Back when I was a mom of 2, I was visiting a mom of 4. I remember asking her how she did it. One piece of wisdom that I gleaned from her that day is to learn to laugh. At this particular moment in our conversation, all 4 of her kids were demanding her attention at once, and she smiled wryly and suggested that sometimes she tries to just laugh at the crazy circus that motherhood is.
Now, here I sit mother to 4, soon to be five, and that piece of advice came to mind recently. I've been thinking on it and realizing that it can help to diffuse situations.
We have had some rough months I'm not going to lie. I was very sick with this baby girl for the first several months, and often found it hard to get off of my couch. My youngest 2 especially resent my resting at all and often take those opportunities to crawl all over me or cry in my face. Add homeschooling grades 2nd and kindergarten, and I was feeling stretched thin. Thankfully by Christmas the nausea eased. Then we had the rough reentry into school after Christmas break. It was at this time when I really began to feel frustrated often with my kids. I was speaking sharply to them, and I found that I had little patience for their childlike ways. They fought a lot, (small house, cold weather, 4 boys; any wonder?) They resisted the schooling I was asking of them, my 3-year-old, while cute-as-a-button, is often a catalyst for chaos, and my teething toddler seemed to be either destroying something or crying all day; save nap time. I started to feel like we were getting somewhere about 2 weeks ago. Oh it was still chaos, but the routine was becoming more established, I was feeling better, and everyone had settled back into somewhat of a normal routine. Then the tummy bug hit. We all wound up with it, and it was bad. I haven't been that sick in years. What's amazing is that today, 4 days after I stopped throwing up, I am still struggling to eat, and the nausea is back. Hopefully, once my tummy heals from that, It will clear up.
I have really digressed from my original point which is this: Yesterday, after another exhausting day of diffusing arguments, what felt like constant interruptions, the need for consistent discipline, and resistance to school, I thought about trying to laugh more rather than giving into my frustration as I have been doing so often of late. In a Leap Frog movie my kids grabbed at the library, whenever a character says "help" a screen comes up and another character says, "What seems to be the problem?" I decided to try this with my kids. We've been training them to say "please help" rather than hitting, punching, kicking, or pushing the offender (boy house here, folks) and I let them know that I was going to be silly if they remembered to ask for help in the right way. The funny thing is, when we had this little exchange, the angry kid would begin to smile and then laugh, and I would laugh with them. It did help us to just kind of relax before we launched into the next issue to resolve. So, while I am still struggling through each day lately, I'm going to try to remember that even God reminds us that laughter is good medicine, and that it can help me be a better, more positive parent, rather than and angry, tired and frustrated one. This, of course, is only achieved by God's grace.
