TGIF

This week was particularly challenging for me.

Don't get me wrong, most days taking care of my kids are challenging for me, but this week did me in.  It wasn't anything big or disastrous.  Just a bunch of little things that I wasn't in the right mindset to handle.

It started when my youngest son got an ear infection.  As a parent the most frustrating thing is not being able to communicate with your child to find out what is wrong and why/where they are hurting.  I spent many hours rocking, pacing and holding him, only to be left feeling inadequate as a parent when I could not console him.  My other two kids weren't sleeping well either.  My older son has been refusing to sleep on and off for over a year now and it's really starting to wear on me.  And my daughter doesn't sleep well with the other two making such a ruckus.  Who would?

So when today arrived I breathed a sigh of relief.  Even though today is technically not my 'Friday' because my husband's days off rotate, I still feel a sense of relief when the end of the work week comes.  Perhaps it's everyone else's contagious excitement or it's leftover from when I used to have a Mon-Fri job.  Either way I was just glad to put this week behind me.

Then something happened this afternoon that put a smile on my face.  Even though it was something small it managed to help me feel better about how I'm doing as a parent in light of such a difficult week.

It started earlier this season.  My older two planted a Fall garden of lettuce, peas and broccoli.  They have been diligently checking up on it and taking care of it.

Today we harvested the first of the lettuce leaves and they each had a salad as part of their dinner.

 They felt really proud that they had grown their food.  I felt really proud that they ate lettuce that went from the ground to their mouths in less than twenty minutes.

Parenting seems to be a roller coaster of ups and downs.  As a stay-at-home parent, there are no performance evaluations, no meetings with the boss to discuss progress, no goal-setting spreadsheets or quantifiable tasks.  At times it seems like I'm running on a treadmill with no immediate reward.

That's why today's salad put a smile on my face.  Even if it's a small thing, a tangible result of my hard work trying to do a good job as a parent means the world to me.  These small positive events that occur help me to reframe my mindset and help alleviate the feeling that I'm getting nowhere fast.  I hope that when I look back on these days I will remember times like this.