Hard Day Softened

I have had a string of hard days with the kids, particularly yesterday and today. Scarlett's second tooth is most likely pressing its way through her gums, and Ender has been going through a phase of some sort (perhaps residue of his own case of cabin fever from when we were sick?).
I am holding myself together fairly well with prayer and Olympian efforts to simmer down when all I want to do is lash out and just roar for a measly two seconds. Roaring would supposedly make me feel better; I believe that while I want to do it, but when my mind is clear, I know the truth: roaring just makes it worse. For all of us.
So I resist. Sometimes little cracks form in my dam and a few tears leak out.
Here are some quotes that help me feel capable and calm, loved and loving:

"This is grace: The willingness to give what has not been earned and what may not be deserved---it is certainly the highest virtue and the deepest expression of love." 
(Excerpt from the 9/11/11 Memorial Service of Music and the Spoken Word )

I know children are some of the most Christ-like people in the world. And I know they are innocent. That should mean they deserve all the kindness and love we can offer, but that's easy to forget in the daily momming. After all, we have to measure our parenting by the daily happenings, so when we think of what our kids deserve, we think of it in terms of punishment or reward for their daily deeds or behavior.
When I read that quote, I remember that the point is not whether I think my kids deserve pampering. The point is that I am their mother, they are my kids, and I love them. When I remember that, the willingness to give comes to me a little more readily.
This next one reinforces my belief that I am called to be a mother:

"...My work equals passion, commitment, vibrancy, and aliveness. The place where the world’s great hunger and my own gifts meet. It is my “music.” The things I am “called” to do on this planet. The wild and precious life I have to offer to the world. Work to me does not connote drudgery or burden (except when I make it so, by expecting inhuman quantities of productivity from myself)."Molly Remer, guest post at First the Egg, a feminist blog worth reading once in a while.

Thinking of Molly's words helps me bring excitement back into what I do. I am a mother with purpose, not a mother by chance. Molly also recommended (in one of her own posts-- sorry I can't find the exact spot) what is a special birthing technique that she also uses for other occasions to help herself acquire needed inner peace:

(I am open) (to birth)
(I am ready) (for my baby)
(I welcome) (my labor)
(I am confident) (and strong)
(Right here) (right now)
(I am equal) (to this challenge)
(I embrace) (this moment)

These words so effectively bring back the incredible, peaceful power I felt while giving birth to Scarlett that I remember I am capable of finding peace and calm in the most extreme times.
This last quote is something of a call of duty, a charge to be a strong woman in all I do.

"Every woman, whether rich or poor, married or single, has a circle of influence within which, according to her character, she is exerting a certain amount of power for good or harm. Every woman by her virtue or her vice, by her wisdom or her folly, by her dignity or her levity is adding something to our national elevation or degradation." —John Angell James

For anyone struggling with a hard day, *hugs.* You have my love.