Transition Woes

Sometimes ... Okay, all toooo often, I feel like we're living life in constant "hurry up" mode. Hurry up and finish eating. Hurry up and get dressed. Pick up your toys, quickly please! And, for goodness sake, just get in the car!

What I'm learning, finally (guess I'm a slow learner), is that rushing rarely gets us anywhere quicker. Turns out my little people don't "hurry up" very well. Hurry up = dropping things and then having to stop and pick them up. Hurry up = frustration because "I can't do it" and "it won't buckle" and "I wanted to do it myself!". Hurry up = tears and grumpy starts instead of peace. 

And that falls on me. 

Sometimes ... Okay, all toooo often, I forget the power my Momma self has in setting the mood of our house. 

I am good at slowing down and enjoying the moment ... Except in transition times. I like a smooth, easy, time efficient transition. But, as it turns out, transitions are HARD and a graceful one is a skill that has to be nurtured. Nurtured ... Not rushed. 

For my little people it means a call for "everybody choose your last thing on the playground" a few minutes before "go time" gets us to the car a lot faster than a yelled "I said it's time to go, now!" And for my opnionates 😳 fashionistas it means sometimes offering two shirt choices so they can decide. A lot of times it means Momma takes a deep breath while they practice buckling themselves when my first impulse is just to do it for them - because a fit over lost independence slows us down and independent bucklers (eventually) speeds us up. 

Most of the time it requires a mind shift on my part. A shift of starting a few minutes earlier than I thought "a few minutes early" meant. A shift from "I can't be late" to "Let's do this so that we can be on time and happy". It means I have to take a step back from my rushed mindset and instead making up my mind to calmly move us toward the goal.

Oh, I'm not saying I give in always ... There are plenty of "we don't have time to do that now"s and multiple "This time mommy has to buckle you fast, next time you can do it by yourself." And goodness knows I'll probably always be telling them "we need to move a little quicker" every now and then. 

But at the end of the day, there is nowhere we go that is more important than how we get there, and I'd always rather show up on the dot and with a happy peaceful family than early with a grumpy frazzled one.