed.

Grrrrrrrr . . .

Okay, so I did not handle that so well.

I sat back at my desk and finished my post.  Then I headed out to the kitchen and started our daily routine.  

Ugh!  Another great start, Krista.

And so the snowball was set in motion.  Everyone was in a foul mood, and none of us could get out of it.

The boys fought.  I yelled.  Very little school got done.

Finally, 2:30 arrived and I gleefully dropped the boys off at their piano lesson and went home. I headed straight to my room, threw myself on the bed, and began to cry.

Well, you did it again, Krista.

You know that you need to be up and going before the boys get up.  You know that Elliot needs you to guide him through the morning.  You know . . .  You know . . . You know . . .

If you hadn't been so lazy . . .

You are the worst mother in the world.

Why are you homeschooling?  The last thing those boys need is more of you.

Eventually, I stopped beating myself up and sat up.

This has to stop. 

I grabbed my phone and started to read my favourite blogs.  Then I came across a post titled "Drops of Awesome" by Kathryn Thompson, and everything changed.  In this post, Kathryn, a mom of young children, shares her own tales of beating herself up, of never feeling good enough or strong enough, and always feeling less than those around her.  But, as she suggests, we all feel like this at one time or another.  We are human, which means we are  not strong enough.  We are not perfect.  No matter how good we are, we are inevitably going to screw up.  We are going to make mistakes.  A lot of mistakes.  Every single day.  But, because we are human, we can do some pretty amazing things.  We can fill our day with tiny drops of awesome, and the best part is, no amount of less-than-stellar moments can negate the drops placed in our bucket of awesome.

Up to this point of the day, I had been focusing all of my energy on what I had not done well, which was leaving me more and more frustrated and discouraged.  Sitting in my bed, I started to think about the good things I had accomplished that morning, and my mood instantly lifted.   With a renewed determination to turn this day around, I grabbed my car keys and went to pick up the boys.  I was pleasantly greeted by their piano teacher, who had nothing but praise for them that day.  My spirit soared!  I congratulated the boys and gave them each a hug before they got into the car.

As soon as we returned home, I erased our whiteboard.  I wrote Drops of Awesome at the top and explained to the boys that we needed to forget about all of our not-so-great moments and make a list of all the things we did right.  It took them a moment to catch the vision, but as soon as they did, they were on fire. 

I had a great piano lesson!

I patted and loved Scouty!

Elliot, let me use his Ipod because he was grounded from it.

I showered and used soap!  (Yes, there is a difference)

We did math, cursive, and spelling!

We read our books!

And in those ten minutes, our entire day changed.  We went from being snarly, cranky monsters to laughing, productive people all in the blink of an eye.  It was nothing short of a miracle! 

In fact, it felt so good that we have spent the rest of our week, seeking out drops of awesome to place in our buckets. 

 I decided to make a new gluten-free treat to greet Zoe with when she returned home from school:

These were oozing with awesome!

Avery suggested we do something nice for Scout, who is suffering from the winter blah's. 

And Elliot, well, Elliot on the advice of his mama, came up with a code for Avery to say when he can no longer handle listening to yet another lecture on World War I . . . tee hee!  I guess,  "Elliot, I don't care!" just wasn't clear enough.  So, their new code is:

My ears hurt and they need a break  . . . tee hee!

 Elliot, has promised to back off as soon as Avery says this.  I love how that kid's mind works! 

 

I wonder what drops of awesome we can fill our day with today?

Happy Weekend, everyone!

Oh, and we still have one week left of our giveaway.  Check out this post for details.  Good luck!