Day 10 - "How's that working for you?"

One can learn so much from their children. Here is a little look into  my crazy mornings:
        
 "Kids, wake up. It's time to get ready for school!"....10 minutes later..."Boys...get up now..you HAVE to get ready for school."....[take off covers]..."JACKSON, COLE GET UP NOW!!!!"....[insert cold washcloth on backs......insert screaming boys....insert screaming mom......insert cries from boys....insert prayer from mom for patience.........."ZOE, get out of the shower! 45 minutes is waaaaay to long"...."I didn't want that cereal....Jackson got more milk then me.....Cole's looking at me.......I can't find my socks....I gotta go poop....SCREAM, YELL, SCREAM, YELL!!!!


I hate screaming at the kids and it makes me feel terrible. I get so frustrated in the mornings, God has heard many prayers with cussing mixed in. I know the kids hate it to, who wouldn't. Nobody likes to be yelled at. I just lose patients when they are not doing what they are supposed to do. I've talked with Zoe and also the boys for that matter, about how much I really do not want to yell in the mornings. We have a prayer box in our living room that anyone in the family can insert a request. Zoe's prayer request is "easy school mornings". So the other day she and I were talking about what I could do to make it easier. I have tried getting the kids up earlier..(more time for the kids to procrastinate, more opportunities for me to scream)....I have tried getting myself totally ready before getting them up..(more opportunities to visualize all the procrastination, more opportunities to scream). So I asked what else I could do. She didn't have an answer for that question but what she said really spoke to me, "How's the screaming working for you?" What a smart girl! Well, HOW IS the screaming working for me...well the truth is that it is not. So why do we do things that are not effective? I have always heard that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results. Well I was happy to find out that even though I scream every morning expecting different results, I am not insane. In fact, that is not the definition of insanity, it is just a quote from Albert Einstein. That got me looking at more Einstein quotes. Here are a few of my favorites:


     -We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them. 
     -A person starts to live when he can live outside himself.
     -Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.
     -Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.
     -The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.
     -Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.




So, "Peace cannot be kept by force. ..." If I want peace in the house in the mornings.....and I do......force is not the answer. I need to maybe understand the kids better and their reasons for the procrastinating. I do not know exactly how to maintain peace every morning but I do know that I have 3 wonderful children. I know some day when they are away at college or have a wife/husband of their own, I will probably wish they were little again and miss the "screams" in a way......or maybe not.