Solve and Resolve

My favorite from J. Kirk Richards' inspiring series

Wednesday morning text message to Taylor:

Thank your coworkers for not pooing on the carpet

'Cause one of my coworkers--Roger to be exact--had just had an accident, which he proceeded to step in and track all over the upstairs.

Awesome.

This was just a day or two after Blaine had dumped a third of a gallon of milk out on the kitchen counter and floor and just a few hours before both boys made major mischief in my sewing stuff.

{This is where my mom asks, 'Well what were they doing out of your sight?' and I reply, 'I have to go to the bathroom and take showers and help the baby sometimes! Give me a break!}

By Wednesday evening I came unglued. "I hate my job!" I ranted to Taylor. "I can't get anything done around here because they mess things up faster than I can clean them. And they absolutely never listen to me. Never!"

"Dear, can you please use a softer voice and fewer superlatives?" Taylor calmly asked.

"No! I'm mad! And they aren't superlatives! They're true!" I barked back, irrational as ever. "I just don't know what to do! I don't know what to do!"

It wasn't until the next morning that I had laughed at myself a little, calmed down a lot, and decided that it was time to come up with some solutions.

I grew up with a mother who always said, "Every problem has a solution." She chanted that mantra to me all my life and now I repeat it to my own children.

My sister, Liz, once told me: "It doesn't make sense for us mothers to throw our hands up and say 'I give up on this problem.' What if I had a corporate job? When something hard came up would I just sulk and tell the boss 'I quit?' Never! I would go back to my office and figure out a solution! Mothering is my job. When I meet a challenge, I have to find a way to make it better."

Thursday morning email to Taylor:

I am working on some solutions. Like I am going to keep the baby's room (where the sewing stuff is kept) and upstairs bathroom (where much water mischief takes place)locked. And I am going to try to nurse upstairs so the kids can play and I can see them.

The other part of the solution is for me to a) stop having a panic attack every 5 minutes that my house doesn't look perfect b) remind myself that they are 3 and 4 years old and c) find the power to control myself and stop all the ranting and raving.

So anyway, those are my goals. I don't hate my job. Not at all. I love it. I like it. I reverence it.

In fact, it was the image at the top of this post that motivated my penance. I saw it Thursday morning and the reverence flooded over me.

--anne