waging war

oh my gracious, people. it feels like i've been in battle.

our porch is not up to code and i have called the company two, three, four times a week, one day even calling every 10 minutes... to tell them they need to fix this before we can close on our house. 

i speak nicely but have this underlying tone of, "if you haven't figured this out by now, i mean business, and i will NOT give up. we can do this the easy way or the hard way."

and today they came to start fixing it. 

i mean, they left after 10 minutes and said they'd be back in a few hours, but it's a start.

i'll take what i can get.

and then there's the future house situation, which i will post on sometime later this week. 

whew.

and then there's my four sons.

little men all around me are playing gleefully one minute and saying hateful things the next. and i feel like i'm putting out fires.

--their over-reaction to small incidences and taking everything so personally, taking it way out of proportion and greatly overreacting...do they get that from me? 

because this is like a war zone in here. 

and i want to raise warriors. but not ones that wage war against each other.

but fear not, friends. it's not all ugly hurtful moments. there are moments of glorious victory.

and i know God makes it happen in spite of me, not because i am a triumphant mother.

moments where a brother makes something for another. 

or shares.

or sets the table. 

or says, "thank you big brudda."

before the summer began i made plans. 

and while these plans sometimes don't work out, that's not the point. 

i'm trying to teach my children about work and play this summer. 

that we need to prioritize work and then relax or have extra fun.

 that work can be fun.

that we can work together. --many hands make light work.

and i hope that even though there will be moments where we all want to take a break, get away, have a moment to ourselves... that more time will be spent growing than at war.

--and if that fails, i'll just make up a super villain for them to fight together. 

po-tay-to, po-tah-to.