{the WALL}

It happens about twice a year. I get to a point where I've just simply had ENOUGH. If you are a mother of small children, you know what I mean. The point where another hand grabbing your leg, screech reaching your ears, glass of milk spilling, night of sleep disrupted way too early, toy you've already tripped over three times that day blocking your path (are you feeling me?) is enough to make you either pull all of your hair out or run out the door screaming and never look back. Or in my case, crawl in bed, pull the covers far over your head, crouch up in a ball and pretend the world outside that cocoon does not exist. Today was that day for me. My semi-annual "I need a vacation; I need to escape this place; I love my children to death but right now I feel like I actually am dying, drowning, suffocating and I'm not really ready to die yet" wall.

Last night as I was cleaning up after dinner and winding down the day, I realized that I had snapped at my girls more times than I had encouraged them. I had glared at them more times than I had hugged them. I had reminded them over and over again about everything they had done wrong and rarely praised them for what they had done right. And I was oh so ready to put them in bed and escape them for the night. I had attributed this to a rough day, but did not yet recognize this for what it was: THE WALL. I realized that I had fully hit my limit when they woke up this morning (at 7:00...a triumph for them as far as sleeping in goes!) and after about the first fifteen minutes (to my credit, Emma remembered that it was Chinese New Year and thought it would be fun to bang pots and pans to ward off the evil spirits) all those feeling from the night before started again. It's one thing to be irritated by every last thing at the end of the day, but to be irritated by 7:15am is just bad news!

When I reach this place that motherhood becomes more of a burden than a privilege, I know that it's time to carve out time for myself. To re shift my focus on the God whose love is always steadfast and whose arms are always open no matter how many times I whine, complain or make the same foolish and irritating mistakes over and over. That is the first step. To recognize the perfect parent and to remember the example that He has set forth. The second step is to book a hotel room for myself or a flight to somewhere far away (in this case, Florida!) to just be ME for a while. To be one person instead of 4. To sleep in until a time when my body decides it's ready to wake up, to dress only myself in the morning and to do anything or nothing at all. Whatever I want. Oh, don't get me wrong. I love those precious little faces with my whole heart, but sometimes this battery needs to be recharged. And for the love of my little girls, they deserve it....and so do I.