Exercise #2: Forgiving, revisited

Okay, so it didn't take long...

Last night we were getting ready to go to the store, all of us.  I needed to do grocery shopping, and Adam volunteered to come along to make it easier (sweet man!).  Getting ready to go out the door is probably the single most stressful thing that I have to do regularly (the most stressful ever is hosting a party, despite my continuing desires and efforts to keep planning parties anyway).  I hate getting 5 people's shoes, jackets, and paraphanalia together, making sure diapers are changed, babies are fed, and that I have all the details taken care of (shopping lists, return items, mail to drop off, etc.).  It never takes less than 10 minutes, but it easily takes 30 minutes or more to get everyone out the door.  So, say I need to shop at Walmart (like last night) and be back before the kids' 8:00 pm bedtime...I have to start getting everyone ready by 5:00 or 5:30, and that's knowing my shopping time will be cut in half with Adam's help. 

Anyway, as I was frustrated with getting diapers changed, shoes on, dealing with whining about Nintendo DSes, and making sure I had the Friend to read in the car for family home evening, I was getting more and more agitated that I was doing it all by myself.  Again.  It seems every time we are going somewhere as a family, Adam waits for me to get everyone ready, working on the computer or whatnot, and then acts annoyed when he's finally ready to go, and I'm still struggling with children.  It really isn't every time, it just feels that way.  So last night, I was huffing around getting irritated with him that I was getting everyone ready and he's MIA again.  Then, I remembered last week's challenge, and simultaneously walked into the kitchen and realized he'd cleaned everything up from dinner alone while I was getting ready to leave.  I was feeling abandoned at a stressful time, when in reality Adam was trying to help, just in a different way than I had expected.  I took a deep breath to try to calm the stress I was feeling and forgave him for not getting the children ready.  Then I made a point to thank him for cleaning the kitchen. 

It made me realize as well that it really isn't that he isn't helping that makes me agitated when we are getting ready to leave, it's just the stress of dealing with so many different people and things at the same time.  So what if he wants to check on work before he leaves to go out with me?  Shouldn't I just be glad he can go out with me at all?  It's not every husband that has such a flexible schedule and is willing to spend his time with me and the kids. 

So, there you go, I guess I did learn something!