"If You Give a 3-year-old a Spray Bottle"

I haven't blogged since Christmas, and I'm not even exagerrating..weird.

I've wandered over here, a few times, and then gotten distracted, and gone about my business.

Tonight, I received the perfectly timed text.  I had a regular mom-of-littles day.  You know the kind, the five year old is whining and having a bad attitude every time you ask him to do anything other than play his elaborate imaginary basketball slash beautiful mind amalgamation of things beyond my comprehension.  And then the three year old, decisively independent, and set on her own way, insists you refill her spray bottle, after you've just spent the last 30 minutes, using every ounce of patience you have to re-direct the spraying so that it doesn't all concentrate on that one corner of the pillow.  And yes, I gave her a full bottle of water to spray, because I don't think things through and it seemed like a good idea.

This is going to be a backwards "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" book, but with, "If you give a 3 year old a spray bottle".  And it goes like this....

If you give a three year old a spray bottle, it is likely because you gave one to her older brother.

If you gave the brother a spray bottle, it was because you "needed" help stain treating two blankets, a sheet, YOUR PANTS, and the three year olds socks.

If you needed to stain treat those items, it is probably because you dumped warmish coffee all over yourself, the three year old, the book you were reading AND the bed.

And why do you have coffee in the bed, you may ask, because the five year old was having an ill timed screaming fit about doing school work BEFORE you got ANY caffeine for the day.  So hiding in the other end of the house was NECESSARY.

So fast forward to five o'clock, when my dear husband comes home to a messy house, something I HATE, but he actually doesn't care about.  We rush around, eat dinner, head to a meeting, return our library books, and choose a baker's dozen plus 12 more books to bring home, our MESSY home, with piles of coffee-stained bedding.  We spent the next hour cleaning.  Which is amazing, and I'm so thankful it got done, and I can wake up to a semi-clean house tomorrow.

And I plop myself into an essential oil ridden bathtub, to soak my troubles away.  Except the quiet somehow got to me, and I found myself sobbing, texting my dead-asleep husband, with general woes about feeling useless.

At the precipice of my emotional unloading, I get "the perfectly timed text", from a friend, saying how she appreciates me, for what I do, for who I am, and for being there.

We texted back and forth for a few minutes, and I was able to put things back into perspective with lots of wisdom and encouragement from her.

I felt so much better, in fact, I was able to make a joke about how my new $20 excercise bike is making a very fancy towel holder.

So here is my "perfectly timed blog" for all the moms, for all the women, grandmas, aunts, co-workers, friends, and sisters who sometimes feel useless or unneeded.  You may not always hear it from those you'd like to hear it from, and who maybe you should hear it from, but you are appreciated, you are valuable, you are so much more than the crazy days you've been going through.  And even if there are zero people on the face of the Earth who would say those things to you, let me be the first to say, God absolutely, 100%, unequivocally has a purpose and a plan for you.  He sees how hard you're trying, he knows your heart, and he loves you.  You can go to him, any time, and he will hear you.  And his timing, as I JUST experienced is always perfect. I'm praying, right now, that you all would feel his presence, and experience his love poured out.

Now, if that didn't help, please text me, I'll be happy to pay it forward. I received a simple act of kindness today, that meant the world.  And I would love to pray with you, for you, and I'd even cry with you, if that'd help, but I'm a bawl-baby, so that's not saying much.