When you get the lemons but no lemonade

No one ever said being a parent was easy. No one ever said being a stay at home mother was easy. No one ever said that being pregnant and trying to parent 3 year old twins was easy. I must say though that NOT being pregnant and trying to parent those same 3 year old twins would be a mite easier. When they turned 3, I told you all it was tough. Their little attitudes started to blossom what seemed like over night and we were having to rearrange our whole defense system, our whole battle plan. Once we (the parents) acclimated ourselves and pulled our pants up a wee bit higher, things calmed down for a while. Oh, those attitudes were still there but it seemed we had a pretty good hold on redirecting them. Then the pregnancy hormones kicked in and I lost what seemed like all resolve. My patience seemed to disappear over night and I started to cry just about every time one of them did something that was upsetting. Which made me even more upset because I don't like to cry in front of my kids when they are the reason I am upset. But alas, over these last 5 months my children have seen me cry more times than my husband sister brother in law has ever seen me cry!! Which brings me to my present story. Most of you probably don't know this but Jon started his master's program back in August which means a lot of the time since then he's been MIA. Together with church responsibilities, preaching appointments, his secular job and now having to do school work most evenings he's been a busy man. It's been tough at times on both of us both the Lord has certainly blessed him to keep good grades and not slack on any of his responsibilities which includes continuing to be the best husband and father in the world!! Any who, yesterday was going to be another one of those long and arduous days for me stuck with the kids from sun up to sun down by myself so I decided that a trip to Tallahassee to the mall and then the grocery store and supper out was in order to keep me from climbing the walls. Well, that usually works.

James and Audrey love to go to the mall and recently our mall built a little playground for kids to play on and that has made going to the mall 10x better for them and me. We don't go often (maybe once a month) so when we do go I like to treat them to all kinds of things that they like. They love to ride in the stroller cars($5), eat at Chick-fil-a in the food court ($11), ride the story time school bus as many times as quarters that I have($.75), get smiley face cookies($3 for 2) and they really like to pick out a few new shirts or outfits for themselves($ depends on how good of a mood I am in that day!) I also treat myself to a thing or two so I usually end up spending somewhere in the neighborhood of $50-$60. Not exactly chump change. Seemed like everything I did or bought for them yesterday was not enough. They complained and whined about it ALL. It was enough to drive a normal mother too the edge, perhaps even crazy. After about an hour and a half I couldn't take it any more so we left. I was feeling extremely unappreciated. We went to the grocery and by the time that stoning was over I had one thin piece of straw left on my back. And it was quickly unraveling. I have to give a shout out to the clerk and bag boy at Publix though. They could totally tell I was having a rough time and were so nice to me and the kids that they actually made me forget for about 60 seconds how miserable I was! We got in the van and I gave them 2 hoodlums a strong talking to, among other things, and then we all made up and you could feel the love between mother and children once again!!

Then we went to Chick-fil-a for supper. It was getting late and I did NOT want to go inside and be in town for another hour so, we went to the drive-thru. The hoodlums were NOT in favor of my decision and let it be made known. What? What happened to my smiling little chums I got back just moments ago? Whatever. I placed our order, got them to accept that it was my way or the highway, paid for our food, got our bags and drinks and drove off. I parked next door to hand them their food and that's when I realized the lady had not given me MY drink. MY lemonade that I had been thinking about for the last hour and a half. That was it. I couldn't take any more and burst into tears. You might ask why I didn't just go back and get it but it was about 6:30 on a family night so the the inside was packed and I would of had to get both kids out and the drive-thru line was out to the street. No way was I getting out boo-hooing like a baby or going to sit in the line again while they fussed at me for the latest thing I'd done wrong so I just headed home. I tried so hard to hide the tears from them but Audrey noticed and as soon as she said "Mommy, why do you have tears in your eyes?" I started sobbing. Uncontrollably. Over lemonade!!! Of all the things that I had endured the entire day, this is what made me cry. What can I say? It's a crazy adventure we are on right now and even though at times I want to pull all my hair out and go running down the street like a maniac screaming.......I love my life and am so grateful for the truth in this verse that I woke up with on my mind this morning: This I recall to my mind, therefore I have I hope. It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.  And today has been much better!