Drops of Awesome

Aaron lay on the bed last night after the kids were in bed and looked, sad, tired, distraught. And before I could ask if he was ok, he said, "Fatherhood is so depressing". Um, wow! Totally caught me by surprise. So let me give the scenario of last night. Tired kids, grumpy kids, disobedient kids, bawling kids. And this father who just told me that fatherhood is depressing was so incredibly patient and calm with his kids that I was looking at him last night and thinking, "what a guy I married who is such a good daddy, his children adore him, and he works hard to be patient and loving to those kiddos". But I understand those feelings all too well. Parenting is tough stuff. Not for the faint of heart or for the weak. So when I read this article this morning, I thought....this is perfect! And so, I'm going to try to forget the times that I ignore my kids, or the times I don't reach out to others when I think they may need a little reaching to and in the back of my mind I think "I'll get to them later", or the times I blow up when my house looks like a bomb went off. I think I'll try to add those drops of awesome to my bowl instead. Like how I got up in plenty of time to have a nice breakfast with my kids this morning instead of rushing to get them dressed, fed, and out the door for school. Awesome. I watched my sisters two little kids all day yesterday. Awesome. I wrote to a friend of mine to let her know how much I love her and am grateful for her friendship. Awesome. I woke in the middle of the night to my sweet baby and fed him thankfully instead of begrudgingly because I adore him so much. Awesome. I made homemade bread and soup for my family last night. Awesome. I read books to my kids before bed last night despite their crankiness. Awesome. I read for 2, maybe 3 minutes from the scripture yesterday. Awesome. (could be better, but I'll take it for now). I squeezed my husband and let him know how much I love him and how grateful I am for him when he was feeling sad. Awesome.

And my sweet husband, who was having a moment last night, that I have way too often, is pretty awesome too. He left each of us a sweet note on the mirror this morning before he left for work.

There's always room for improving and we'll never be the perfect parents or have the perfect children. But we certainly are more motivated to be "awesome" when we focus on some of the awesome things we are doing, instead of wasting so much energy on the things we aren't.