Contagious Joy With Donna Sanchez

Just for in case any of you think about what an amazing mother I am, I just cussed at my 10-year-old in anger. “You didn’t want me to help you find your Irish Dance shirt because you knew I would find all this sh*# under your dresser!

I hate when I allow myself to be so frustrated those words are the only ones that feel strong enough to make a point. That reveals my heart. 😥. I was supposed to learn how to handle these feelings with grace in January!

First of all, slime is banned at our house because of this child. There was slime hidden under her dresser… A lot of it! There was slime making materials strategically hidden around her room. I recently realized we had only 3 of our shallow soup bowls. I asked the girls several times if they had any idea where they all were. Nope.

I donated the three and bought a new set. 4 were stacked under her dresser with clay dried in them! She even stashed it in an unused door behind the toilet in the basement.

Slime. That should be the four letter word.

My 10 year old asked me this morning if we could make cake pops for her class party tomorrow. I had signed up for easy cheesy juice boxes. A friend with grandkids gave me advice for my graduation book I was writing last year to “say yes as often as you can.” We have plenty of opportunities to say no.

I thought about how her request was inconvenient and how we couldn’t even make them until 9:15pm after church. I wanted to say no, but I thought about how in 7.5 short years, Bea will graduate high school and my opportunities to say “yes” to someone who can’t do it on her own will be gone.

I said yes. We started making them at 2:25-3pm, then ran out of icing. It would have to wait. At 9pm I went to Kroger and literally the smell of the sugar had me craving to the point that I stood in the candy isle looking at the wall of “sugar” and teared up.

I’m 29 days free from all flour, sugar and processed foods. I prayed in that isle for God to give me the strength to walk away and I did.

As I was dipping them in chocolate, I munched on my veggie tray.

The chocolate….the smell….I cried. Luckily Bea was already tucked in for the night. Doing what is right for our bodies is not easy. Processed “foods” were engineered to hijack our brains and take over the wheel.

I struggle with the line between teaching my kids how to treat their bodies properly and passing my food obsession issues on to them in a negative way. Lord help me.

Anyone else share my struggle?

I sort of miss January. I miss the firm boundaries of I can’t talk, I can’t use Facebook, I can’t use my phone on the weekend. I left January with a ton of excitement about how I was going to be more disciplined than I used to be.

Look at me now. Last night, Night To Shine was so exciting, that even though I took two Adderall for the day, I could not stop from being a chattering buzzing bee. It worked out nicely, because my buddy had the same level of excitement and energy, but when it was over, as we were cleaning the church, I couldn’t shut up… I just kept talking to whoever was around me.

Why can’t I just be moderate? When I’m excited, I’m like a spaz. I finally fell asleep after 2 AM, and popped awake at 8 AM still excited from last night. I spent the last two hours scrolling through Facebook while simultaneously thinking “I need boundaries.”

Lord help me, I’m going to get this figured out at some point… Maybe. I did learn a lot last month. I think I need to turn what I learned into affirmations and start listening to them every day until the things I learned become habit.