It has been a day. One of those days where, at the end of it, I am left with the undeniable desire to curl up in bed and shove my face with any and all chocolate I can find.
True/False: There is an open bag of chocolate chips on my bed.
It has been a day where nothing is going perfectly wrong, but nothing is going exactly right either. I feel like I've been stuck in limbo all day lacking the will power to make today good. So when dinner time rolled around and Reece went through her own dinner routine of taking one bite and proclaiming that her stomach was full I just closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and told myself, "An hour and a half to bedtime." I feel like a terrible mother at times with how often I count down to bedtime. Improving my ability to mentally and emotionally endure the roller coaster days that come with being a mom is always on my to do list.
Two and a half hours later (about 45 minutes past bedtime), I walked in the door from choir practice to see Reece in the chair with Derek and to hear MJ up in her crib yelling. "Reece really wanted to see you," he said. She ran over and gave me a hug. I stopped and soaked in that moment where her arms were wrapped so tightly around my neck. I kissed her forehead and said, "I'm going to change into my pajamas, get MJ to sleep, and then when I get back down we're reading scriptures, saying prayer, and you're going to bed."
I came back downstairs and asked Reece to come sit with us so that we could read scriptures together. Apparently, when you're four years old, trying to zip an impossibly large bouncy ball into a very small flower-shaped coin purse is of much greater importance than reading the scriptures with your family. I lost my patience in the blink of an eye and immediately started with the infamous countdown. She got mad, threw her purse in the toybox, and stomped over to me. At this point, I was not only tired, but I was feeling like I no longer liked my child. Don't get me wrong, I love my daughter. Always. Unconditionally. There are small moments, however, when I do not particularly like her.
The door to Reece and Marley's bedroom has been squeaky since the day we moved in. I keep thinking to myself that we really need to grease the hinges, but that task sits pretty low on the priority list. So it is still undone. And the door is still very squeaky. However, it does alert me whenever the door is being opened.
I had heard that door squeak open five times already. The first time we told her to come down to us, we talked with her, and sent her back to bed. The next time we asked her what was wrong, gave her a solution, and sent her to bed. The next time Derek tucked her into bed and sang her a song. And the next two times, as soon as I heard that door squeak I simply said, "Reece, get back in bed right now," and repeated that phrase as many times as was necessary to get her back into bed.
I was mad. Reece knew I was mad. Derek and I were watching Holiday Baking Championship! Food Network is what we like to watch together to unwind and just relax. And I felt robbed! Robbed of my time with my husband to simply sit and watch some bakers fail in a phenomenal way at making a modern yule log on national television!
When the door squeaked again I was ready to launch myself off of the couch and run up those stairs and glue my daughter's bum in her bed. Figuratively, of course. But I felt a tug at my heart and a prompting to "just wait." I did my best to have a neutral expression on my face and kindness in my voice as I asked, "Reece, why are you out of bed?"
She looked at me with a sad and uncertain look on her face and said, "I'm out of bed not because I'm going to come downstairs but because I'm going to go over by my toys and pray to Jesus."
I nodded my head and heard her small footsteps as she walked over to her toys.
Derek muted the TV, and I heard her sad and sweet voice say, "Dear Heavenly Father, please help me to not have bad dreams, but to have happy thoughts and good dreams. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen."
No sooner was her prayer over than I heard her little feet run back to her room. The door squeaked shut. My eyes filled with tears as guilt and a handful of other emotions washed over me like a tsunami. I am so grateful to my Heavenly Father for blessing me with such a sweet little girl to be an example to me when I need it most. I am so grateful for having the gospel in my life. For the wonderful teachers that Reece has had at church that have helped to instill and nurture her faith. And I am begrudgingly grateful for that stupid squeaky door, because without it, I might have missed this sweet, testimony-building, and humbling experience.
Being a mom can be really rough. Especially when you have a free-spirited and strong-willed little girl on your hands. There are days where I cry more than she does. But people have told me, and I'm sure that someday I will know, that this is all worth it.
And, in case you were wondering, the answer is true.
