The Word for 2014 is ...

Pin It Well, actually there will be two words, because I'm an over achiever like that.  I'm only sharing one right now because the other is still a concept and I can't think of the right word to sum it up.  This is not nearly as lofty as it sounds - really it's more a shortfall in my vocabulary than anything else!  The oldest could probably come up with the right word, and the middle one could probably make up a word, but I'll just wait and see if I can figure it out myself first!

The word I do have now ... is LAUGH.  I can be a bit high strung.  Just a bit.  I like to have all of my ducks in a row, be where I'm supposed to be when I'm supposed to be there, and have everything done appropriately and cleaned up after.  My children sometimes make this a little difficult, like walking out the door and "I can't find my shoes" and "She hit me" and "I'm going to leave every one of the 237894 pieces of this thing I should not have taken out of the house all over the place so that when you're ready to leave, you won't get to because I'm going to be nowhere to be found and you're going to have to gather up all of those pieces" and the ever popular "OH MY SWEET HEAVENS, HAVE YOU BRUSHED YOUR TEETH?"

In the midst of all of this, the MOM FACE pops out more often than not.  Then I'm snapping at kids and I'm again reminded that since being in my 40's, my bad attitudes tend to last all day.  I remember Beth Moore saying "God doesn't just want to change your life, He wants to change your day" and that's fabulous but I'm JUST. SO. IRRITATED. and don't want to let go of the bad attitude, thankyouverymuch.

So laugh ...

Really I just want to try to loosen up some.  I'm always telling one of my children to loosen up, and as that child has a personality SO MUCH like my own, I have realized that I need to do it too.  I know I'm still going to get irritated when I'm supposed to be somewhere in FOUR MINUTES and there is still a child playing a video game, barefooted with unbrushed teeth, or any of the other millions of things that irritate me, but truth be told ...

... it's really SMALL STUFF, and in the grand scheme of things, doesn't really matter.

So, I'm going to try to loosen up a bit.  And laugh more.  Life is funny.  My kids are funny.  I want to enjoy that.  And maybe I'll be so busy laughing that I won't care so much if I'm a couple of minutes late.  (I promise I will still care whether teeth are brushed or not though, because that's just gross.)