Life is like a table

Parenting is a spectrum of emotions. Sometimes it's all peaches and cream, and your kids are drawing sweet happy pictures of you and them and a giant gumball machine....

And sometimes it's infuriating, like when the scallywags color all over your table. And you can't get it out.

And on the kitchen table of parenting sometimes you've got both of those things going on at the exact same time. Both of the emotions, the infuriating ones and the lovey dovey ones. And your head starts to spin.

And since your head is spinning you take a step back. A literal step back. And you step in to a giant puddle of water. A puddle of water that has been sitting on the hardwood floor for who knows how long. Then after cleaning that up you might go downstairs to do the laundry, and see the mountain of toys that has yet to be cleaned up, find a collection of soiled underpants in the back corner of the closet, and/or step on a pokey tinkerbell tiny plastic wing for the umpteenth time.

Then you start to see life as the colored upon table more so than the beautiful drawing. And you start to get mad. Real mad. You might yell a little. You might throw all of the toys that were on the floor into a garbage bag and "throw them away" (but not really).

But I am just warning you, you may want to reconsider this reaction. You maybe, instead of yelling, should go into your room. Take a couple deep breaths. Do a little of this. Maybe draw up a hot bath and lock out the children (though the last time I did that Ivy climbed on the counter, opened the cupboard and threw out four glasses and dumped out an entire gallon of milk). Anyway, I am just begging you to keep your cool because if you do those things I said before...

Someone might take their beautiful picture they drew of you and change your smiley face to a frowny face. And it might make you feel real bad.

But at least there isn't a speech bubble with expletives coming out of it, right? We can count our blessings for that.

Here's to a better day tomorrow. A little more patience, a little less anger, and hopefully a smiley that will last the whole day through.