redefining “a good day”

I have always been a perfectionist.

Now, anyone who peeked into my home at this moment and saw the disorder in my living room or the state of my kitchen might not believe that.  But I have always been a sort of all-or-none perfectionist.  For example, if I can’t get all of my house clean at one time, then why should I bother cleaning any of it? (That is the logic that allows you to be a perfectionist and an awful housekeeper!)  When I was a little girl and something went wrong with my day, if I gave the wrong answer in class or got embarrassed or someone hurt my feelings, I couldn’t wait for the day to be over so I could start afresh tomorrow — that particular day, in my mind, had been ruined and I would trudge through the remaining hours of it until I could get my clean slate the next day.

As I got older my expectations of perfection mellowed a bit.  I mean, I didn’t consider it a bad day just because I said the wrong answer out loud in class.  But still, a good day for me continued to be one in which nothing went wrong.  Or at least, one in which relatively little went wrong.  You may think that by these standards I would have very few good days.  On the contrary, I was a very happy person and I had many, many good days.

Enter: children.

With children, there is no such thing as a day when nothing goes wrong.  Babies cry — every day — some more than others.  They fuss at inconvenient times.  They may resist your rocking/bouncing/nursing for 45 minutes or more, and then if they finally fall asleep, the moment you try to set them down they wake up — screaming.

And it doesn’t get that much better with age.  Toddlers cry — every day — some more than others.  They fall down a lot.  They spill things.  They refuse to put on their shoes or their clothes.  They throw tantrums (often in public).

Mama sometimes throws tantrums, too (though hopefully not in public).  And having kids has taught me that I am actually not the patient, tidy, well-organized, mellow person I once fancied myself to be.  I lose my temper.  I yell.  I forget to put things on the grocery list.  I forget the grocery list.  I don’t sweep the kitchen floor often enough.  I hurry my child along for no good reason other than I want to be going faster.

One or all of these things now occurs in my life on a daily basis.  By my old standards I would never be having any good days.  Ever.  So, in light of the fact that unpleasant things are going to happen as we deal with little ones who are still learning about emotions and trying to understand their place in the world, I’ve had to redefine “a good day.”

I’ve come to realize that having a good day is more about attitude than about the actual events that took place that day.  I’ve had to accept that a good day is going to have rough spots.  But if I can respond to those rough spots with patience, understanding, and compassion, then things will probably turn out better for all of us.  I sometimes forget that, as the grown up, I have the power to set the tone for our day.  How I choose to react to things will affect how the girls react in turn.

And so this is how I find myself at a place in my life where I might have spit-up in my hair and baby snot wiped into my sweater, and the clean laundry may be sitting in the basket another day getting wrinklier and wrinklier, and Adeline may have resisted my attempts to get her dressed for the better part of half-an-hour, and Quiznos might have forgotten about my delivery order so we end up eating pb&j tortilla roll ups (because I didn’t make it to the store to buy bread) — all this may occur and I can still look back and say, “Hey, we had a good day today.”  And, if I somehow manage to take a shower in the midst of all of this — why, then it is a great day, indeed!

PS — check out {i n h a b i t} at The Little List!