The other day I was talking to another mom, one who was a little frustrated by her son’s refusal to follow her.  She asked how I get my four year old to follow directions.  I had to laugh.  Then tell her in honestly that often I resort to raising my voice.  My favorite line is “can you hear me?”.  In a really loud and obnoxious voice.  Because more often than I want it comes to that.  My kids just don’t always listen when I talk.  And quite frankly, it doesn’t matter if I whisper, talk normal or yell.

They are kids.  They want what they want and they want it now.  It doesn’t matter what I’m doing at the moment.

And they fight and fuss.  In the month of May, I had about four mornings total where everyone was happy in the morning.  This meant that for twenty-seven days, at least one child screamed and cried to start my day.  As I’ve said before I’m not a fan of crying.  It’s not the sound of crying but rather the act.  It gets on my nerves and annoys me to no end.  But my kids aren’t robots so I deal with crying quite a bit in this house.  Especially from two of them.

Generally it takes all my might not to be smarmy or rude when the inevitable happens.  I want to be the mom who immediately comforts their hurt child instead of saying “if you had listened to me, you wouldn’t have fallen.”  I want to be nice all the time.  It’s just hard because by nature I’m probably a bit cold at times.

I’m working on the virtue of gentleness for this month and more than likely, the rest of  my life.  I read somewhere that St. Francis de Sales literally stopped mid-letter when someone interrupted him.  The person went on to point out that St. Francis de Sales was probably interrupted by adults, people who could wait while he finished what he was doing.

Wow.  That just resonated with me so much.  Yes, he was a saint, but aren’t my kids my means to sanctification.  That sounds so funny typing that.  But I must admit that I am hoping to reach heaven someday and it appears that my family is my path.  There are so many days where I am quite certain I have blown it.  It is too easy to get annoyed every single time my kids cry, ask for something, hit or hurt a siblings’ feelings, interrupt when I’m on the phone, computer and so on.

But I am called to be a mother.  I am called to love no matter what.  I don’t want my kids to think that they annoy me.  Or that I find them to be an inconvenience.  Will they wait at times?  Yes.  But I am working so hard on making sure they know I love doing things for them.  That I don’t regret spending my days with them.  That when I go to lunch, they go too.  And while it’s not everyone’s plan, it is the path I have chosen.

I do get frustrated.  A lot.  But I love my kids so much.  So for them, I am really working on being gentle when they ask for a snack for the 10th time in an hour or cry  because I cut their food instead of leaving it whole.  Basically, I want them to know that they are worth every second of my time.