A simple stress test

Let me start by saying I am in DESPERATE need of a new camera! Steve is so tired of hearing me talk about what bad pics our camera takes. Its mostly due to the fact that it has such an incredible delay that with a house full of fast moving kids, we mostly get pictures of the backs of heads and missed moments. Today... we have halos. And I'm *pretty* sure this ain't no house of angels.

But I digress. Life has a funny way of providing a laboratory for the lessons you're learning in your head, doesn't it? There is a small group of ladies from my job (oh, that makes it sound so mandatory, when really these are ladies that I hold near and dear to my heart and are more than friends, they are truly sisters) that I meet with every other Wednesday. We call ourselves a *growth group* and we hope to be just that.
We talk about where we are trying to grow, personally. We talk about things God is teaching us and where we need to grow as moms. I've learned a ton from these girls and I feel 100% safe to share anything going on in my life. I also trust that they will give me honest and loving feedback. Today I shared some struggles I'm having in my stress levels as a mom. We got down to some core issues and I found that I need to let go of some expectations of my life. Mainly the "me times" of my day. You know... nap time is *me time* etc. It was good stuff and although I won't go into all the details here, I feel like I have some steps to move forward in personal growth in this area.

Then I got home and life hit. The rubber met the road and I got to see if I was going to make some strides in letting go of my expectations for my day. Because poor Quinn woke up with a fever and looked pretty miserable (see the first picture and tell me if you agree!) He then proceeded to lay on me for 2 1/2 hours. An hour and a half later Olivia came down with a headache, a tummy ache (which I would have sworn she was making up in order to compete for attention with her brother) except for the fact that she had a fever as well. She also fell asleep on me as we were praying at bed time. Sweet girl.
My day didn't go quite as I expected. Me time was few and far between. And on this rare occasion, I was fine with it. I'm not attributing this to miraculous growth, but it is good to talk about and expose expectations that as a parent of three kids 4 and under might be unrealistic at this season.

Plus, how can you get stressed out when your kid is THIS cute??