Exercising Patience

I am not a very patient person nor do I pretend to be, it's a fault I'll admit. I am certainly more patient now than I have been in the past and whether that comes with age or child-rearing, your guess is as good as mine. Things have been particularly chaotic around here lately and I have been under a fair amount of stress. The kids have been 'feeding' off of it- fighting, arguing, hitting etc. So last night I decided that there was nothing I could do to change the way things have been going of late and I needed to exercise more patience with the kids. I even wrote it down in my day planner that sits at the computer, 'Be Patient.' I woke up this morning and put on a happy face and a calm, patient voice. Even though I have been running around the house doing laundry(my washer and dryer have been going pretty well non-stop since 9:00 this morning), cleaning bathrooms, washing floors and its nearly 2:00 in the afternoon and my kids are still in their pajamas, there hasn't been any major squabbling. The kids have been playing together since 8:00 this morning and they are still at it. My son has even been using his manners instead of demanding everything like usual. He came to me a few minutes ago and politely asked,"can we have some more cranberries and almonds please?"

Its hard to be patient when life sometimes makes us want to yell and scream and kick things but knowing how smoothly things can run with patience I think I'll try it more often!