Try to Be Patient to my children

Sometimes, motherhood is a treadmill. I’m running myself ragged, but never really getting anywhere. (just like treadmills.)

Of course, as a mom sometimes the exhaustion goes beyond the physical. Sometimes I feel like as soon as I get a grasp on one age or stage, everything changes. The minute I accept Hayden’s three nap schedule, he grows out of his third nap.

I feel like a passage in Second Timothy, “Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” Or at least the children. (Don’t even get me started on the laundry!)

But for now, I feel rather competent—and I’ll enjoy it as long as I can!

Do you ever feel like you’re climbing a mountain of sand when it comes to understanding your job as a mother?




I’m not, in general, a bad mother. But I’m also not always the best mother that I can be. I’ve found that these three things, when I do them, make me a better mother:

1. Focus. By focus, I mean that I focus on my kids. I really find that I enjoy my son and motherhood in general a lot more when I stop trying to get so much else done. Yes, I have to keep the house clean and my family fed, but when I spend most of my time just caring for and playing with kids, we both have a better day (even when the sink’s full of dishes).

2. Patience. I’m really, really working on this one because I’m not usually a patient person (especially not with family members, as sad as that is). The funny thing about patience is, of course, that even once you’ve become more patient, you get to “work” on it your whole life. It’s not like you just magically wave a wand and nothing ever upsets you again—even if it’s less frequent (which is what I’m striving toward now), our patience isn’t always perfect in this life.

3. Faith. This is in many ways interrelated with #2, because I’m using my faith to try to improve my patience. But my faith affects more of my parenting than that. It does give a long list of principles and lessons that I’m responsible for teaching my children, but it also provides me with sustaining power. I’ve had mornings where I can’t get out of bed because I’m exhausted , and the only way I ever get out of bed on those days is after fervent prayer.

I’m far from perfect—and honestly, I know I won’t become perfect in this life, and certainly not by my own power—but when I do these three things, I enjoy motherhood more and I feel as though I’m a better mother!

What attributes or skills make you feel like a better mother?