Daily Gratitude Journal: The Calm After The Storm

Sunday...

Beach towels and bathing suits drying on the line after a long day at the water park. 

I realized I needed to sit down and focus on what I'm grateful for before I blow a gasket. I'm seeing a pattern here of me getting incredibly frustrated at some point during the day and then realizing I need to sit down and reconnect with my gratitude. 

One of our dear children was playing around in the bathroom which resulted in an almost clogged toilet, and an entire roll of toilet paper and the plastic spinner (both at different times) go for a swim with a brown trout in the Yellow River. 

Not cool! 

Then Mr. Baby Love himself decided to flood his new high chair with poop. I say "flood" because if you are familiar with the poop of a breastfed baby then you're aware of the gold-ish, brown-ish, liquid baby poop of which I speak. 

Mix that in with a fussy, overtired, hungry baby who just took a post-poop explosion tub, fold in two overtired, and overexposed kids from too much sun and fun from the water park, swirled around with them not wanting to take a tub, sprinkled all over my annoyance of the regular day-to-day drama that happens in a family and you have one very crabby, very yell-y mama. 

There. I said it. I yell at my kids when I've been pushed past my limit. 

Then I feel shitty about it and sit down to write a Daily Gratitude Post. 

I'm human. And some days I'm a really sucky human. 

Time to chill out, close my eyes for a bit while I love up on a tiny little breastfeeder who's all warm and clean and soft and calm and smelling sweet from his tub and think about more positive things from the day and from my life before I change the title of this post from Daily Gratitude Journal to Today's Rant And Grumblings Of A Crabby Mom. 

The kids had fun at the water park and they swam their hearts out. We've been waiting for months for it to open - for it to finally be summertime so we could spend long days swimming like fish once again and it's here! 

Daily Gratitude Journal: Sunday

1. I'm so grateful that my husband and I have taught our children how to "find their own fun" as I always say. They have dealt with the harsh realities of "being bored." They have learned that the world is not going to provide entertainment for them at every turn simply because they are bored. They have discovered that after about 10-15 minutes of being left alone to "find their own fun" after they have loudly proclaimed their boredom! (and quickly realized that they either do something or its time for chores), they are capable of inventing some great fun for themselves. Because of this they make up their own games, they go on adventures in the backyard finding new discoveries, they prefer to picnic outdoors for every meal, they build entire worlds out of dirt, leaves, bits of grass, picked flowers, pinecones, sticks and rocks. My daughter calls them "squirrel nests" or "animal hospitals" or "animal hotels."  They have grown into true nature children who enjoy being outside and I'm so, so, so grateful for that. 

2. I'm incredibly grateful that my mom's eye is feeling better after kind of a freaky scare the last few days. Nobody wants anything to go wrong with their eyeballs or God forbid their sight! I'm also grateful for ER docs and nurses and smart folks who are on call to help in these stressful & unnerving times. 

3. I'm grateful for the calmness of the evening after bedtime. For crickets chirping outside and gentle breezes dancing with the leaves on our orange tree and the house not quite sure what to do with itself now that the kids aren't tormenting it so it just stays still and waits for morning. 

4. I'm grateful for getting a time out and for reset buttons where kids cool off in tubs and mommies cool of in rocking chairs and daddies cool off in garages and babies cool off by filling their bellies full of warm milk and then everyone happily comes back together once the beasties have melted away and the lights are low and kids hair is cool and wet and daddies have gotten their tinkering fix and mommies feel rested and calm - taking deeper breaths, longer breaths and kisses are now replacing yells and hugs are replacing huffs and smiles are replacing snarls and yawns are replacing wild animal cries and, "Goodnight's" and "I love you's" are replacing the, "stop arguing's!" and the, "because I said so's!" 

5. I'm so grateful for evenings. So, so, so incredibly grateful. Evenings, glorious evenings. 

My happy lil 6 month old nursling

My Daily Goal: I will take a picture each day that brings me happiness and I will post it along with my list of 5 things I'm grateful for. I invite you to do the same!  These are not listed in order of importance. That is too much pressure for this writing exercise. I am just free flowing as I write and trying to be genuine in my thoughts and emotions and writing what I feel at the moment. Please join me! @coco_cana #DailyGratitudeJournal

For further reading: My Daily Gratitude Journals

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