All or Nothing

A simple phrase that carries so much weight in my heart, my mind, my life. This pretty much sums up my life experience. Either I can do something amazing, or I am a failure. There is no in between.

I have been struggling with this a lot lately. Especially as a parent. Especially because we are adding to our family, and that terrifies me. How can we possibly have ANOTHER child if the ones we have are not perfectly disciplined and perfectly educated?

I have no idea.

I know that this defeatist way of thinking will get me nowhere. I know that we are good parents who love our children. But we're not perfect and neither are they.

I feel like we really come up short when it comes to having a consistent discipline plan. Part of that, I'm sure, is that we don't really agree because we have different parenting styles. How do we find a common ground? Also, because we cannot agree, there is no consistency. We have to find a better way. Soon.

As far as education goes, I just don't feel like I do a good enough job. I don't read to them enough, we don't sing the ABCs enough, we don't have enough gospel-centered lessons. The list really goes on and on and on. It becomes so overwhelming to realize all the places that I come up short, that I just shut down. Which ultimately makes it worse.

I did some reading today, and I recognize that one improvement that can be made immediately is to get back to a routine. I know that will help all of us. So that is Step 1 - Make and follow a routine. Then I can find ways and times to improve in other areas. I think Spring is the perfect time to make this commitment. The sun will be shining, which will definitely help me to feel less gloomy, which will also help motivate me to do more.

So here's hoping to get back to a routine before the next one comes along... (Of course, we still have 23 weeks... plenty of time!)