Every night when I pray for Liam, I always ask God for patience with him each day, to help me be a better mom. Well, you know what they say...if you pray for patience, God will give you opportunities to be patient in. What could be more trying on one's patience than a grumpy, bored, two year old who has trouble communicating his needs? (I'm sure there's something more trying, but this is my current struggle!) One night last week I found myself at the end of a long day with Liam, who was not thrilled that I chose to cook dinner rather than sit on the floor playing with him. Keegan had been gone for 2 days and I was seriously ready for some relief. Liam had been getting over being sick, so all week he had been particularly needy. If you have children then you're familiar with the 'fingers-on-a-chalkboard' feeling you get when your toddler whines at you for the 2000th time in one day. I had placed Raleigh in her bumbo chair on the counter because she's always happier when she's up and observing what's going on. Liam was pulling at my pants leg begging for "pop," which in Liam-speak is cup. (No, we don't put soda in his cup, lol.) I knew if he had any more to drink he wouldn't eat at dinner so I told him for what felt like the thousandth time that day, "no." Again if you have children you know how well they take it when told no over something they reeeeally want. It's as if the sky is falling and they think the more dramatic their reaction, the higher chance of their survival. Liam's next tactic after the fit doesn't work, is to get between me and the counter, and push himself away from the counter, shoving me away from the counter with his body. At this point my fingers are covered in raw meat and I'm ready to explode. I tell him to go to timeout, where he heads unwillingly, screaming the whole way there. Meanwhile sweet Raleigh is observing all this nonsense. I'm fully convinced she's just soaking it all up and learning lots of nice tips on how to drive me to insanity in the future. I washed my hands and headed to the bottom step of the stairs where Liam was wailing in timeout. When I go to timeout to talk it over with him, he always tries to give me a hug right away, because he has learned that after hugs is when he gets out. I tell him that he needs to listen to me when he's told no, and that crying and pushing me is not allowed. I ask him if he understands, he nods, we hug, timeout done. I then took him back into the kitchen and asked him if he wanted to be my helper. He's really into being a helper right now, and I thought if I engaged him in what I was doing it would ease the boredom, and hopefully the meltdowns along with it. I set him up on the counter and assign him to the task of putting baby carrots into the food processor, (realizing quickly that I needed to remove the blade when he picked it up and started banging it on the counter.) I turned around to grab something, and next thing I know, he has removed the lid to the sugar canister and has thrown a huge fistful of sugar onto the floor. I walked right into it of course, and you know there's just nothing better than standing on linoleum floors with thousands of sugar crystals grating on your feet. *Deep breath, replace canister lid & move canister, head to closet to grab broom.* As I began sweeping, I hear Liam giggle and look up to see banana oozing between his fingers. He had discovered an overripe banana on the counter and squeezed the tar out of it, sending mushy banana everywhere. (Learning about textures?)*Deep breath, grab Liam, and set him on the floor.* He's mad because I took him off the counter, and now even madder because his feet are covered in sugar granules too....and so begins the next meltdown, & me wondering why I always ignore my own rule that Liam doesn't belong on the kitchen counters. I ignore the crying for a minute while I wipe up the banana and sweep up the sugar. I took Liam to the rug by the door to show him how to brush the sugar off his feet. As I get back to cooking, (amazingly enough Raleigh is staying entertained by the chaos,) Liam has reached the point of no return. He doesn't feel well, he's thirsty, hungry, bored, I'm refusing him juice, and I wont stop cooking to sit down and play with him. He's crying uncontrollably, and when he pauses to get a breath through the tears he lets out a scream. At this point I had one of my finer mommy moments, turned around with spatula in hand, and in my most exasperated voice ~~said~~ yelled, "Can't you JUST BE PATIENT?" All of the sudden in a single instant my entire day flashed before my eyes...all those difficult moments throughout the day had culminated into the summit of my stress and all I could come up with is that I needed to be talking to myself! I felt like what I was yelling at my two year old was really God speaking to me what I needed to hear. I needed to have more patience. I immediately regretted snapping at him, although I'm pretty sure he didn't hear me over the sound of his own crying. I knelt down and pulled him into a hug and apologized for not being more patient with him. In his little two year old world, his day had been just as rough as mine. I've had 22+ years to figure out how to deal with rough days, he's had considerably less. I wiped his tears, got him a small cup of juice, and turned on a cartoon for him to watch while I finished up dinner. The evening continued to be hectic as it always is when Keegan's gone. We struggled our way through dinner time & bath time. When I was finally tucking Liam in to bed later that night and began to say bedtime prayers over him, I hesitated for a moment at the part where I usually pray for patience... In reality though, we will all be faced with stress and tough days whether or not we pray for patience so we might as well pray for the tools to handle what we're faced with right?

Since that night I'm trying a lot harder to be patient with Liam over the little things. I know also that as he grows and learns, he will model his behavior after how I behave. If I want him to have patience, the first step is to model it for him. I read a quote today: "Patience is bitter, but it's fruit is sweet." - Jean Jacques Rousseau. It isn't easy, but I know that being a patient mom will pay off with happy, patient, (hopefully,) children. It sure does change the game when you realize every move you make is on display for your children to learn from. Hopefully I can withstand the pressure. What makes you impatient? How do you handle rough situations? Have you ever had an "aha!" moment regarding patience?