{"id":2171,"date":"2016-01-04T21:15:10","date_gmt":"2016-01-05T04:15:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.mops.org\/?p=2171"},"modified":"2016-01-04T21:15:10","modified_gmt":"2016-01-05T04:15:10","slug":"four-good-things","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/four-good-things\/","title":{"rendered":"Four Good Things"},"content":{"rendered":"

I love my children unconditionally. And you know that\u2019s true because you love your children unconditionally, too. That is an absolute. One that I didn\u2019t even realize was possible until I held that tiny human in my arms and watched him search for the warmth of my skin, his mother\u2019s skin. I knew in that very moment there was no going back. My heart had just been split in two, and my son held part of it in his sweet, wrinkled hand. When the other two tiny humans came along, they grasped onto equal parts of my heart.<\/p>\n

So we know it\u2019s true. There is no shortage of love here, ladies.<\/p>\n

But I have a dark secret that I don\u2019t want to tell you. I\u2019ve had trouble admitting it to myself. My kids annoy me. They irritate me, and there are times when I have wondered to myself if I love them as much as I thought I did. And that breaks my heart into even more pieces.<\/p>\n

When I\u2019m sitting on the end of my bed, wondering if I love my little people, the mom guilt sets in. And my darlings, it is an overwhelming and desperate feeling.<\/p>\n

When I attended the first MOPS meeting of the year, they asked the question, \u201cHow will you notice goodness in your lives?\u201d<\/p>\n

I thought about this question a lot. There is so much goodness in my life, and I know that. But like everyone, I am quick to pick up on the bad stuff, the annoying stuff. I knew that I needed to think about this, especially focusing on my children.<\/p>\n

So what are the good things? How can I see the good things in them when we\u2019re rushing around in the morning, and nobody seems to be listening to me or when I\u2019m trying to get anything done, and I have two littles screaming, fighting, and Heaven forbid, giggling incessantly. Or what about the crying baby? When it\u2019s two in the morning, how can I notice goodness?<\/p>\n

It really is amazing what I noticed when I finally slowed down and really watched my kids and listened to what they were saying. These are all things that I knew about my kids deep down, I just wasn\u2019t taking the time to notice them. I don\u2019t want to miss these amazing personalities anymore.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Leadership: My four-year-old has some pretty amazing leadership skills. These are the same skills that drive me crazy. He could negotiate for hours (and he does). Many times, after he\u2019s thrown out some pretty valid points, I find myself questioning my stance. I just hope he\u2019ll use these skills for good someday instead of trying to negotiate for one more piece of licorice.<\/li>\n
  2. Empathy: This same four-year-old is a highly sensitive child. When I tend to focus on the bad stuff, it\u2019s usually because I\u2019m embarrassed by the fact that he cries whenever he falls down or when he gets his feelings hurt. I find myself trying to push him away and wish that he would act tougher. But when I focus on the goodness, I notice how incredibly kind he is and how he is willing to stick up for his sister in an instant. He genuinely feels sadness when other people are sad, and he is always there in an instant when he sees that I might need a hug. He\u2019s analytical and a deep thinker, and I\u2019ve heard him talking to God when he thinks I\u2019m not listening.<\/li>\n
  3. Joy: My kids are happy. They are so happy that I get annoyed because they run around the house giggling and playing together. Yes, I get annoyed by that. It\u2019s noisy, people. And I\u2019m not much of a noisy person. But let\u2019s get back to the fact that my kids are deliriously happy. For about 95% of the day, they are joyful and giddy with excitement and happiness. How amazing is that? I only wish I could go through life with the pure joy that they experience.<\/li>\n
  4. Tiny voices: When the babe wakes up at two in the morning, I\u2019m mad. I don\u2019t want to be up. I resent that I\u2019m still nursing, and my husband can sleep peacefully in our comfortable bed while I have to pull myself out of the warm bed and stumble into her room to feed her and try and get her to fall back asleep. I\u2019m telling you now that I think I will always be irritated when I have to wake up in the middle of the night. That is just inevitable for me. But the goodness? I thank God that my sweet little baby has a voice and that she has healthy, little lungs that let her scream out. I thank God that she can open her eyes and smile the widest, toothless smile because she\u2019s just happy I\u2019m there. And I thank God that this sweet baby knows when she cries, I will come.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    And it\u2019s true. I will always come for them. They are my babies, and my love for them runs deep. When I\u2019m feeling irritated, angry, frustrated, I need God to show me the goodness \u2013 I need help to see it sometimes. But oh, I am so thankful it is there.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I love my children unconditionally. And you know that\u2019s true because you love your children unconditionally, too. That is an absolute. One that I didn\u2019t even realize was possible until I held that tiny human in my arms and watched him search for the warmth of my skin, his mother\u2019s skin. I knew in that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":2183,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_seopress_news_disabled":"","_seopress_video_disabled":"","_seopress_video":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas_manual":[],"_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable_all":"","_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas":[],"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[102],"tags":[190,26,256,44,56,262,101],"class_list":["post-2171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-relationships","tag-dearest","tag-family","tag-honestly","tag-mops","tag-motherhood","tag-notice-goodness","tag-parenting"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/141"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2171\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}