Who gets the best of you?

A few years ago at a FACS summer conference the keynote speaker was asking the women in the audience "who gets the best of you"? The question wasn't about who makes you angry, but who gets the best parts of you. That got me really thinking, after a long day at school, running errands, church obligations, etc... it seems like my family gets the least of me. I try every day to make sure my children get the best of me and sometimes (more often than not) I seem to fall short. Somedays by 5:30 I have had IT and just can't deal with one more complaint and I do not respond in the best way. Here is an incidence that happened just last week. The girls and I get home and I start making dinner. Emily comes in and asks me why she never gets to take home lunch to school. Apparently she is the ONLY kid in her class that has to eat school lunch! When I question this "fact" she assures me it is true. Now every year since first grade we go through this home lunch argument. I explain that there isn't time for me to fix lunch in the morning and since Emily is a picky eater, she will not eat peanut butter and jelly-which she would get three or four times a week if she took home lunch. *By the way, I think the home lunch argument comes up when a friend has a new lunch box*



Anyhoo, she is still complaining about the home lunch thing, and I start to feel guilty that I don't have the time to make her cute little boxed lunches...you know the sandwiches cut into shapes and homemade cookies...with a beribboned love note tucked inside.



The complaining goes on... and I point out that she doesn't like sandwhiches...at which point she says that she doesn't have to take sandwhiches...she will take a can of spray cheese and some crackers! At which point I turn to her and yell, YOU ARE NOT TAKING CANNED SQUIRT CHEESE AND CRACKERS FOR LUNCH!!!!! I know, not my best..she leaves the room crying...guilt kicks in immediately. Guilt that I can't make the home lunch she longs for, guilt that I yelled, guilt that I can't understand why this is so darn important to her.



After we have both calmed down, I try to get her to tell me why she wants to take lunch so bad. I don't even think she knows...She needs something to tell her therapist in 10 years or maybe by some fluke EVERY kid in her class does bring sandwhiches cut into cute shapes and homemade cookies with beribboned love notes tucked inside.

So today, I picked up somethings for her home lunch. I told her she could do it three times over the next two weeks. Now I just have to remember to pack the lunch before I go to work...and add my beribboned love note