I'm half way there! To adding fun to my life? Noooo!! I'm half way through my challenge!! Yahoo!! Do I feel like a better person at this point? No, but at least I am having fun playing around with the different challenges. Icing on the cake is that they are teaching me something.
As did today's challenge: I was that woman at the grocery store... You know, the one with the crying baby. The one who people look at and wonder: why is she letting her poor baby cry? Why does it not bother her?
Well, people, for the record: I DON'T LET MY BABY CRY. To those people: you obviously have never dealt with babies, but lemme enlighten ya: sometimes, you know,.....they cry! Yes, that's right! Sometimes they cry! There are times that there is a reason for the spilling of tears, and believe it or not, sometimes there ain't (a reason). I will do my best to soothe him, but hey, sometimes I can soothe all I want, but if the reason for his crying is out of my control, then crying he does.
Secondly, it does bother me. Do you think I like the sound of my baby crying? No! Especially when I'm wearing him on my chest. That kid has some lungs, and he's LOUD!! It makes me almost need to have a stash of Tylenol ready as he sometimes successfully manages to give me a headache. Of course it bothers me when my baby is crying. But sometimes there isn't much that I can do about it. And that was today.
Again, we woke up at 5am. (I now get what 'sleep regression' means, but really, I would have been just as happy not knowing.) By the time we got to the store, that made for a tired baby. And what do babies do when they are tired? You got it! They cry!! And guess what? There ain't much I can do about that while I am waiting in the check out line.
This morning I was ready to have fun today. To turn what I usually would describe as the much-dreaded-grocery-shopping-chore into an excursion with my boys. Different way of approach, yet still getting my fridge re-loaded. Kai was loving it. Anytime he gets to ride in the 'soppin caht' [shopping cart] he gets that grin on his face. Even more fun is pummeling the items I give him to "gently put in the cart" down in the basket...(obviously I don't give him the eggs). Then, at the check out there always is the request for "stickies please" and then, the most exciting thing: waving and saying "BYE!!!" to everyone who wants to hear it (and even to those who don't).
As you may have gotten by now, Ryder wasn't having it so much this morning. Oh well, we can't always have it our way. To those people who wished I wasn't there this morning: TOO BAD! Suck it up, 'cause I was there! Bring your earplugs the next time you go grocery shopping. Me being bothered by my kid crying is not going to soothe him.
In light of my challenge, I decided not to let the situation get to me. And guess what: we hadn't made it to the car or he was asleep. He had a delightful nap in the 6 minutes (yes, that's right) it took us to get home and was the happiest, giggling-over-everything, bright-eyed, delicious, chubby, gerber-baby you could possibly imagine until the moment I told him that it was time to take a nap. Oops...bad mommy. How dare I put my kids down for a nap? Actually, it wasn't much appreciated by either one of them. Oh well, life is tough being a baby and/or toddler. Darn, I wish that someone came over to me and said "time to go nite-nite". Yeah, that would bring me to tears too. Tears of HAPPINESS that is!
So, was I really having 'fun' in that check out line this morning? No, not particularly. But it didn't get to me either. And it would have been very easy to have gotten bothered or stressed out. Having fun and enjoying the 'little' challenges that my kids throw me today allow me to go with the flow a bit more. I think it makes for a more relaxed mommy. Now, if I could only remind myself of these wise words around 5pm...:-0
Tomorrow's Challenge:
Will Power
If you believe 'you can' and have the strong desire to do so, then despite setbacks, it's your will power that makes you 'try, try, try again'. Both 'will' and 'power' are released when you go from 'will do' to 'doing things willingly'.
Click here for the 'pause - think - act' elements of the challenge.
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