Keeping it Real

I'm in a semi-funk at the moment, probably not helped by my extremely sleep-deprived state.

This past weekend, I went with my 9th grade girls I lead at church to a high school retreat in the North Georgia mountains. If I could give you a visual of what this weekend was like for me (and our group), it would look like this:

Or perhaps this...


Let's just say there were lots of ups and downs.

I don't want to say a whole lot on here about this group because I feel like it is "writing behind their back," hahaha, but leading this group is tough. However, it can be--and I think it WILL be--a rewarding kind of tough. Like motherhood. I would be discouraged about something this weekend, but then we would have an encouraging breakthrough, and then it would go downhill again. Unfortunately, we left on kind of a down note, and I fought back tears as I drove away from the camp. Then I got a text from one of the girls when I got home, and it completely lifted my spirits. Just now I saw something on Facebook that bothered me. Downhill. Uphill. Downhill. Uphill. Downhill. It's exhausting.

Then the transition back to motherhood when I got home was a bit rocky as well. Darryl had taken Amelia to a birthday party, and I relieved him from that as soon as I got home so he could go to work for a while. Well, Amelia proceeded to have a pee-pee accident of gallon proportions at the party. I had no extra clothes for her, but a kind, dear angel (the mother of the birthday girl) was completely awesome and handed me a bag with wipes, clean underwear, and an outfit so adorable I wish I could keep it and told me I could use those. Bless her, bless her, bless her. (And seriously, I had to fight back tears because of her niceness.)

(And note to self: Pack extra clothes in the car.)

Then at some point last evening, Amelia accidentally sent a cup of chocolate milk FLYING across the kitchen, and it went everywhere. Amelia even said, "Whoa! That's a lot of milk, Momma."

And FYI...I did finally cry at one point. And it gave me a headache. And then I let the TV, in the form of Toy Story, babysit my child so I could take a nap. It helped, but I'm still completely drained.

Just keeping it real, folks.