Take a deep breath. . .

I was looking at my 3 year-old daugther this morning while she was sleeping. I couldn't get over how absolutely beautiful she is. I tried to burn that image into my memory, so I can call it up everytime she does something that makes me want to scream. Being 3, that image will be well used!!!

The other day she did something wrong and I told her to sit in the other room until she was ready to say Sorry. A timeout, I guess--although I still think of it as a punishment. She sat there, doing nothing but staring into space for 20 minutes. Finally, I walked in and, not saying a word, I walked up to her. Nothing; No tears; no sorry, nothing....finally I asked, "Are you ready to say you're sorry." She said "yes, Sorry" and slid down down off the chair and went to play. Ugh; pretty sure I lost that round. She's got her mother's patience and focus. I'm in big trouble.

But this morning I was rushing to get out the door for work. She was giving me the "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy....etc" I fought my knee-jerk 'parent' response of an annoyed "WHAT!" And instead, calmly asked What? She wanted to remind me to take a banana for breakfast, as I sometimes do, but was about to forget on this busy morning. Take a deep a breath...

What does this have to do with anything? I don't know. Maybe I just need to remind myself to take a deep breath, sometimes, and look for the lemonade, instead of seeing the lemons.