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Bump in the Road

 If your kids aren't annoying you at least occasionally, then they probably aren't doing childhood right.  Ours are winning at childhood.  Actually, we came to the conclusion the other day that if they are annoying you all the time, then you probably aren't doing parenting right.  And when I say "you," I mean "we."  

We weren't enjoying our kids recently, and we wondered if that meant other people were also finding them unenjoyable.  It made us finally pause and take a long hard look at what was bugging us about our kids.  We felt like we were in a perpetual state of irritation.  Once we made our list, and it was lengthy, we noticed a theme: attention.  Our kids were begging for our attention with every behavior.  It was annoying, but it was our fault, and it was fixable.  

We started putting down phones and brooms and laundry and giving undivided and intentional focus to our kids throughout the day.  It wasn't a huge sacrifice on our part - just five minutes here or twenty minutes there.  The results spoke for themselves.  Our kids aren't perfect.  They still cause us to roll our eyes, but we are decidedly enjoying them again.  The major behaviors, that had us consulting Dr. Google about whether or not they were normal, have all but disappeared.  

We go through these phases periodically where we are just struggling with our kids and nine times out of ten, it's a reflection of or a reaction to our own behaviors.  I'm embarrassed that we were so preoccupied with getting "stuff" done that we ignored the most important "stuff."  It won't be the last time that we hit a bump like this, but it's nice to be able to look back and see that, for now, it's behind us.  I know others are struggling too, so here's a shout out to knowing you're not alone!  Keep the faith, friends.  

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