What week again?

I have completely fallen short in tracking my week by week progress while I have been able to add some posts and I really need to become more consistent.

I had lost my hardcover journal, and then I found it again but I failed to actually use it, which is a big oops.  I am rectifying that today, and I created my entry for today and noticed that the last time I used it was January 19th!

As the end of February draws near I am looking back and reflecting on my goal which was to work on Love per the book.  My twist was that I wasn't focusing on love and my relationship with my husband (aka Mr.Padawan) but I was focusing on my kids (Padawan 1 and Padawan 2) because I felt that was my struggle.  While my relationship with my husband is not perfect I feel at this moment we are in a good, loving, and supportive phase of our relationship.  But with my young Padawans I just feel I am not the Mom they need and our relationship needs some work and love.

My interactions with my Padawans has been loud (not in a good way), snappish, and angry.  This is not the way for those little sweethearts to know that I love them, my actions are not backing up my words when I tell them I love them, I needed to change. Below are some of the highlights I made in this chapter

Highlight | Page 41
Small, frequent gestures of thoughtfulness were more important than flowers on Valentine’s Day, .... “What you do every day matters more than what you do once in a while.”

Highlight | Page 48
It takes at least five positive marital actions to offset one critical or destructive action, so one way to strengthen a
marriage is to make sure that the positive far outweighs the negative.

My goal was to focus on small gestures since they add up so that they show I mean it when I tell them I love them.  I also wanted to focus on the positives I figured if the information for marriages was correct then there would likely be a similar correlation for my relationship with my children  I needed to pack more positive interactions into the day, and a good way to try and achieve that is:

Highlight  | Page 43
I reminded myself that tasks didn’t need to be done according to my schedule.

and equally important:

Highlight  | Page 61
but it’s easy to fall into bad habits. Too often I hear myself murmuring “Mmm-hmmm,” with my eyes glued to
the book I’m reading as Jamie makes a joke or starts a conversation.

For this month I think the biggest impact is that I have worked really hard to embrace that things don't need to be done on my schedule.  And another big impact is for me to remember they are kids, their humor is not my humor but that doesn't mean that they are not funny and to allow their energy to rub off on my rather than letting their energy remind me how little I have sometimes.