Refining Moments of Motherhood - Part 1

A while back I remember talking to my mom on the phone and telling her about a terrible experience that I had with my children that day. She laughed at my story (Because when it doesn't happen to you, its funny...obviously) and told me that it was just one of those "refining moments" of motherhood! Ever since then, every experience that makes me think "Oh my gosh...is this real life!?", I have tried to see as a "refining moment". Those moments when God is just trying to make you a little bit stronger (or a lot) and is pulling and stretching you to your ABSOLUTE and FURTHEST limit possible. One of my favorite quotes is "There is no growth in a comfort zone and no comfort in a growth zone" This describes my life as a mother perfectly. I have a lot of "uncomfortable" moments. Ones that I wish I didn't have to go through sometimes. BUT they are making me stronger, more patient, more compassionate towards others, and WAY less judgmental. I want to start documenting these little moments in my life because everyone tells me that I will find humor in them ONE day. ;)

Airport Horror Story

This one pretty much takes the cake. It was the epitome of humiliating moments as a mom. We were at the Seattle airport coming back from a long weekend in Washington with my family. As we were waiting to board the plane, Danny said that he had to go to the bathroom. Simon was only four weeks old at this point and I still wasn't completely confident handling the both of them on my own in public. I told him to go to the bathroom though, and that I would be fine. Well, about a minute after he left, Emmett decided he wanted a snack from our diaper bag. Our heavy diaper bag was hanging on the back of our stroller which made it top heavy. Emmett reached into the diaper bag and the whole stroller tipped over. I was holding Simon and lurched forward to try and catch the stroller so it didn't fall on Emmett. As I went forward I DROPPED Simon (like HARD) on the airport floor. I COULD NOT believe I had just dropped him and hurried and picked him up and quickly assessed if there was any obvious bruises/cuts. At that same moment, Emmett got really embarrassed and started to cry and took off down the airport terminal. So there I was with a screaming newborn (that I didn't even know if he was okay or not from the fall) three carry on bags, a tipped over stroller, and a toddler that had just taken off to who knows where in the airport. Everyone was staring at me as I took off to try and catch my toddler leaving all of our valuables at the gate. I saw him run into one of those "Hudson News" stores, so I ran to try and get in there before he did too much damage. Simon was screaming his head off and Emmett started to go NUTS. He ran to the check out counter and started grabbing and scattering all the candy and gum on the floor. I got to him and started pulling his hand toward the entrance. Everyone was staring at me and not one person offered to help or ask if I was okay. Emmett did his "spineless" routine and dropped all of his weight to the floor. So, I dragged him by his hand allllllll the way out. When we got out of the store he started to scream and throw a tantrum in the middle of the terminal so I just stood there. At this point, I started crying and felt so hopeless. Thankfully, Danny finally came out of the bathroom (I guess he was having some plumbing issues ;) and saw me in the middle of the airport with two screaming babies. I told him what had happened and that I NEVER wanted to go out in public again. He got us all settled down and we called the doctor to talk to him about Simon's fall.  Thankfully everything was okay with him and there was no concussion or other issues. Surprisingly, I was able to laugh about this experience a few days later but oh man, it was the definition of refining! 

The "I will never buy lipstick again" Story

A few weeks ago after a particularly long and tiring night of being up with Simon, I was EXHAUSTED and didn't know how I was going to make it through the day. I had been up working the night before until midnight and then Simon was up a ton for some reason, so I only got about three hours of sleep until 6 when Emmett woke up WAY early. Around 10, we were reading books in Emmett's bed and I thought "If I could just get a FIVE minutes of sleep I would feel so much better." I was falling asleep while reading so I decided to just close my eyes for a few minutes. Well, probably about ten minutes later I woke up and Emmett was gone. I KNEW that I needed to get up because he could be getting into things, but I felt like I had sandbags on my eyes and could not gain the willpower to get up. I laid there for five more minutes and then heard Emmett coming up the stairs saying "Wet, mess, wet, mess" Immediately I shot up out of bed and started going down stairs. Well, this is the site I found. He had gotten into our junk drawer and found all sorts of treasures, including hot pink lipstick. He proceeded to smear it all over the couch, carpet, ottoman, and himself. Lets just say I will NEVER fall asleep on the job again. I was SO mad. Thankfully with lots of hairspray and elbow grease, the stain came out of the couch (sort of). I made him clean up every last coin and everything else he scattered through out downstairs and then put him in time out for a goooood long while. Little did he know he got off easy! 

The Sliding Glass Door Incident:

This one isn't quite funny yet because we just had to pay the bill for this ($400+). One day Emmett was playing outside contently and I was inside not really paying attention to what he was doing. He was playing with rocks outside and putting them in buckets, throwing them at the fence, etc. Well, I sat down to nurse Simon and Emmett came strolling inside to talk to me. All of a sudden we heard this loud CRACK and I gasped as I saw the whole sliding glass door split into a million little pieces!

 I was baffled as to what just happened because I didn't hear him shatter it. But, I looked down and saw a little pointy rock sitting next to the window. If you look at the bottom right corner of the window you can see where something hit it and how it grew outward until the whole window was shattered. Angry does not even begin to describe how I was feeling. I was worried the whole thing was going to fall out on us at any moment so I hurried to call a glass company to see how long it would be until someone could come replace it. As I was on the phone, Emmett decided to make a trip upstairs to my makeup drawer. He took out one of my favorite powders and dropped it...shattering the whole thing. I discovered this about five minutes later. THEN to top this whole lovely story off, as I was in the bathroom assessing which makeup he had gotten into, he stuffed a graham cracker into Simon's mouth which woke Simon up and made him start screaming. We RARELY spank (And not very hard) but he got one that day along with a long time out. I think the time out was more for me because I just couldn't handle him anymore. Im thankful for my husband who calms me down because I had just about reached my limit that day!

So, there ya go. Refining moments at their best. These little boys have my WHOLE heart, but some days are just HARD! I guess they call it "terrible two's" for a reason! HA. Hopefully one day I can look back on these stories with my boys and laugh at them. Right now, I will just grimace. ;)