Begin Again

Some days don't quite start out the way I want them to.  Like the day that Grammy and Grandpa leave after a visit.  They leave early in the morning.  The kids and I are a little gloomy.  There are fights throughout the morning.  Nobody wants to start school after the long weekend-o-grammygrandpa.  Chores need to be resumed.  There is a general aura of "yuck".

Maybe one boy continually disobeys that morning, making us all feel that he'll never snap out of it.  Maybe another boy begins the day tired and can't pull himself together.  Maybe Mom is tired or hormonal.  Maybe the baby won't take her nap.  Whatever the case, we've all had bad starts. 

On those days I'm not particularly excited to be FunMom.  It feels like I'm dragging a huge sleigh-full of kids through mud in my not-so-extraordinary fun attempts.

So I have to stop.  I have to gather the boys.  I must hug them on these day.  Physical contact goes a long way toward softening all of our spirits.  I acknowledge the bad start and I say, "let's start over!"  And we don't give up if it doesn't work right away.

So yesterday I think we started over three times.  And eventually we pulled it off.  We all turned fun.