Joy comes in the morning OR keeping little hands busy!

A friend sent me a great article a few days (weeks?) ago by Heavenly Homemakers. The title caught my attention: These Kids are Driving Me CRAZY! Click over and read it.

I reread it yesterday on my Bad Day. And I soon realized that the first thing to go wrong (well, besides being peed on) was my missed devotions. My heart started off all wrong. I'm not saying that I was to blame for all of my kids misbehavior, but simply that the misbehavior might not have even occurred if I had been on top of the ball. Or maybe I just would have handled it better. My routine slipped, I was tired and frustrated... and I continued to grow more tired and frustrated as each incident broke loose. In retrospect, I can think of many opportunities I had to turn my day around. Yes, I did *try* to reason with the kids, through bribery, fun activities, threats. That sounds like a great plan now, doesn't it? I think I even sent up one of those, "Oh, God help me" prayers.

But as I went to bed last night, I knew my heart was not right. Agh. I'm a strong character, huh? A little fighting, dirt, and pee totally threw me off my game.

Sooooo, I determined NOT to make the same mistakes today. I did get up before the kids today. And I was not peed on, (thank you, God!) And I began to read. Even before coffee. As I flipped, and read and flipped, and filled myself up, a verse stuck out to me. Actually, it literally stuck out... I had copied on on one of those fluorescent index cards and it was sticking out of the top of my Bible, marking it's spot:

Proverbs 14: ¹ The wise woman builds her house,
but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down.

Ouch. Conviction. I was not building up yesterday. And, so, ladies and gents (do any gents read??) I decided to build today. And, guess what, it was a GREAT day.

I know there will be hard days (and weeks and maybe even years, as a friend told me.) I know that it won't all be directly because of my own failures. I know that my kids are not perfect, and they never will be. But, as far as it concerns me, I want to do my best. Yesterday was not my best. Today was. And what a difference it made.

First of all, we did our Bible lesson, but not just an in-order-of-the-book lesson. There's nothing wrong with those, but today I needed a little more relevance to their behavior. It wasn't a lecture or finger-wagging session, by any means. They were all smiling, promise! :-)

Then we had a little huddle art-planning-session for the afternoon. So far so good.

When school started, it started and didn't stop. Little hands stayed busy. There really wasn't much time for anyone to think about fighting.

Little Lad did some toddler folder games and lacing shapes. He loves to match things, so I pulled out our recently-completed Number book and Colors and Shapes book.
More pictures of the Number Book here, and more pictures of the Colors and Shapes book here.

Doesn't he have beautiful lashes?

The older kids worked, without complaining!

Dash works on an art project.

(Behind him, you can see the new color of my living room walls!)

We had most of our work done by the time Co-op started. The Artist even had a few minutes to work on her awesome Horse Lapbook. More pictures of it here.

And, when classes were over, it was nice enough to play outside with friends!

"Mom, I think I stepped in something..."

Just playing with the kids...

Hope you had a wonderful day!

Check out what other folks are doing with their preschoolers, and get inspired,

here at The Preschool Corner.