Glass Half Empty

It was just another chaotic busy weekday evening. Noah was going around pulling books off shelves, pillows off couches, papers off the counter.  Emily was demanding to eat, now.  Kayli was rolling her eyes, huffing and puffing, and giving attitude.  And I was on the brink of grabbing a pillow and screaming into it.  On the brink of losing total control, and though I don't often do so, it's not pretty.

Then Jadyn said [loudly], "You said you were going to schedule a date with me.  You said yesterday we were going to put it on the calendar. You lied." Stomp, stomp, stomp.  And me, [even louder]: "Well you try putting dinner on the table, wiping butts, cleaning up messes, doing laundry, helping with schoolwork, remembering appointments and see how you do." Stomp, stomp, stomp. 

While I'm all for keeping promises, being reminded on an hourly basis of what I'm not doing is really annoying.  As I washed dishes and fumed, God quietly spoke to my heart and gave me some perspective.  Somewhere along the way we had become a glass-half-empty family.  I realized what I sound like when I speak to them.

You didn't clean your room.
You didn't put that toy away.
You didn't brush your teeth.
You didn't put those clothes away in the drawer after you walked them all the way up to your room. (I mean really, is it that hard?!)

Now sometimes obligations need to be met and disappointments need to be pointed out.  I'm not saying I need to ignore when these times happen.

But I do need to set a new norm.  

And while it would be nice to say from now on I'll only point out the things they have accomplished, that's not realistic.   Changing how I speak is incredibly hard.

I am, however, very aware of my tendency to point out my own mishaps and failures and areas where I've fallen short of the goal.  Just a few days ago, I caught myself, again, as I was going through old postings and seeing all the goals I made nearly a year ago that I've made almost no progress on.  I literally made myself stop, change focus, and write down all the goals I did meet, all the changes I did make, all the ways the end of this year will be different from the beginning.

To reinforce the habit of looking at the glass-half-full in our family, I'm ending each day by writing in my journal everything I did accomplish during the day rather than agonizing over every little thing still left to do.  I'm celebrating the steps I move forward rather than lamenting the road yet untraveled.  I pray that as I change my own attitude, the words I speak to my children will change.  I pray that a spirit of praise will inhabit our home rather than a spirit of criticism.