The lightbulb amid the mess

I used to want our family to be all nice to each other, and gentle all the time. And use kind words and be, well, kinda like the family that travels the country in a psychadelic bus, singing about love and happiness and peace, wearing handmade clothes and hugging all the time and parenting our kids perfectly.

This morning, I woke up on the wrong side of the bed. (for the second time. Mikey woke me up at 530 and then I brought him down for Shannon to take 2nd shift at 6 while I went back to bed)...I was awoken by screaming kids, and my husband was telling me it was "a TRAINWRECK!" and I needed to get downstairs. There was wet cereal all over the floor, Mikey was crabby, Jaeli was upset because of boy issues and missed the bus, Brennan almost missed the bus and forgot his lunch, Brielle fell down the stairs, and Emily was crying. Who knew where Lilly was. What was my reaction? Of course I started in on the man.

I yelled. I said a few choice words. Basically, I was a B. Capital B. And he yelled back. And said a few choice words. He left with Emily and Jaeli to take J to school. While he was gone, and I was on my hands and knees cleaning up sticky milk and cereal, I realized that I had been mean. And that I have a tendency to blame him when anything goes wrong.

I don't know why I have been having so many "AHA" moments lately, but I am really appreciative of my butt getting kicked. Maybe it's because I'm finally realizing that I am the only one responsible for my happiness- I have a choice in how I react, after all. I used to complain because "My husband is mean, and he never understands me, and he's crabby all the time..." I used to try to pin the blame on other things. My depression and anxiety, lack of sleep, a bad day, the kids. But it’s not them. It’s me. And how I see the situation. It gets all distorted in my head; the more I dwell on it, the more I see it as “woe is me”. The great disservice here, however, is the one I’ve been dealing my husband. I learned about self-fulfilling prophesy in college; what I did not learn was “man-fulfilling-prophesy.” The more I crabbed about him, to myself and to others, the more I felt like he was an idiot. (And I’m sure they thought he was a garden of roses)

So, I sucked up my pride, and apologized. And then he apologized. And then he brought me donuts. And I ate his as well as mine and he just smiled.

When he went back to his office to work, I realized something. (HUGE lightbulb.) I realized that my family will NEVER be that huggy, smiley, “fa la la everything is perfect”, June Cleaver family. We have fights, we have name calling, we have yelling, we have messes. But I know that we also have a lot of fun together, we have a ton of love and hugs, and that, in itself, is plenty good enough.