Another Lesson to Learn From My Child

Yesterday was a pretty long day for Caleb. After waking up at about 6:30, in typical Caleb fashion, he went to school all day, then came home and immediately we packed up and went to his grandmother's house. He got to play there all night while my husband and I went out for Valentine's Day  dinner. We didn't get home until almost nine, and his usual bedtime is seven. To say the least, he was tired. He was so tired he was asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow.

Most mornings, I don't have to wake him up so he can get ready for school. Most of the time, he's awake before I am, and sometimes he's already eaten breakfast by the time I get up (there's at least one good thing about Poptarts). Well this morning, apparently he needed some extra sleep. When I woke up, both kids were still sleeping and the house was completely quiet. Oh how I wanted to crawl back into bed. Well, something made me stay up, against my better judgment, and a few minutes later Aj woke up. So there we sat, watching TV and trying to figure out if I should wake Caleb up or not. I decided I wasn't going to wake him up, and if he missed school, so be it. The kid is five years old and hasn't missed a day of school yet. I don't think one day would hurt. So at about 20 after seven, he comes strolling out of his room rubbing sleep from his eyes. I asked him how he was feeling, and he said, "Oh I just had to sleep a long time. I have school today?" At this point, I literally have 20 minutes to get him ready to go. However, I decided if he could get ready in time, he could go to school and we started to it. He scarfed down some breakfast and I threw a few bucks in his folder so he could buy lunch. And in no time flat, and with a little to spare, he was ready to walk out the door before the bus was here.


Once again, I'm amazed by the dedication of my child. He was so tired this morning, and probably would have spent most of the day on the couch watching TV. Instead, he woke up with an eager heart and did what he had to do. If only I could wake up in the morning with that kind of conviction and inspiration. Maybe we can all learn a lesson from our children, who do what is expected, because it is expected, even if they don't feel like it.

Things I've Learned

This week, I've learned numerous things from my children. Here's a short list of the most important ones:

1) No matter how tired or sick you are, your children don't care.

2) Waking up to a child staring at you at 5:30 in the morning is not only infuriating, it's really creepy too.

3) The dumbest things can scare the crap out of your child. They can go all through Halloween without getting scared once, but a stink bug makes them scream bloody murder.

4) Baby gates are not made to keep a two year-old contained.

5) Children do not care what time it is. If they think it's time to wake up, it's time to wake up.

6) If a "timeout" is supposed to last four minutes, your child will behave for exactly three minutes and thirty seconds.

7) Boys think throwing sticks across the road at 7:30 in the morning is funny.

8) Coffee is no match for a child's energy at 6:30 AM.

9) Toilet paper can be a really fun toy, that is until Mommy finds you out.

10) No matter how good or bad your day has been, nothings compares to the calm and solace of knowing both of your children are asleep.


Remember parents, never stop learning.

You've Thrown Off My Groove

I don't know about everyone, but I thrive on routine. Not a schedule, a routine. I don't do the same things at the same time everyday, but I usually try to do things in the same order. I get in my little groove, and I get things done. I can't stand it, when my routine gets thrown off, and the littlest things are usually what does it. Obviously the big things like a new baby or a vacation would change things up a bit, but you would be surprised at how little things throw me off.
If you want me to be coherent in the morning, I have to have my coffee. When I go to make it, if the trash can is full and I have to change the trash bag before I can throw out the old grounds, it throws me off. It's usually those days that nothing goes right, and I have to do six things just before I can do the one thing I needed to do in the first place.
Now there's a few things I can do here: Check the trash at night and change it before I go to bed; make the coffee before I go to bed; and if something small like that happens, not let it affect my mood. The first and second things would make the third unnecessary. But my ADD and I sometimes...ok most of the time we forget. So that leaves me with the third thing.
Every day, little by little, I learn that I have control over the way I act. Some days I'm better at it than others, but I'm still learning, and I will be until the day I die. It really isn't the end of the world that my groove was thrown off, I just have to realize that.
Are there things in life that you still need to learn?