Do You Ever Just Snap?

I can hold it together pretty well through the chaos of Motherhood. I say chaos because there's so much work to do: kids to feed, shoes to put on, siblings arguing over a toy, unyielding laundry in the background, etc. I try to be organized, prepared with ideas, a few discipline tricks up my sleeve, and all with a smile because it's good to be positive. However, being human I get tired, hungry, sometimes in a hurry, and there's usually more than one thing happening at a time.

I absorb the back talk once, but the second time (after I've been calm and patient all day) causes me to snap! "Why do I get mad?", I ask myself. "Why didn't I just handle it the right way? I could have held my tongue."

Well here's an encouraging idea. There are storms in life that shake us up at times and the only one who can calm them is the Savior. My children even snap sometimes and it just makes me more upset. I asked myself, "What would help difuse the moment? What do I need?" Well, it's not advice, nor scolding. I would need someone to wrap their arms around me and whisper, "It's all right." To just hold me until the urgency and overwhelming sense of responsibility that I am feeling is released.

The scriptures teach us that, "A gentle answer turneth away wrath." When our children are having an off moment in the day that disrupts the family harmony, we should wrap our arms around them and calm the storm.

Get Them Moving

My kids are always trying to move the girls clothes from their room to the boys room so they can all share a room. Cute, but that's not why we bought a four-bedroom house; everybody needs their space. So I said, "Oh wow, you've cleaned up all the clothes already? Let's go check." "No, no!", they cried racing me up the stairs. So I asked them if they think they could clean it up in five minutes or if they needed ten minutes to clean it and they chose ten. "Alright", I said, "I'll set the timer. Let's see if you can beat it!" And they all ran upstairs for a fun little competition.