Paper Pile of Destruction!!!!!!

It's funny how mothering goes through ebbs and flows.  Some days it's soooo easy to feel defeated.  Children are bickering, messes are made, the laundry is piled up high, somebody is not feeling well and is whining, there's not a clean bottle and its nap time, supper is begging to be planned/started and the phone rings at the climax of all the chaos.

But God knows what he's doing.  We're supposed to go through the helpless stages to draw close to and cling to Him.  He also knows our children will survive in spite of our faults and weaknesses.  Witnessing our colossal mess-ups is part of them learning to cling to Him, also.

He also knows us mothers need a little pick-me-up every now and then.  Usually a new mother will notice her infant's first smile when she's at the pinnacle of insomnia-induced frustration.  Or, in my case, me and the boys have a SLAMMIN' good time playing with monster trucks.  This has happened numerous other times.

Back when Nathan went to his first Monster Jam, I got all teary over the opportunity this 2 1/2 year old boy was getting to experience and my husband said, "You might be a redneck if you get teared up over your son going to a monster truck show."  Label me all you want, but Nathan and I have a special bond over these silly little monster trucks.

He LOVES them, which means I will osmotically love them.  Which I do.

So, somehow, I got the bright idea to create a "pile" for the monster trucks to crash through.  The old phone book, which we never use, was still sitting up in the cabinet back from 2010.  So it was willingly sacrificed to create the Monster Truck Paper Pile of Destruction!  Do you know how fun it is for a 3 year old and a 9-month old to rip up paper?  That was entertainment in itself!  We ripped and shredded and shredded and ripped until our fingers were covered in newspaper ink.  Then the shreds were all placed in the middle of the room and we began the monster truck races through the pile.

We ended up creating a paper-pile-destruction competition between the 12 monster trucks he has and Brandon just loved plowing through the middle of it.  Every now and then I had to rescue a paper from becoming a potential gagger in the little one, but for the most part he just enjoyed the sights, sounds and feel of the paper in his hands.

 

 I guess it could have been considered a little intimidating at first, but he got over that quickly.

 

Sister even got in on the action when she got home from school.  Nathan couldn't wait to get home to show her our pile of destruction.

  

Wondering about the clean up at all?  If you give kids a trash bag and tell them to fill it with anything at this age, they consider it fun.  Clean up = no problem :)

This day was one of those re-charges I needed.  It happened at just the right time and allowed me to enjoy our children for a couple more minutes of their precious, precious childhood.