The Mom Heart Conference Part 2

Pin It Do you ever have great plans to do one thing or another and then get distracted by 476 things that need to be done, or just plain ole' regular distractions (um ... facebook, anyone?) and then realize that ninety minutes have gone by?  Um, yeah.  Me too.

Another topic that was brought up at the conference was to be intentional in our lives.  To me, this is saying "hey ... don't sit around and waste your time (on facebook or whatever) when it would be so much more preferable to set out with a plan and to do it.

If I am intentional with my time for myself - I get up early (which I usually do anyway, at least when I'm not tryign to recover from daylight savings time.  HATE time changes!) and plan to do my devotion or Bible study, or even to just sit in the quiet and take a few minutes for myself, then I'm in a much better frame of mind to start my day.

If I am intentional about loving my children - I KNOW the middle one needs some specific encouragement from me, and I KNOW the little one needs lots of hugs and snuggles to get his day started, and I KNOW the oldest one needs me to tell her to put her phone away (okay, probably not the point ...) and I intentionally set out to do these things, then maybe they will be in a much better frame of mind to start their days too.

This part of the conference really spoke to me about my mornings.  Mornings around here approximate chaos.  This one wants to eat, this one also wants to eat, but something totally different, this one needs to be dragged out of bed but then hits the ground running, this one gets out of bed easily but needs to be cuddled for a while, this one will sneak in and turn the TV on given half a chance, and this one starts pleading to have the day off of schoolwork.  Oh, and somebody usually needs to go somewhere and the dishes probably need to be done.  This does not make for a pleasant morning experience for anyone.

The thing is - it's the same every morning, and every morning feels like putting out a bunch of fires.  Why??  We all know what everyone needs and expects.  Maybe if we all awake expecting to intentionally meet those needs and expectations, then we can start off our days better, which will follow through.

We're giving it a try, anyway.  :)

The other thing, also revolving around being intentional, is for me to make every effort to notice the good character traits my children have.  I want to notice good behavior of course, but they need to recognize that more than behaving well, they need to have good character traits.  It's easy to notice this child's beautiful smile, and this child's very pretty shiny hair, and this child's cute freckles, and doesn't really take a whole lot of effort to compliment them on these things.  Noticing compassion, or thankfulness, or ... ahem ... tenacity ... ;) takes a little bit more effort on my part.  I want to intentionally notice these qualities and point out to my children that I notice them and appreciate them.

So ... those are my observations from the conference.  I really want to go again next year.  This year I was a little distracted missing my family and seeing my online friends IRL for the first time.  I took a lot away from it still though, and I am SO glad I went!