Motherhood can be a real drag. (Yup, there it is, I said it.) We’re asked to dig down deep and use our divine nature to bring up the next generation. It’s a Heavenly calling. Therefore, it’s guaranteed to be really hard most of the time.
For me personally, the “work” part of motherhood tends to bog me down more than it should. I feel like I’m slogging through the trenches minute by minute. Dirty diapers are flying around like hand grenades, and I’m dodging bullets of Cheerios as I struggle to just dress myself. Showers are a luxury these days.
So, here’s what I think: I think life needs to be more fun. Alternately, I think it’s extremely hard to find the fun in most things. Finally, I think that it is SO easy to say that life should be a blast, only to be forced to face reality that work comes before play. It has to be that way or the laundry never gets done, and the kids never get fed.
Vicious cycle.
But, since I like to practice what I preach, I recently decided that potty-training simply had to be fun. See, I HAD to potty train my kid. I’d been putting it off as long as I could. The time had come. But it didn’t need to be a drag.
To make it fun, we had a POTTY PARTY DAY!!! It was a day of presents, soda, yummy snacks, games, books and movies mixed in with manymanymany trips to the bathroom. I was totally exhausted by the end of the day, but my two-year-old was successfully going #1 in the potty, and we’d all had fun doing it.
And while we were dancing around singing, “Spencer used the pot-ty! Spencer used the pot-ty!” with great enthusiasm, I couldn’t help but laugh. It was so fun! I hope we always remember the thrill of that milestone and the fun we were having; my boys and I, dancing around, clapping hands and singing just for the joy of it.
I need to potty train my kids more often.
At the very least, I need find a reason every single day, to sing and dance and clap my hands with my kids. They are supposed to be the most fun of all.
Laundry be darned.
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Photo by Meanest Indian
