Screams of Grace

Today was such a Monday, ifyouknowwhatImean.

It was a day where everything felt just.plain.off.

It started off normally as ever. Hubs was nice enough to take our little man downstairs at 5:30 when he woke up so that I could sleep a little longer. This, my friends is proof of true love and my personal piece of heaven is sleeping until 6am. After "sleeping in," I showered in anticipation of a meeting later this morning and dried off in time to kiss my love goodbye and scoop up the child as he pulled folded shirts out of the laundry basket.

Around 7:30 all of baby's signs pointed towards "I'm extremely tired": Rubbing of eyes, yawwwns, slowed movement. But what I had on my hands was a nap striker, with wailing and gnashing of teeth when I set him in the crib. After an hour of nursing and rocking and sound machine and bouncing and shhsh-ing and laying in crib and tip-toeing out and screaming and patting and soothing and repeat...I was done and so was he.

So downstairs we came. Lo and behold it's 8:30am. I recalled a time when I would sleep this late, sometimes on weekdays, and today I wished that I was still in bed...that this was some sort of eardrum-ringing dream.

That meeting I was supposed to attend at 9 got changed to a phone call. I just knew that eating and changing and bundling and driving were just not going to happen quickly. Especially because the little boy in my life continued to scream like a pterodactyl every 30 seconds.

What an understanding co-worker I have. I hurry over to the computer to glance at the plans we're discussing and set my sweet little man next to me with some toys. His favorite toys aren't toys at all, though, and as I sprung towards him to redirect his attention, he pulled a plug from the wall. The plug that runs to the computer. I strap him in his swing, hoping that maybe this exhausted child will take a quick cat nap. He screams, little pterodactyl, you. But I get the computer booted back up hold him and bounce him throughout the call and he's grabby-grabby at all things we come within two feet of, but also happy-happy.

The next two hours are grueling for me, emotionally. Because this screaming of his isn't pleasant and isn't stopping and each one seems to linger on my nerves, each one makes my jaw clench a little bit tighter, like a wrench around a screw, and my patience slips away little by little. I feel my neck and shoulders becoming tense and my empathy for this helpless screamer lessens. And then I wonder what sort of mom I am anyway, allowing myself to become angry at this precious child who needs me. My mind is racing from "Please stop crying" to "Be more patient" to "Just calm down" to "Why don't I know what he needs?"

I realize it's time to change the environment, it's time to get out of this cell of screams and go somewhere else. He's always calm in the car and I need human contact, I need to see other people and remember they exist and recenter myself. Because this whole "Monday" business, this whole "bad day" vibe...that's all on me. I can choose my reactions, I have the ability to change my thoughts. And I know that when I can't do it alone, I have the power to make choices which will lead to the desired outcome of feeling sane. In this case patience with, and for, a little man who needs me. He needs my care and my patience and my love and he can only have those things if I give them to myself first. 

I lost sight of the big picture and got stuck in a moment that took a lot of emotional energy, letting myself feel overwhelmed and angry at what I had to deal with. As I drove around and did errands, talked it through with my mom, and hubs, and especially as I sat in the Target parking lot for 20 minutes, letting my sweet boy sleep, I was reminded how patient the Lord is with me. Even when I am ignoring it, God's grace is available if I am only willing to accept. God is there when this baby's scream scratches at my eardrums and it is in accepting His graces that I can find patience, that I can find holiness in this vocation of motherhood. Because, as St. Therese so beautifully shows us in her autobiography, God is found in both the beauty of life and also in it's problems and irritations. We can grow in grace by choosing to turn our irritations into prayers.

It continued to be a Monday. I walked right out of Target, put my now-smiling baby boy into the car, pushed the cart to the corral and...left the box of diapers I bought on the bottom of the cart. Drove all the way home, and then noticed, so back we went! Baby boy didn't nap more than twenty minutes this afternoon. I wasn't able to read my devotion today. I put in the labor of making scones and received tasteless, unrecoverable "fruit". And now it's ten o'clock and my To-Do list for today remains untouched.

But, I have to say, today wasn't a lost cause: I experienced God's grace--and don't we everyday? Upon returning from our outing of errands, frustration dissipated and calm returned. The combination of praying and reflecting and seeing the sunlight (and maybe that mini cookie dough Blizzard from DQ) really had the power to turn around a day.

Little man and I spent this afternoon on the living room floor. I watched as he explored, discovering that the fireplace door opens and giggling as he swung it back and forth. I learned something today I couldn't have learned any other way: when irritations present themselves, as they surely will, I can't make them go away with anger or try to face them alone. Instead I canA use them as a way to become more patient and grow in faithfulness to our Lord.

Choosing Favorites

Have you ever come in contact with someone who just a little bit annoys the heck out of you and you're not quite sure why?  And post-hanging out with said person, you feel really awful because you realized that pretty much the whole time you were being a judgmental jerk?

Ya, I've been there too.

I have to say that the one things that gets to me the most is when someone tries to "win" in every conversation.  You know the kind.  During the course of every conversation you find out that you definitely weren't as successful as they were in high school, you could not have possibly been more stressed out than they were when planning your wedding, your weekend was surely not as awesome as the one time they...

I'm pretty sure that it's my own pride which is annoyed by this kind of person.  I don't like being told that I had it way better or had it way worse, and I defensively decide that person is trying to "win" that conversation.  And yet, the thing that annoys me is when I feel like other people are prideful.  Obviously I exude the exact same "character flaws" that I am judging in others. Actually, I am probably 320 times more prideful than they are, which is exactly why that trait bothers me about them--because I can't get away from it in myself.  Talk about seeing the speck in your neighbors eye when you have a beam in your own.

So I've been trying something new lately.  When I feel like I am beginning to be annoyed and/or judgmental in a conversation, I just decide that the person I am sitting across is my absolute favorite and I don't get to see them often.  Because, think about it, when someone is your favorite, you totally let those little things go. You enjoy every moment you have with them.  You aren't sitting there being annoyed, thinking about how they are saying something or if they are trying to outdo you.  Instead, you just really want to know what's going on in their life, you hang onto what they are saying because it's bound to be great, because you want to remember it later.  When someone is your favorite, you love them past their flaws and many times don't even see them!  Not only does this "choosing favorites" help keep me less judgmental, it also has the capability to exponentially improve my relationship with that person!  I know I am more likely to show them compassion and charity, as they deserve.

Because, truly, when someone else annoys me, it has nothing to do with them and everything to do with me.

~Danielle

(I'm writing everyday this week thanks to encouragement from Jen. Check her page out to see others who are taking up the challenge!) 

Life = perspective.

Isn't it true that so often when we are passionate about something--a cause or effort, changing other's minds on a topic, our involvement with a group or organization--it is our current perspective which fuels that passion?


As a first-year student, I vividly remember getting blindsided by the paradigm shift that my individual perspective truly ruled my life.  How I was raised, where I grew up, conversations with friends, sports teams I was part of, classes I took and the many unique experiences of my life truly have an affect on how I view the experiences of daily life now.  Life is like a staircase, each moment building on the last.  At first I actually felt guilty about this, thinking I was somewhat at fault for not considering other perspectives more often. But, really, using perspective is a good thing. (usually!) It allows us to function in our daily lives, use prior knowledge to make decisions, and form opinions.  


This whole perspective things can also make things pretty tricky sometimes, too.  Huge controversies would come about (and often do!) simply because a person's life was filled with certain pieces and missing others.  


Now, as I reread this, it seems like I'm stating very obvious facts that need not even be thought about.  So, why?  Why have I been pondering the fact that life=perspective for a good 8 years now?  Why did it intrigue me so much when I was only four years old to lay in bed at night and ponder how different I would have been had my parents been different, had I lived in a different state.  Why is this notion so powerful to me?


I think it's really an adventure in empathy.  Instead of writing a person off as "stupid" when they respond poorly to a situation or make a bad decision, I want to know what past experiences they've had to push them to think the way that they do.  Instead of assuming I know what a person is going to do, or how they think, I want to consider my own beliefs and feelings and how they got there.  It's empathetic and compassionate to consider perspective instead of relying on judgement.


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Admittedly, posted this about a month after I wrote it.  This topic makes me think really hard for a really long time, and even now I know it is only about 10% of my revelings about perspective.  Truly, thought processes like these really can never be finished, because my perspectives will change and I will learn and grow through them. 


And if the humbling process of life-long learning isn't one of life's joys, I'm not sure what is.