Ten-to-Ten

Nearly every night, around the ten o'clock hour, my shadow darkens the doorways to the rooms holding five little slumbering souls. I feel their warm breath as I give them a kiss and pull up cool sheets around their shoulders. I resolve to do better, be kinder, listen oftener, speak softer and lower myself less the following day.

At ten o'clock in the evening I feel that resolve so deeply, I am quite sure that tomorrow will be the beginning of the rest of my life of good mothering...the kind worth writing about. Not my writing, but their own. Someday. When they go to write books on their parental inspiration and after they do so, they all realize their books all have the same title. "Dearest Mother...A Saint Among Sinners". 

But then, surely as the sun rises in the East, by ten o'clock the next morning...

...the resolve so seemingly firmly planted the night before is but a figment of my imagination. I can only utter in fragmented sentences "Dear Lord in Heaven ...HELP!!!". (And sometimes I swear a little in my head, but please don't tell my mother).

I am currently reading a most wonderful parenting book. It makes complete sense. I even considered signing up to teach it after only three chapters in, because that's what a good Choleric does upon finding a sensible solution. But then I figured I should try it out first. Give it a good, week-long whirl (The Sanguine in me rarely permits an experiment lasting long than such).

Well.

I still like the book.

I still agree with the principles.

But I am wanting to do a little more research on the authors.

Make sure they even had children first. 

And more than one or two agreeable sorts with hour long attention spans.

Did they have a third born that put toothpaste in the center of their 

parent's bath towels before they reached for them after their showers?

Or one that threw applesauce on the new babysitter's face?

If so, I will tattoo chapter one of their book on my forearm.

In any case....

God gives grace in the increments that we need it,

without a formal process in which we have to go about 

to attain it. 

Right now, my requests are pretty short and simple...and not often sweet.
And you know what? 
They are heard and understood. 
My resolve is as weak as His is strong.