I found this post from a few years ago saved on my computer, and realized I never actually posted it. As I read it over, the story is still the same, but the actual activities may vary.
Does anyone else have days like this?
Sometimes we go throughout life not realizing that we are making decisions, when we actually are.
A wise man once told me that choosing to not make a decision, is a decision in itself.
Too often I find myself caught in a situation where I wake up, look around, and wonder how I got here. It is like I make small daily decisions, which to me seem out of necessity and fairly benign. However, when I add them all up, it leads me to a life that I was not wanting in the beginning. Let me give you an example:
Twice per month you can find me on Sunday mornings playing with a bunch 4-24 month olds, as I work in the Nursery at my church. I am on the ground, laughing, playing, reading, interacting, and engaging with these precious beings. I am compassionate, patient, and tolerant. Two weeks ago, I found myself taking a step back and viewing the scene from the outside. I looked happy, relaxed, and was enjoying life. I than awoke to the realization that I am a different person here on Sunday mornings than I am anytime on the weekends or between 6-10pm on weeknights. What I mean to say is that (as much as I hate to admit it) I am never like this with my own kids.
Instead of playing, engaging, letting my kids choose what we will do next, my nights look like this:
- Leave work just in time to pick up the two youngest boys from day care (3- and 5-years old).
- Drive across town in busy traffic, trying to figure out what I can make for dinner when I haven’t gone grocery shopping in the past two (or maybe it was three) weeks.
- Get home to find that no one has let the dog out yet, so proceed to chase her down the street as she walked away when I opened the door.
- Continue to tell the younger boys to grab all of their coats/clothes/bags and get out of the car.
- Carry in my bags.
- Go back to the car to try and get the boys to really get out of the car this time.
- Walk in the house to have my daughter (13-years-old) start asking me about when she can go to the eye doctor because she really wants glasses (without saying hello first), and my oldest son (17-years-old) start telling me all about his friends’ days and the funny things they did.
- Go back outside to get the dog again, because she escaped again as the 3-year-old is still running around the front yard and has left the door open.
- Finally get everyone in the house, set my bags down, realize that the dog went to the bathroom during the day on the kitchen floor (she’s 14-years-old, I can’t really blame her).
- Clean up the mess from the dog.
- Realize the cat, who is on antibiotics for a respiratory infection, starting vomiting at some point today.
- Clean up the mess from the cat.
- While I am in the back room, remember to move the clothes from the washer into the dryer (a load I started this morning).
- Come back into the living room to find that within the past 3 minutes the youngest boys took advantage of my being distracted in the back room to empty the entirety of their dress-up station on the living room floor.
- Then I decide I finally have time to take off my coat.
I could tell you about how the night goes on to me trying to make dinner with a dog and two boys running under my feet the whole time, and that yelling continually comes from the other room as the two older kids are fighting. Dinner then morphs into homework time, a quick read to the little ones, and then begins the fight of bedtime. I leave off the chaotic details, but it pretty much looks just like the first 15 minutes of when I was trying to move from the car into the house. Then once the three youngest are in bed, I can move into doing grading exams and preparing to teach for the next day.
I would like to say this was a busy, stressful day is a rarity. However, the truth is – it is my everyday.
