Many times as I have read my daily meditations in my favorite In Conversation With God, I have encountered the phrase, "the heroic minute." As I understand it, this is that first moment upon awakening that we shake off any bit of laziness and make that choice to get up, get going and to offer our day to God in prayer.
Well today I decided that I too have a heroic minute, but mine lasts a little more like two hours. I don't roll out of bed as early as I used to pre-baby (well, pre-late pregnancy too). So I get myself up around 7:30 or 7:45 and thus begins the 2 hours. If I patiently, calmly and lovingly make it from there to 9:30ish, then I can claim my "heroic 2 hours."
Why must I attempt to be heroic for 2 hours. Well, I told my best friend today that these are by far the most crazy, difficult and stressful hours of the day since Michael's birth. In that span of time, I must hope that Michael sleeps a little longer while I do those things I absolutely need 2 hands for, like straightening my hair (now you all know), making my bed and Nicole's, getting Andrew and me dressed, etc. Things like brushing teeth, putting on a bit of makeup and directing morning activities, require only one hand. I have to get Andrew out of bed and dressed. I have to continually remind Jacob and Nicole to get their morning routine completed (gotta think up something to motivate them). I have to change Michael. We attempt to having morning prayer time. I have to make breakfast and enlist breakfast helpers. Michael usually needs to be fed. The kitchen needs to be tidied. It is a lot, but if we can do it, the rest of the day is usually relatively easy. I guess I could relinquish a lot of these things, but I hate to because I really think it helps us all to get off to a good start.
So at this point, somewhere around 9:30, I am able to heroically sit down with a cup of coffee and, most likely, feed Michael some more.
It is a difficult 2 hours, some days more than others, but I feel a sense of accomplishment and peace when I finally sit down with my coffee and the kids are free to play and read. I do think that it would help me tremendously if I could get Jacob and Nicole to complete their tasks in a much more timely manner, without me having to remind them every 5 minutes. Jacob has to get dressed, make his bed and wash up. Nicole only has to get dressed and wash up. Any suggestions? To me this should take 5 to 10 minutes - TOPS! But yet it seems to drag on morning after morning. They like to listen to their new CD in their room in the morning. I thought about not allowing that until they are ready. But then if Nicole is lagging behind, I have to make Jacob wait. Plus I can envision him nagging Nicole to get done and that would bring on mighty roars form my little angel girl. I think if they could do that, things would be a little easier.
Anyway, it is after lunch (we made it through that too) and now Michael has decided to wake up. He was awake a lot this morning. I thought he'd sleep a while. But he must be starving!!!!! It's been almost 2 hours!
Blessings to you all this day.
1 comment:
I vote for the timer. Or better yet, figure out how many songs take up 10 minutes or so, and then tell the kids they have to be downstairs and ready as soon as song X is finished. You could change the songs each day that they have to be done by as they get bored.
Of course your job is figuring out the consequence for not completing the job. Also, you have to make sure that you don't use any reminders, or it defeats the purpose.
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