Small Success Thursday Home Edition

Normally, I post Small Success Thursday over at Catholicmom.com, but my good friends Sarah Reinhard and Lisa Hendey are taking a much deserved hiatus during the first two weeks of August.  So today, we'll hang out at my place.  

Small Success Thursday started for me as an exercise in willful cheerfulness when the amount of laundry I faced threatened to drown out the idea of ever having any fun.   It is a meme started originally by Danielle Bean  of Catholic Digest, which she handed over to me when she became that magazine's full time  editor.  

The purpose is to count one's blessings, to cultivate gratitude, and to remember that we are making progress, even if we cannot see it for all the socks that cover the floor.   Parenting is a sticky messy and 24-7 business. It involves the systemic training of little souls which in turn trains our own, to be more submissive, more servile, more selfless.  We love these little people, but we love haltingly, grudgingly at times, and imperfectly. 

If the goal is to imitate Christ, we should become transparent, we should become people who don't spend much time saying, "But what about my time? or what about me?" but who pour everything out because love demands it.   I'll be the first to say, come five o'clock and I need to stop what I'm doing to make dinner, I'm not feeling it.  Come 7 o'clock when I need to power back up to do bedtime routine, again I'm not feeling it.  And dishes not done that I get to do in the morning first thing?  So not feeling it.   But the trick is not to let feelings dictate actions, love is an active constant choice we have to make and remake and remake every day.  (Sort of like the beds).  

So with all that in mind, here's this week's Small Successes.

1) Was asked to write an article for a newspaper for December. (Yay! Very excited about this one too). 

2) Registered 2 for high school and 4 for Elementary this week.  

3) Hosted a party for my 15 year old.  He's introverted by nature and so his natural response to such things is to push back, but we invited his whole class and afterwards, he gave me a hug, one of those sly shy full smiles and said, "Thanks for giving me the party I said I didn't want. It was really fun."  

4) That same child made me exercise yesterday.  He's made it his personal goal to get me moving. He runs for pleasure so I've now a personal trainer I can't evade. 

Now it's your turn.  Have a great week!

 

There's a link up over at Catholicmom!