Math Night...It was a good lesson!

Today was a great day, and I spent a lot of it looking forward to getting to yoga class tonight.  I've had more than two weeks of classes now, and I love them.   All of them, doesn't matter which class or instructor.   I hate having to miss several days in a row though.  This has happened when I can't get there on Fridays, sleep in and miss Saturday mornings, and then also miss Sunday because of the Super Bowl and Valentines Day.  I can really feel it.  I am tight and sore.  I want to go to yoga!!  I managed 40 minutes at home last night, but without the heated room, it's just not the same.  Today, however, there is a class late enough that I can make it after the hubby is home from work.  Hooray!  Yoga tonight!


I picked the boys up from school, looking forward to yoga tonight, and headed to McD's playland.  We've got a now standing date with some good friends to play and socialize after school.  It's great for the boys, it's great for us as moms too.  Everyone is happy, and we're out of the house not making a mess.  It's a win-win blessing all around.


We stayed at the playland until the dinner chaos started, then headed home.  Yea!  Yoga tonight!  I can't wait!  We headed in the house for a few minutes to clean out lunch boxes, empty papers out of folders, and put away backpacks.  Then we headed out the door to the school's Family Math & Science Night from 6 to 7.   Last thing to do before yoga!  Yea! 


We got to the school right at 6, because I need to leave for yoga at 7!,  and headed down to the hall where my oldest's grade level had set up four rooms of math and science activities.   We started out building and measuring a paper snowman, and by 6:10, I was already thinking, Hurry up! We're never going to get through all this so I can go to yoga.  I found myself telling that voice to relax,  it will all work out.  This is making my boys happy, that's what matters.  A minute or two later.... Arrgghh!!  How many buttons do  you need to color on that snowman!  Come on!!  Let's move on!  I want to go to yoga tonight!!!  I found myself secretly hoping for the huge crowd and crazy chaos that we faced at last year's Math Night.  Maybe we'll get to leave early because it will just be too crowded and hard to do anything....so I can go to yoga!

Then, I overheard the mom next to me telling her daughter how to measure her snowman correctly.  No, not like that, like this... to the quarter inch!  No, the quarter inch... 1 and 1/4.  One quarter.  One and one quarter.  Yes, but don't make the one so big.  Do it like this....   And I thought to myself, wow, this is supposed to be fun.  They're only supposed to measure to the nearest inch, why all the extra pressure?  No grades here, does it really matter if her 1/4 is a little lopsided? Does she even need to write 1/4 for that matter?  Just let her have fun with it.  And then it hit me.  In my head, I'm just as bad as that.  I'm the fun-hater.  Hurry up and color those buttons, because I want to go to yoga!  I wasn't being in the moment and accepting the glory of it as it is RIGHT NOW.  Right now, I'm being a mom to two great little boys.  We're supposed to be having fun together, and instead of being present, I'm worrying about yoga later.   


So I let go of yoga, and decided if it happens, great, and if not, then that's great too.  I'm going to be present now, have fun, and enjoy my boys.  And to quote my oldest,  "It...was.....Awe----SOME!!"

Mentally adding 9+8+12+4+5....

and he got it right! 

 We measured, we added, we glued, and then there was this awesome goopy stuff with cornstarch at the end.   And not once did I again think hurry up, or let's go, or but I want to go to yoga!

 

My boys mixing up the goop

That was FUN!  This cornstarch goopy stuff?  Way-cool.  It's part liquid, part solid.  You roll it into a ball in your hand, and then when you let go it turns back to liquid and oozes through your fingers.  My boys wouldn't touch it.  "Eeeww..... gross... I'm not touching that stuff!"    They were fascinated watching me play with it, and let me just say, they missed out on the fun!  I could have played with that stuff for quite awhile.  Very fun.  Actually quite stress-relieving too.   And it was such a blessing to gross them out! 


I'm so glad that I let go of the yoga and just had fun with my boys.   They couldn't stop saying how awesome it was on the way home.  "It was Awe---SOME!!  (I wish I could type that sing song voice....) Today was the best day ever!"  They felt love and joy because I let go of what I wanted and focused on enjoying and loving them instead.  I was not giving up and self-sacrificing and then resenting, but changing my priority, and then enjoying it.   And I am so thankful for that lesson!

A true blessing and all because I didn't get my way!

 

Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn't love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that.  Ephesians 5:1-2 (The Message)

May you love and be loved as God loves us, and may you be blessed by not getting your way!