An impatient mommy in a patience requiring world

Why do I become impatient so easily?

I ask the question, and then think, "well maybe it's not that easily..."

I mean, after all, my patience finally hit the end of its line after:

-I got both girls dressed, ready and out the door by 10 for a 10:15 music class.

-During the class Ella refused to sit still in my lap and wanted to use her newly developing walking skills to walk ALL over the classroom, up to other children, sticking her fingers in their faces...I chased her as much as I could while trying to participate in music class with Ava who was trying to tackle me and sit in my lap so that I couldn't hold or walk after Ella.

After music class the church where the class was held was holding an open house for their pre-school. I was interested and the director said it would only take about 15 minutes so we chose to stay. Ella proceeded to wiggle off the couch, onto the floor to walk around again...if I tried to stop her, she screamed...screaming child or walking child? I let her walk. She walked over and into two other women's purses and proceeded to try to pull things out them, to the table where the pamphlets were set up, which she tried to pull on the floor and when I removed the pamphlets she moved onto the vases in the center of the table...Ava, all the while was asking for gum because another two year old had some (NOOO!), and throwing herself around the couch.

Why are no one else's children seemingly all over the place?

We finally got home for lunch and as I tried to feed Ella, Ava poured water out of her cup into her bowl of peaches which then dripped all over her pants and the floor. While we were cleaning that up she decided to take her pants off and Ella started launching her peaches and crackers onto the floor...

When I get them both to sit back down, quiet for a moment, I start to feed Ella who thought it was funny to hit my hand with the spoon full of yogurt and watch it drip and then when I got it in her mouth, thought it was even funner to start blowing rasberries at me with yogurt in her mouth.

Really? Is this my life? Can I go take a nap, pleaassee?

That's when my patience hit the end of it's line...and here I am typing about it because since I no longer see a counselor I need to give someone an earful. Might as well be my anonymous readers and family members...at least you can all stop reading if you want to tune me out.

Shortly after Ava was born I was seeing a counselor every other week for some anxiety issues, not newly developed, but perhaps exacerbated by my new role as a mother. This is what she said to me one day,

"You are an impatient person in the middle of a world that requires a LOT (she emphasized lot) of patience right now. You need to learn to slow down and lower your expectations."

It's been more than two years since we had that conversation and I still think about her words often. Very often.

I AM an impatient person, someone who likes to go, go, go. Do, do, do. Accomplish, accomplish, accomplish...obviously all traits that do not befit motherhood of little ones very well.

So, what can we impatient mommies do about it?

I found the following insight at  essential life skills.net,

"Patience is definitely a valuable character trait to develop. It may appear to be passive, however it is an active, purposeful and necessary form of self-discipline." 

Err. It's that word "discipline" again. It has reared it's head in my life over and over again. I'm not a very disciplined person... I think we admire those that are because many of us are not. What I take from this quote though is that it's something I need to develop or work at, and it's something that will take time and practice.

And then, after all of that, I made a bottle for my very tired little Ella, took her up to her room and pulled her into my lap and snuggled my nose into her head while she drank her bottle and started to fall asleep. This moment, I thought, I could sit in forever.

So there is the life of a mom, many moments that we want to fast forward through and others we want to sit in forever and ever.

Here is hoping to be in the moment for the rest of the day and trying to practice patience.

By the way, here is another interesting article on developing patience at wikiHow.