God reminds me to roll with the punches

The inmates are killin' the warden this week, help! I am in poor form, feeling so ineffective with these whiney, insubordinate little weasels. Sigh.

So they are all complaining about phantom pains and how cold it is and how their clothes fit all wrong and how yucky the oatmeal is and how ugly the yellow paint in the kitchen is (ok, made that last one up, but there was very little they weren't complaining about) when Robby walks up with a piece of paper in his hand. It's a rubric, directions and guidelines for the persuasive paper they have due today.

Unable to contain my micromanager I ask, "There was a rubric? Why weren't you using it when you wrote the draft last week and the paper last night?"

He replied that luckily, he'd gotten it all in except one little part. Micromanager of course wants to know which part that was. He shows me. Oh, just a small, tiny, insignificant paragraph worth a measly 30 POINTS! T-mins 17 minutes until we are due to depart for school.

He goes back to the computer and types in a sentence that might have earned him five of those 30 points. Micromanager isn't pleased. She offers copious guidelines. They wrangle. He whines. She presses but maturely walks away.

He types and prints and micromanager approves. At least he'll get 20 of the 30 points. T-minus two minutes and she turns to find youngest still barefoot despite three reminders to get the socks and shoes on. BLOODY BADGER, what in the WORLD??? Total insanity now because I can hear poor hubby retching the bathroom, just when he thought he was getting better. It's time to start up the new Christmas Carol, "There'll be Joy and Peace this Christmas... at Someone Else's House...." Really, come on.

Walking out, two youngest forget their back packs. Micromanager narrowly refrains from chucking them out the door and knocking her sweet progeny off the porch with them. We pile in and the car that has been preheating for 10 minutes has had the air conditioning on!!! WHAT??? (Ok, that one was micromanager's fault, oops!)

Driving to school (straining to see around all the ice), the helicopter pilot wants to know if the 5th grader has finished all his homework. Affirmative. Not satisfied with that answer she asks, "Didn't you have a spelling test?" No. "Did you finish your math?" Yes. Spidey senses tingling, she knows something is amiss in the backpack... "Did you get your essay?" Silence. Quick rifling of papers. Silence. Head slapping. Yes, this was how the morning started.

Agonizing over letting him fail and learn a lesson vs. letting him succeed and play me like the fiddle I am, I am exhausted and near tears as I drop off the last child. Yet I am wedged in the car pool line because the van in front of me seems to be having trouble offloading its rider.

I wait, judge the distance I'll have to turn to maneuver out, drum my fingers, wait... Finally a teacher lifts the little girl out of her car and puts her on the ground. I recognize her but have never seen her at our school before. Two teachers swoop in to grab her as she cannot walk without help. With a big smile on her face, she swings herself forward, stiff leg by stiff leg, inching ever-so-slowly along the sidewalk toward school.

As her mom drives off, I burst into tears and bang the steering wheel-- an uneasy, three-kleenex, ah-ha moment. God did it to me again.

In the moments of my silly, spoiled despair, he reminds me--through something so beautiful and fragile--just how blessed my easy, easy life is!

-- Meg Ferrante

I agonized over using this. I know some of you have special-needs kids and I wasn't sure how it would be received. Worse, I know this blatantly proves what a brat I am. But this demon is forever a monkey on my back and I am always wrestling him... trying every single day to let things flow more smoothly and lovingly with my kids. As we are working toward joy this week, I thought I would share my struggle to see if anyone can relate???