Week Four: Gratitude

I am grateful for sons that decide to give up the stand-in-the-shopping-cart fight and settle for a long hug instead.

I am grateful for sons who are starting {please} to understand that pretend kitchens must utilize pretend {not real} food.

I am grateful for games of chase that improve moods dramatically.

I am grateful for brooms. Without one, I'd be on my hands and knees, picking up wheat chex, one at a time. Three times a day {different food items}. 

I am grateful for husbands that bake artisan bread.

I am also grateful for husbands who are smart enough to think up solutions to early risers {read: timer that tells Peter's fan to turn off at 6am, giving him permission to leave his bedroom}.

I am grateful for last week's challenge to have no emergencies. I really felt myself living in a calmer state. Still a tired parent, but less frazzled.

And I am looking forward to this week's focus on gratitude. I plan on writing down my list of gratefuls each evening and purposefully exchanging thankful thoughts for gloomy ones moment by moment.

4. Today, when stress mounts, I pray to dismount it with gratitude. 
My stress management plan with be intervention with verbal thanks. 
I can only feel one feeling at a time, and I choose to give thanks at all times. 
Fight feeling with feeling. 

Thank you Ann Voskamp for sharing your Parenting Manifesto of Joy. 
Now we can all download and print and put it on the wall. 
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This is the perfect week to get involved. Just blog about the many things you are grateful for...the positive thoughts you have replaced the negative with. Share your post link below! 

Thank you for joining us for Three Months of Joy. 
Sending JOY...