It's All About Grace
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So how quickly into the New Year did it take for me to feel like a complete loser of a mom?
Oh, about two hours.
Just a couple of hours into the year I realized I had made a huge mistake. Huge. In that I will be missing an important event that’s coming up in the life of one of my girls because I forgot to write it down on my calendar. Or because I just plain didn’t know when it was.
Needless to say, there was some miscommunication involved. And I made other plans. Plans that involve non-refundable plane tickets.
For both me and her dad.
(If it were just me missing this event, that would be one thing, but for both of us to miss it just feels . . . ugh.)
So I’ve been kicking myself about it for a few days, really feeling badly about what ultimately is my mistake. And I’ve been wondering why.
Why do I never write anything down in my calendar? Why do I make plans without consulting my kids first? Why am I so scatterbrained sometimes?
I’d like to blame hormones or the busyness of life or any number of other factors, but basically I haven’t paid attention enough. I let myself get distracted by responsibilities or the blog or just what we’re having for dinner. And that all just makes me feel like a loser. Like I don’t have it together enough to write down a simple event on a simple calendar.
Sometimes real life is just tough. It takes communication among family members. It requires paying attention when that last little thread of attention you have left would rather be focused on The Food Network than on your kids. It means admitting mistakes and asking forgiveness.
But mostly, real life requires grace. Grace to not see yourself as the loser mom you feel like and to see the thousands of other things you did well in the past year. Grace to be the husband who pointed that out to me. Grace to be the daughter who shrugs her shoulders and says, “It’s o.k., Mom.”
And grace to stop asking why.
Oh, about two hours.
Just a couple of hours into the year I realized I had made a huge mistake. Huge. In that I will be missing an important event that’s coming up in the life of one of my girls because I forgot to write it down on my calendar. Or because I just plain didn’t know when it was.
Needless to say, there was some miscommunication involved. And I made other plans. Plans that involve non-refundable plane tickets.
For both me and her dad.
(If it were just me missing this event, that would be one thing, but for both of us to miss it just feels . . . ugh.)
So I’ve been kicking myself about it for a few days, really feeling badly about what ultimately is my mistake. And I’ve been wondering why.
Why do I never write anything down in my calendar? Why do I make plans without consulting my kids first? Why am I so scatterbrained sometimes?
I’d like to blame hormones or the busyness of life or any number of other factors, but basically I haven’t paid attention enough. I let myself get distracted by responsibilities or the blog or just what we’re having for dinner. And that all just makes me feel like a loser. Like I don’t have it together enough to write down a simple event on a simple calendar.
Sometimes real life is just tough. It takes communication among family members. It requires paying attention when that last little thread of attention you have left would rather be focused on The Food Network than on your kids. It means admitting mistakes and asking forgiveness.
But mostly, real life requires grace. Grace to not see yourself as the loser mom you feel like and to see the thousands of other things you did well in the past year. Grace to be the husband who pointed that out to me. Grace to be the daughter who shrugs her shoulders and says, “It’s o.k., Mom.”
And grace to stop asking why.
