Why is it that the clock moves faster and the kids move slower on the first day of the week? Why is it that no matter how hard I try I can’t get the hundred and one tasks of the morning completed, regardless of what time the alarm goes off? Why is it that any other day of the week the house would be full of children who are wide awake at sunrise, but on this day, everyone wants to sleep in?
It’s a discovery that I made thirty seven months ago-a weekly nightmare that moved in with the first child and unloaded his dirty laundry with the second. I’ve accepted the fact that this is one bad dream that’s apparently here to stay, but until now it has remained nameless. It’s horrible, dreadful, unwelcome, unpopular, indiscriminate, irrational, and insane, and it's known to mothers around the globe as Sunday Morning Meltdown.
Why is it toddlers suddenly have an opinion about what they wear and how they wear it when typically they’d be satisfied to run around plumb naked? Sunday Morning Meltdown.
Why is it when I make time to fix Sunday breakfast, nobody wants it, but if I don’t, everyone is starving to death and there isn’t enough food in the church bag to feed a flea much less two little boys who haven’t eaten for 12 hours-and of course we’re out of goldfish? Sunday Morning Meltdown.
Why is it no matter what I pull out of the closet, it is either too tight, too loose, too stained or wrinkled, mismatched, misplaced, or simply a fashion mistake so it takes me twice as long to put on the same outfit I wore last week? Sunday Morning Meltdown.
Why is it that the whole reason I take the kids to church is to learn about God and Christ and doing good and living right and the fit I threw as I stomped out the front door and slammed myself into the car might just be enough to undo any of the good I’m trying so hard to instill? Sunday Morning Meltdown.
Why is it after I’ve screamed at my kids, ignored my husband, and kicked my dog-and we are still 10 minutes late for class-I sit alone on the pew at least five feet away from my now totally estranged spouse and drown in my own guilt over the way I have just behaved in front of my family? Sunday Morning Meltdown.
I don’t know why this agonizing phenomenon transpires, but it must be a natural occurrence in life, like the rising of the sun or the wind in Oklahoma. For no matter what I do or how hard I try, it always creeps in on that sacred, first day of the week. It’s ruthless. It’s harsh. It can make a mother crazy. It’s a get-down-on-your-knees, beg-for-mercy, give-me-a-break, one-Sunday-at-a-time kind of problem.
It’s like that ugly, nagging cough I get every winter. No matter how well I prepare to beat it, it always finds a way to get me. But there’s one thing I know for sure. If I can live through the misery that Sunday morning brings, I can without a doubt make it through the rest of the week.
And that’s All in a day’s work!
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