Home Life...

I wish I could say that I had a happy mother's day...Well, maybe before I continue on, perhaps I should take some time to thank God for all the good things that happened...

Thank you, Lord, that we made it to church on time to join in with the church family to praise and worship you!

Thank you, Lord, for the opportunity to talk to some people after church and to hear how you've been answering their prayers.

Thank you, Lord, for providing our family with an abundance of food!

Thank you, Lord, for a beautiful bright sunny day.

So, I shared Mother's Day with DearHubby's birthday and I decided that since Mother's Day wasn't a real holiday anyway we would do what DearHubby wanted to do for his birthday. DearHubby wanted to go back home and nap.

We had leftovers for lunch and afterwards we prepared the afternoon for a nap. Before DearHubby and I had children, our Sunday afternoon "tradition" was to nap during the afternoon in between the morning and evening services. However, since DearDaughter1 stopped her afternoon naps, I have not napped on Sunday afternoons.

Well, we have been struggling with DearDaughter1's disobedience in the evenings and we decided that it's because she's tired from the day that she has these horrible meltdowns. I wanted to work on "rest" time this week with DearDaughter1 and decided that we could start our first "rest" time this Mother's Day so that I could have a nap too. Both DearDaughter1 and DearDaughter2 are now sharing a room and we thought that if both girls were in there for "rest" time, neither one would really rest. DearDaughter2 still naps in her crib, so it was an obvious decision to move DearDaughter1 out of the room for this time. We set up her little couch in our room.

Every one was down for a nap by 3:30pm, even our new little one, and I was excited to finally get some sleep. As I prepared to lay down, DearDaughter1 said she couldn't sleep. I told her to get some books and to "read" and when she gets tired, then to lay the books aside and lay down. The books kept her busy for a short time, but as I was just about to fall asleep, DearDaughter1 tapped me on the arm and said that she still wasn't tired. I sent her back to her couch to lay down. Once again, as I was just about to fall asleep, DearDaughter1 tapped me on the arm and said that she still wasn't tired. This continued on until 5pm. By this time, DearHubby had 2 hours of uninterrupted naptime and so I woke him up and asked him if I could just have 30 minutes of uninterrupted time too. He took DearDaughter1 into the living room and turned on a video for her while he browsed the internet.

After my uninterrupted time was over, I got up and got a snack. DearDaughter1 asked if she could have a snack too. DearHubby reminded me that it was nearing dinner and that DearDaughter1 should not get a snack. I looked at the clock and noticed that we had about 45 minutes before our normal dinner time and asked DearHubby if she could have a little fruit snack to just hold her over. He agreed. When DearDaughter1 finished her snack, she wanted more, but DearHubby refused her more. DearDaughter1 didn't like DearHubby's answer and threw a fit. Her fit grew worse even after being disciplined and she was yelling and screaming and crying at the top of her lungs. Nothing DearHubby did would calm her and after much patience with DearDaughter1, DearHubby got angry.

The evening just wasn't the same afterwards. I reminded DearHubby that since DearDaughter1 is not yet in Christ that her tendency is to do what is wrong and that it is our responsibility to exemplify Christ-like responses. If we do not persevere in doing what is right and respond in an un-Christ-like manner, then that's the response we are going to get from our children.

Though I admitted to being more impatient and more sinful in my reaction towards my children, there was just tension between DearHubby and I the rest of the evening. Whatever dinner plans he had for the evening was squashed by this situation and I ended up making a frozen meal for dinner. After dinner, we put the girls to bed, DearHubby straightened out the house while I nursed our little one, and then we got ready for bed. Before going to sleep I asked DearHubby if there was anything on his mind and he said he was fine. I turned over and resisted the temptation to "talk" it out and that was the evening.

Before DearDaughter1 went to bed she asked DearHubby if he had a fun birthday party. He asked her what she meant. DearDaughter1 was excited for DearHubby's birthday party and asked me when were all his friends coming over. I told her that daddy's birthday party was our rest time and that our birthday gift to him was a nice nap. "Daddy, did you have a fun birthday party? Your nap time?"

I was thinking of making up for a sour day by buying a birthday cake for DearHubby today and preparing a small surprise family birthday party with the girls. I hope all goes well with the girls to do this...