Thursday, September 2, 2010

The Cup Conundrum

Driving home the other day with the three girls in the car, I realized how demanding my baby had gotten.  "Milk."....."M-i-l-k"....."MILK!"  Came ringing into my ears from the back seat.  Actually, it wasn't ALL the way from the back seat.  She is still so small that she is in the back facing car seat, so her head is pretty close to mine, making her loud requests even louder in my ears.  Anyway, I handed her some juice (living in Arizona I make a point not to travel with milk in the summertime).  She took a few sips and declared, "DONE" and shoved the cup back at me, her personal servant.  She has trained me well (or her sisters have) so I took the cup, hoping that it would end the driving distraction, and I finished the left turn that I was in the middle of making.  About four seconds later I heard again, "milk, milk, milk, milk".  It's not that she actually wanted milk, she calls all drinks "milk", she just wanted her juice cup back.  I gave it to her and said, "Okay, but you need to keep it this time."  She took a few more sips and declared, "DONE!"  Then shoved it back at me.  I didn't take it but said, "Just hold onto it until we get home."  I didn't hear another sound and began to think, "Wow, that was easy, did that really work?"   Then I was jolted back into reality by the loud clunking sound that the juice cup made as it hit the floor of the car.  Of course that didn't work!  I don't know what it is with my kids, but they will not just hold onto their cups in the car when they aren't drinking out of them.  It is an aversion that they all possess.  For years I've tried to break the oldest of it and am getting closer with her, but inevitably every car trip ends with at least one sippy cup on the floor of the car.  "Why is this?"   I started to ask myself, "Why can't they just hold onto their cups until we get to where we are going?"  "I certainly don't do anything like that...or do I?"  Then I realized that I do it all the time.   I start project after project and shove them in the corner unfinished "until I get back to them".  I work on them every now and then but for the most part they are on the floor of my heart.  Just like my girls I get "thirsty" again and cry out to God to help me fish out the desire to complete my project.  Right now getting in shape is down there,  God is driving and I'm saying, "I want to start exercising again, can You please reach back and dig through all the other stuff down there and find my motivation?"  He always does it, patiently (way more patiently than I do it for my girls) and lovingly.  I start exercising, get great results, get sick, stop (for too long) and then ask Him to motivate me once again.   That's where I'm at now.  Ready to start up my workouts again, feeling motivated and ready to take another sip of P90X.  You can hold me accountable so that the cup doesn't end up on the floor of my heart again in a couple of weeks!

4 comments:

  1. Very cute. My kids both have cup holders but Claudia insists that hers goes in the cup holder in the front seat. It's a power thing...
    Good luck with the work outs!

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  2. Thanks Cheryl. Emma has a cup holder in her seat too but we have all three seats crammed into the back of our Jetta and there isn't a way for her to access it!

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  3. My kids do the same thing with trash and only in the car. As soon as a snack is finished or a napkins in no longer needed it's "here's the trash Mommmy". I mean come on now I am driving here, and the snack was a treat, right. Joey has finally stopped and I am sure Gracie will too soon. Bring it, go and power through P90X. I am sure you look great and it is a little easier the second time.

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  4. Thanks Nanc. Yes, it's the car for us too. It's good to hear that it's not just my kids. I jumped back into P90X last night. It was Core Synergistic. It was my first time legitimately doing that workout. I had accidentally tried it before when I wasn't looking at the schedule. It was MUCH easier this time. Although, I still can't do all of it.

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