Shoes

I wish I could say that when my kids walk in the front door, they quickly remove their shoes and coats and put them in the closet but nothing could be further from the truth. Usually we're a mud-tracking tirade of Northwest wetness slopping across the kitchen floor when we enter. Shoes kicked in all directions. Coats landing in piles. Stuff everywhere. EVERY time. One would think after the one thousand and fifty second time hearing "OK kids, let's take off our shoes and coats and put them in the closet" that a habit might form. One would think. But the only habit that seems to be forming over here is the shoe kicking, coats landing one. Tirelessly (OK, really tiredly) I bellow my line again but it seems to fall on deaf ears. This is my homecoming.

These days, so much of my life is like this. A poor system, seemingly on repeat until I finally have a break in the malaise to realize Ha! Something about this is not working. But finding a solution takes energy, energy that is in short supply. So often I just let the cycle run it's course, hoping one day a magical solution will dawn on me. Please tell me you've been there? I think it must be the third kid thing!

We struggling a bit over here with siblings battles. I think my kids have discovered the holes in my system and are starting to take advantage of them faster than I can keep up. They know how to really irk each other and they know how to irk me. People always told me that with three kids, you're outnumbered but for some crazy reason I thought my organizational skills would prevent that from happening to me. Ha! 

I'm reading a couple of parenting books to get some new ideas but I've learned to hold all concepts I encounter loosely. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don't. Sometimes they are helpful and sometimes they can make a parent feel completely incompetent. By golly this parenting thing is complicated but I am working on giving myself a break. And on a lot of days I am getting better at it. What I really want is a set plan I can follow and voila, problem solved! But instead I'm learning (not necessarily achieving yet but learning) to lavish myself with grace and pray hard for extra doses of wisdom!!