{ how Brian Regan gave me awesome parenting advice }

Imagine, if you will, you are sitting at the dinner table. You have served up your specialty: spaghetti and meatballs with a four cheese blend sprinkled on top. The fruit of your loins are sitting around the table, gathered in reverent awe at the smorgasbord before their eyes. It's perfect. You even remembered the salad, to appease the food-guide-pyramid gods. Everyone bows their head, blesses the food, and then...

It hits you that you really should invest in Clorox-or-Lysol-Disinfectant-Wipes stock.

I went to a Brian Regan concert with the Mr. a few weeks ago. Laughed my rear off. My cheeks hurt, my stomach was sore; all from laughing. It was the best date night ever. I knew it would be awesome, I just didn't know it would be THAT awesome. I also didn't think I would leave with a valuable parenting lesson.

Mr. Regan began his spaghetti monologue, which I will massacre in the next few sentences just to get to the point. His son was twirling his spaghetti noodle, one end in his mouth, the other end orbiting around, like a propeller on a plane. Sauce was flying everywhere, but he was oblivious to that.

Then Brian made us laugh harder, as he told us his thoughts, his reactions, and his deep dark wish that he, too, could do that with his noodles.

As we were laughing at the truthfulness of his words, he threw in this sentence: "The paint on our walls is more important than the joy in your heart!"

It's the only line I remember word-for-word. And even though I still laugh, it got me thinking. How many times have we put our 'stuff' before our children? Unfortunately, I am guilty of this. So, unbeknownst to Mr. Regan, he gave me one of the most valuable lessons I have yet to receive as a parent.

The paint on our walls is NOT more important than the joy in their hearts.

Stuff can be replaced, children/people can not. It doesn't mean I'm going to let them run hog wild, it just means that I am going to try and see things from their perspective. Swinging noodles is fun. Filling the bathtub till it pours over the side is fun. Squishing chips into the floor is fun. So instead of yelling at them "What were you thinking?!!" {which is dumb, 'cuz I know exactly what they were thinking: THIS. IS. AWESOME.}, I'm going to try and use it as a teaching moment {after taking ten deep breaths of course}. Instead of screaming "Stop! No!" I will {try and remember to} use the simple words: "Uh-oh, that's not a good idea because..." and have them clean up their mess.

It's going to be hard. I'm POSITIVE I will fail quite a few times, but it's a goal of mine for this year. It's my new year's resolution: Patience. And breathing.

Lots and lots of breathing.