Harmony In The Home

Let me go ahead and get all my disclaimers out of the way:

• I am imperfect.
• I have imperfect children.
• I have an imperfect spouse.
• I do not have it all figured out.
• I mess up all the time.
• I have regrets already about some of the things I have done as a parent.

Okay. Now that I have that out of the way, I can focus on the reason for this post. Back in August, I attended a lecture for stay-at-home-moms. It focused on how to achieve peace in your home. Six different women gave seven minute presentations on topics ranging from homeschool to Sunday morning routines. The main thing that all the presentations seemed to agree on was this: find a way to make your home a place of peace and happiness.

I wanted to share a few of the things that I have learned and have implemented in my own home. I truly have found that peace makes everyone happy.

1. Saturday evenings are a great time to plan out the next morning. Unless someone is sick, we attend worship every Sunday morning. This means that four people have to get dressed, have breakfast, and make it out the door (happy) on Sunday morning. I am very spoiled because my husband gets both girls ready for church on Sunday morning. He puts them in the car for me and waits for me in the garage. That is something that we both agreed on. My job is to get everything ready the night before. We pick a child to get bathed (I get one, he gets the other) After baths, he keeps the girls occupied while I re-pack the diaper bag, get clothes laid out, and clean up the wet mess that always accompanies a bath. When I lay out clothes, I make sure to include: bloomers, hairbows, shoes, the actual outfit, and a back-up in case of accidents. I also lay out the clothes that I will be wearing (including all accessories) When Sunday morning comes around, we keep breakfast simple. Ava has a breakfast bar and some milk in her sippy cup while Jeremy feeds Greta a bottle. After they are finished with breakfast, Jeremy is able to get them changed into their clothes and get them into the car. I finish my morning routine and meet them in the car. On the way to church we listen to some type of "Jesus Music" (that is what my 2 year old calls it) :) The Zoe Group is a really good a cappella group that we enjoy listening to. It really helps us focus on worship. Sunday mornings in our home are usually free of tears and tantrums. :)
2. To keep peace in our home, Jeremy and I talk about almost everything. If we want to go on a family date night, we will usually ask each other: "How is this going to work?" Since I am a planner, I usually have Plan A, B, and C already formulated in my head :) If we talk about what we want to do and how we want to do it, no one ends up mad. Jeremy and I end up with equal and fair amounts of work. I don't end up resenting him because I did all the work to get us ready, and he doesn't resent me for nagging him about helping me. I realized very early on in our marriage that he cannot read my mind. If something needs to be done in a certain way, then I should communicate that to him. I should never say to him, "you should have known!" God wired men and women to be different. Part of overcoming those differences is learning effective communication.
3. Just like any married couple, Jeremy and I have our fair share of disagreements. Before we had children, it was easy to just say what we needed to say to each other, wherever we were in our house. Now, we have to be more thoughtful. If a discussion gets heated or escalates in front of our children, one of us (usually Jeremy) will say, "let's wait until the girls take a nap so we can talk about this." It is so hard to wait! Especially if it is something that we are angry about. But, I will say that arguing in front of your children is one of the most selfish things that parents can do. It creates stress and tension. Yes, children need to see how to resolve conflict. But I draw the line at parents hurling insults at each other and making selfish demands. We are trying to teach our children to privately handle conflict. 

I have wanted to do this post for a long time, but I didn't know how well-received it would be. I am keeping in mind that my children will read this one day. I am hoping that they will be able to learn from this in case I never tell them. I had plans to talk to my children about everything! But everything is sometimes too much. I hope that my words convey sincerity of heart. Hopefully this post will help my girls to one day achieve harmony in their own homes. And if you are a reader of my blog and have chosen to read this post, I hope it helps you too! :)