Little Eyes and Mommy Exhaustion

We are exhausted. After 9.5 hours of labor yesterday, which suddenly ended with no progress but thankfully, still a healthy baby in my belly, we are exhausted in so many ways... (by, "we", I mean, the hubs and I....he dealt with lots of hand squeezes and requests from this uncomfortable momma...)

Which made today more difficult. We had to unexpectedly leave our little guy with my mom overnight - much longer than he expected...so, he was understandably clingy today. And extra "2 years old" today, if you know what I mean. ;)

Amidst the screaming because he wanted a "different cart" at the market...the tears because we wouldn't let him play outside in the thunderstorm....the drama because I only had one sucker in my purse...and the outrage about our refusal to feed him gummies and cookies at his demand, I learned something. Not only are little eyes watching our every move, but little ears are hearing our tone of voice and the side comments we make on frustrating days.

I must say, aside from the drama, this guy was a sweet little BLAST today. He kept us laughing most of the day!

I noticed when our little man repeated, "WHAT?!" after one of us responded to the other in that way. I noticed whenever his little stress level in the market rose along with mine at the fact that there were TWO REGISTERS open in the entire store!!!! (I'm over it now, though ;) ). In case you're curious, we ended up being one of "those families" who loaded up their entire cart onto a self-checkout lane... ;)

We stop ourselves from saying words like, "dumb", "stupid", "butt" ....you know, those bad words that would sound too awful coming from a sweet toddler mouth....:)

But we're not so great at stopping ourselves from using irritated tones and making side comments on exhausting days such as these.

I can't exactly pursue a God-honoring home whenever my tone and speech become sour during difficult circumstances. I can give myself grace to mess up and pray that God will clean up the messes I make (because I am human, and I WILL make mistakes). God's grace is sufficient and His mercies are new EVERY morning...including those mornings that begin WAY too early - He knows. He chose us to be mommies and daddies to these babies - and HE never makes mistakes. :)

As mommies (and daddies), we have a constant audience. Even if our audience is taller than us and awkwardly lanky... ;)  I need to remember this...some days more than other days...but I need to remember that I'm teaching with my every action...word...eye roll...etc.

I learned today that no matter my circumstances, no matter my frustrations, little eyes and ears are on me to learn how to react....and more importantly, how to reflect God to the world in our everyday actions. A terrifying task, but a blessing that God saw fit to choose me for this job, and yet promises to hold my hand EVERY STEP of the way. Praise Him.