Crumbs of grace

It's like I was just starting to eat a big amazing piece of cake and now all that's left for me is crumbs...before I really even took a big bite.

That's how much grace I've been giving myself. Crumbs.

Somewhere between 3-4 months after Zoe was born I just ran out of grace for myself. Suddenly instead of thinking "good job on losing 95% of that baby weight so fast" I was thinking "damn these last 3 pounds, why can't I just get them off?!" I changed from thinking "good job on making a good dinner a couple times this week" to "where's the menu plan and homemade meals this week - can't you pull that together since you're home all day long?!" I went from being satisfied that all my kids were loved, together and happy to "where's the intellectual stimulation, creative activities and why can't you get your act together and take them all to the museum?"

It's riddled with self-blame, perfectionism and rules. It's not grace. And I think it's been making me angry. You know, angry on a deeper level. Angry that I can't quite do it. It seems I went from giving myself grace in the time after Zoe's birth to figure out how to mother 3 kids...and now, somewhere between months 3 and 4 I decided that I needed to have it all figured out, cook great, look great and basically be having fun again and making sure my kids were having fun too.

Well, guess what? I'm not having that much fun. And I don't think I will until I figure out how to receive a little bit more grace.

Aren't you glad you read this?! :-)