My Mommy Meltdown Moment

Hello. My name is Julia and I am a full time wife and mother! Now, before you start to think that you're at the beginning of a blog written by a person in one of those twelve step programs(I am so NOT knocking those types of programs as I truly believe that there must be one out there tailored to fit the needs of this somewhat frenzied, busy, at times short tempered pastor's wife and mother)...relax! If YOU are a full time wife and mother and you think that you are having a bad day...then the story that I am about to lay out here for all the world to read, will undoubtedly make you feel like a woman who is up for a Mother of the Year Award and will leave you with absolutely no fear whatsoever of losing to me!

As I sit down to write...especially when it is a story that doesn't fall under the "Every thing's Coming Up Roses" category nor puts me in the most flattering of lights...I still do not hesitate to bring you these tales in the hope that you will see that God can truly use a mommy that is flawed, yet has a hungry heart for Jesus and still has the confidence and security in HIM to lay it all out there in the hope that it could help someone in some small way.

The other day, my 6 year old daughter, after having been sick for over a week and restricted to the house to not only keep others from being infected, but to insure that she would be well enough to return to school on Monday (and YES, I will readily admit that I needed her to go back to school. So shoot me!)....her papa had promised that after he finished his weekend chores, he would take her for a short walk around the outside of our house in the yard. As the day wore on, his chores took a little bit longer than she or he had anticipated. When you live in a tiny little town like ours, the nearest ANYTHING is 26 miles away, and it just so happened that the chore he was entrenched in at the moment, necessitated a drive to the aforementioned 26 miles specialty shop. While he was driving those 30 minutes alone in his car listening to music and relaxing and just enjoying the solitude (no resentment here), our daughter was consistently coming back and forth inquiring if her papa had returned. Then, it happened! Nobody saw it coming. These things just tend to rear their ugly heads at the most inopportune times. Oh how I wish that I could have changed that awful moment when....the temperature began to drop and a cold drizzle, ever so slightly, began tapping at our windows. It was at that precise second that our daughter realized that the much cherished walk with papa that she had patiently (or how she defines patience)waited for all day...was not to be.

I'm not sure how it happened...but my beautiful, angelic looking (notice I refer to the appearance of an angel, not an actual angel)little girl changed before my very eyes. She became this mouthy teen trapped in a 1st grader's body. After a couple of warnings, I placed her in the dreaded time out chair. Then the agony that all mothers experience at least once in a lifetime (I say that tongue in cheek because if this happened to any mom ONLY once....the offer is now on the table to trade kids)...my daughter THREW DOWN one heck of a tantrum. The time out chair is in the dining room so that she is rather isolated ( i.e. Super Nanny)and I was in the other room and I am sure that the people on the next block...past our church, which is RIGHT NEXT DOOR TO OUR HOME....the parsonage (notice that I typed that in all lowercase because aren't preacher's kids suppose to be perfect? Total sarcasm there!) could hear my kid screaming her head off! Now...going to end that story so I can fast forward a few days to begin the story of MY MOMMY MELTDOWN!

I fractured two bones in my foot earlier this year and it had been a VERY slow healing injury. The upstairs in our home is designated as Nevaeh Land. It is our daughter's area. She has a den, her bedroom and her own bathroom. My husband has kept me from going up and down the stairs (before you go thinking that he is so sweet and thoughtful, which he is, let it be noted that those very stairs are the culprit behind the fractured foot!) So, I had been completely and blessedly kept in the dark as to how BAD these areas had gotten during my recovery period. This week the foot felt so much better that I made the trip up to check out the damage. I felt like FEMA going in. I went into this state of emergency..quickly assessed the damage...and came out shaking my head and wondering to whom I would petition to come to my aide.

There was scattered debris...chairs overturned....pudding cups in one devastated section and the chocolate encrusted spoon in yet another area...didn't the two at one time go together? Every toy that the child owned....BIG AND SMALL...( SHE is no respecter of toys) had found their way to rest on every inch of carpet...I was assuming that there was still carpet under there. And then it happened.....oh how I wish I could have foreseen it coming and maybe, just maybe I could have prepared the family. Mommy was about to go into full blown Meltdown Mode with hurricane force anger. I stomped downstairs ranting about never having seen such in all of my life and I was throwing EVERYTHING away and then I was going on a vacation where there were no phones and room service that promised to cater to my every want and need. My daughter started crying and stood at the foot of the stairs watching me as I slammed past her and went back into the trenches armed with a Glad heavyweight trash bag (now I totally get WHY they call them glad...a ticked off mommy somewhere invented those trash bags) and as I began tossing trash in the bag....she dared to come up the stairs and for one small fraction of a second I think to myself "Wow, she gets it! She sees that mommy is serious and she is coming to help and show me that she will keep her room and area clean." I will answer the burning question that is weighing on all of your minds at this moment....NO, I do not do drugs!

Nevaeh reaches in the door at the top of the stairs and plucks her Happy Meal toy that she had recently gotten....a little plastic iCarly locker..from the rubble and flies back downstairs, now happily convinced that she has saved one prized possession from being thrown away.

In that short time span after....Mommy Meltdown began to ebb...and the guilt that I felt momentarily for making my daughter cry and fear the loss of all things dear to her...her toys....was washed away and in that blissful moment without a loud thunderous lightening bolt of a response...God answered my silent prayer asking HIS forgiveness for losing it and thanking HIM in advance for giving me the grace to apologize to my daughter for my Mommy Meltdown Moment.

So...tell me....feeling better about your day?