I Knew I Was Wrong

I knew I was doing things wrong as a mommy the day I let this bother me and get me worked into a complete frenzy:

You see, we have a rule in my house.  Shoes are supposed to be placed in our shoe basket.  My father started this rule with the boys when we were living at his house, and let me tell you that it worked.  The kids listened to their Grumps.  Unfortunately they don't do the same for me.  

So this past week we're getting ready to go to school, and Ryan can only find one shoe.  I tell him that he should look close to where he found the first one because surely the second one would have to be close to that.  After all, who doesn't keep their shoes relatively close together?  Children don't that's who.    

We literally race around the house multiple times, and that other shoe is no where to be found.  I'm getting ticked off, which is just increasing the frantic feeling in all of us.  I should also mention that our boys only have one pair of shoes.  Yes, we're crazy or perhaps cheap like that.  

So the only choice we had was snow boots.  His pants hardly covered them up, and honestly he looked a little foolish.  And it was at this moment that I FAILED.  

I was angry.  I was mad that the kids had not listened about where to put the shoes AGAIN.  My mind was blown on how a shoe could be completely missing...and just one shoe.  I was upset thinking about what others would think of me for letting my child dress like this.  In my reaction and through all my worries, I was setting the example to make my son feel self-conscious.  That is NOT a feeling I want to breed into my children.  I had an opportunity to instill confidence.  I had an opportunity to teach a positive lesson, but instead I was too focused on the negative side of that missing shoe.  I made a mountain out of molehill and forgot that all my actions are teaching my children lessons.  As I dropped Ryan off at his school, still feeling worked up about him wearing those darn boots, I knew I had been wrong. 

While I'm not happy with my reaction in the moment, the only good thing about his missing shoe is that Pat and I have come up some ideas of positive reinforcement to help the kids learn their chores and follow the rules of the household.  I'll post more about this later.  

And if you are wondering where I finally found his shoe, it was inside the toy bucket that was in the cabinet in the family room.  We never would have found it in time for school no matter how hard we looked.