Kids & Parenting
“Mondays”
By: Tanya Ross
I woke up this morning, questioning my sanity. As I cracked my eyes open, I realized that there was a small, round face pressed up against mine. “Mom”, this small round face exclaimed, “What are you still doing in bed? It’s light outside and I’m hungry!” I rolled onto my side and looked at the clock. Six a.m.! And this was supposed to be the first day of Spring Break – so much for sleeping in. I could hear my other two boys rattling around out in the den, and I knew that it was time to rise and shine. My youngest – the one with the round face – continued to jump on the bed. “What are we gonna do today?” he hollered at the top of his lungs, “Huh, Mom? Huh?” I knew that the only way I could handle all of this enthusiasm this early in the morning was if I stumbled out to the kitchen and found the coffee fast. Caffeine was the only way to start the day with three boys going ninety-miles-a-minute.
When I arrived in the kitchen, I suddenly realized that one of my children had already helped himself to a meal. Cereal had been dumped everywhere along with the milk and the sugar, the sugar being what I was currently crunching my way through on the floor. I could feel my eyes wanting to roll back into my head, and the urge to run and hide under the bed was strong. But I courageously marched forward through the trail of Rice Krispies and the river of milk. “You can do this,” I told myself. “You can do this with one hand tied behind your back – all things are possible and all of that stuff….” Ahhh! - the power of positive thinking. Little did I know what waited for me in the laundry room. When I went to reach for the much-necessary coffee filter, my hand met with sticky, dripping goo. As I looked down at the hand in question, the strong smell of laundry detergent assailed my nostrils. On top of the cereal and milk, I now saw that part of “the river” consisted of the orange, liquid Tide I had just bought at Sam’s the other day. “Whatcha doing, Mom?” piped up a familiar little voice. “I helped with the laundry – did you see?”, said the youngest. Again, the urge to run was strong, but I shut my eyes, counted to ten and looked down at the child staring up at me. “Been busy this morning, huh?” I asked the wonder of my life. “Yep! I knew you needed lots of help, so I helped.” I turned around at this point to look at the washer, realizing suddenly that the whirring sound filling my ears was not the loss of all of my brain cells. Bubbles were seeping their way out of the machine in question, falling into “the river” that I had not yet been able to mop up. I sighed heavily, and set about trying to turn chaos back into some version of sanity.
I hurriedly rushed around, knowing that if I did not get this mess cleaned up fast enough, there would soon be another one and I would be behind the pain curve. By this time, my head was aching from the lack of caffeine. I reached to start filling the coffee pot with water, realizing, since the fish tank was next to my reason for living at the moment, that our Goldfish, Mo and Curly, were looking rather odd. They were both floating belly-up. I cautiously glanced behind me to make sure that all of the kids were occupied, knowing that if they realized their fish had died, there would be much wailing and gnashing of teeth. As I began to look closer, it appeared that a whole can of fish food had been poured into the tank, the big clue being the empty fish food container lying discarded on the floor. I quickly ran out to the garage and madly grabbed the extra tank and filter. Running back into the house, I dumped all of the remaining fish into the new tank. By this time all of the kids realized that Mo and Curly looked rather strange. “Why aren’t they moving, Mom?” asked the middle son. “I think that they’re sleeping right now,” I replied, hoping that Jesus understood for the moment. I realized that as soon as their dad got home from work, I would be scurrying to the pet store, looking for close resembling replacements.
No sooner did I have all of this done, than I realized again that I still had not had my much-needed caffeine. Being so caffeine deprived by this point that my sanity was once again questionable, I closed my eyes tightly, pressed my fingers against my temples, and realized that there was now a soft rain falling within the confines of my house. I quickly whirled around, slipping suddenly in the puddles that had formed rapidly around my bare feet. My oldest son was happily hosing down the kitchen with the sink sprayer. As I tackled him, wrenching the sprayer away, my eye caught a furtive movement back in the laundry room. I began to crawl to the laundry room door, being unable to stand up due to all of the puddles. I gently shoved open the door and discovered my youngest sitting in the middle of the clean laundry, throwing macaroni and beans in the air. Of course, all of this debris was weaving itself into all of the clean shirts. I lay on the floor at this point and moaned – loudly. How in the world could I cope with all of this confusion? How could I keep up without the help of someone else? Where was Jesus when I needed him the most? And all of the sudden, I heard a still small voice speak in the back of my head – “You can do all things through me – remember? All things are possible through me.” Oh, yeah. Sanity check - I remember now.
As I pulled myself up from the filthy floor, I began to have one of my defining moments. I asked myself, “How many times did Jesus have to pull Himself out of the filth and the `grime caused by others? How many times did He want to walk away, knowing that if He did so, no one else would be there to help out?” I knew without a doubt that He, being who He was, despaired many times over the fact that Man had made such a mess out of His life. Since Jesus looked down upon us and wept over all of the mistakes in our lives, I must also look upon others who make mistakes with compassion and understanding, even if it is my three hurricanes. Jesus showed kindness and compassion to everyone, even in times of correction. Who am I to do anything less?
I shook my head to once again clear away the un-caffeinated cobwebs, and I realized that my three desperados were kneeling around me, softly touching my arms and legs. “Mommy, you aren’t hurt, are you?”, they all asked in unison. “Mommy’s fine,” said my middle son, “She’s just excited because of all of our ‘surprises’!” I carefully sat up, trying not to slip back into the goo and grime, and gathered all of my wonderful blessings close to my heart. “Jesus, you’re right,” I thought. “I can do anything through you, even stick around and clean up this mess on a Monday without my caffeine!”
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