on staying sane

I had my favorite 14 year old come over this morning so I could escape to my go-to smoothie place and have an hour, uninterrupted, to review Titus 2 (see re-post from yesterday). She is such a blessing.

After sipping my smoothie, I came away with this main thought:

"Thank you, God, that you value my sanity."

I think God put that in Titus 2 because He knew we, as moms of littles, are prone to run ourselves into the ground.

Call it the martyr complex, or some twisted religious idea, but sometimes I think that I am supposed to be totally exhausted and overwhelmed- and so I am.   Just. so. intense. all. the. time.  My dad told me once, "Make sure you pace yourself, honey.  Motherhood is not a sprint."  There are no emergencies.  Take a deep breath, Shannon.

How do I do that?  How do I stay sane?  With a traveling husband, and two small children, and potty training disasters, and a house that is never as clean or organized as I want it to be, and a nosy neighbor, and never ending dishes in the sink????  How?

I don't know the answer; I'm asking the question. 

I'm hoping that by prioritizing prayer time, regular exercise, occasional planning dates with Braj, and embracing proper perspective/ gratitude... I may begin to claim some amount of sanity.  But I'm welcome to suggestions.

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To assist my sanity, the last couple of days I've decided to grab my camera when I normally might have started screaming.  This is what I see.  Daily.


1.  Jackson is always sticking his dirty hands in my buckets of grain.  I finally took a container of rye (which I never use) and let him take it outside.  It didn't make it all the way outside.  And now we have rye growing all over our back yard.

2.  Making pizza last night.  LOTS of help.  Jackson threw the flour all over the floor and then started zooming his cars in it.  Acacia joined in and brought the legos in a grocery bag.  Jackson emptied the bag.  Result: flour, legos, cars, mini pizzas, 2 small children, one mom all in the smallest room in the house.  Fresh flour and the smell of homemade pizza covering us all.  And flour footprints showing where children trying to sneak off without helping to clean up went.

3.  Braj travels for work which is hard.  But it makes the nights he is home so much sweeter.

   

4. I love this shot.  In our favorite bedtime book, the Big Picture Story Bible, there's a part where the "gospel is spreading throughout the land".  So, this is Jackson "spreading the gospel".  Then they like to stand up and "spread the gospel" all over their map.