The Best Laid Plans…A Mother’s Day Reflection

On this Mother’s Day, at least for a moment, I think about all the unrealistic things I once planned to do (and be) as a mother:

I’ll never have them watch TV until they are 5.

I’ll never lose my patience.

I will teach them to make their bed and keep their room clean.

They will never snap back at me.

All the things that I hoped would make them ‘good,’ ‘normal’ children.

My mother was (and is) a bedrock of patience and humility — the most inspiring mom a girl could have. So I will be too — right?

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My Pearls

This week, school back in full swing, homework, meetings, forms due, schedules not-so-slowly filling up, our daughters were, understandably, overstimulated and tired.  And I probably was too, not having made most of my writing deadlines.

One afternoon, the girls were in a doozy of a mood — and after a string of very disobedient moments of theirs, I tried to give them a bit of advice, a lesson, after what had just happened.

But as we drove in the car, they completely ignored mommy, laughed off all instruction, gave me smart-aleck answers, if answering at all. And it was the same for quite some time after we got back home.

Sure, they were excited and tired from all the new events of a new year, but they were very aware of their actions. They were pushing my buttons, and they knew it. And they were punished, of course — electronics taken away, privileges suspended.

But on my end, the bad thing was that I lost it.