Great affairs do not disturb us so much as a great number of little ones; therefore, receive these also with calmness, and try to attend to them in order, one after another, without perturbation. Thus, you will gain great merit by them. — St. Francis de Sales
I found this very timely quote over at Faith & Family Live. While blogger Kelly Dolin was discussing life with toddlers, it’s no less true when you’ve got teens and grade-schoolers in the house.
After I found myself defeated, again and again, by the “little things” this week, I need the inspiration. It’s not like there have been any major crises. But it’s been a tough week, that has included:
- Little Brother running a fever of 103.7, complete with a spell of vomiting.
- An extended-family medical issue that culminated in a 2-day houseguest.
- A bunch of teenagers who don’t follow the “say hello to the adult at home” rule when they show up to swim. They also don’t bring their own towels, and they empty my porch refrigerator of all beverages. And they leave their mess behind.
- A teenager (yet to be identified) who thinks it’s funny to spell out one of George Carlin’s “7 words you can’t say on TV” with the ABC magnets we keep near the porch refrigerator. (Usually those are used to wish a friend a happy birthday.)
- Adventure Boy vomiting on the pool deck (but fortunately not in the pool itself.)
It hasn’t been pretty, and I haven’t handled all of this well. And some of it’s not over yet. Now we have to play hardball with a bunch of 15-year-olds until someone apologizes for his use of filthy vocabulary and lack of respect of us and our daughter.
I think I’m going to have to pull out my Francis de Sales book and see if he has any more advice for people like me, who can handle big things pretty well, but let the little things pile up and pile up and pile up until they lose it completely. It’s going to be a long summer, and I’ll need all the grace I can get.