Check your own shoes, first!

This time of year is beautiful in Texas and we spend long weekends outside planting and gardening and bug collecting. I have drilled and drilled into the boys’ heads that they are supposed to take off their muddy shoes before they come into the house. Of couse, they are little boys, and often, in some Very Exciting Moment (like the discovery of a new bug) someone will charge in to retrive a bug box or a butterfly identification sheet or fulfill the burning desire to “show Mommy” something that she may rather not want to know lives in her yard and leave muddy footprints in his wake. But most of the time, when I hear the screen door creak open and ask on reflex if the little person has taken off his shoes, the answer is already yes.

So when I saw the house littered with muddy footprints–all the way to the front door! the computer! the laundry room! the other weekend, I gathered (ahem, yelled at) everyone under the age of 6 to come forward for a shoe inspection. Clean, clean and clean. It was only then that I looked at my own shoes. Of course, you know the rest of the story. Mommy apologized for blaming everyone else and cleaned up the mess. Moral of the story: check my own shoes before blaming everyone else.

Which made me think this is true for more than shoes. Is everyone grumpy? Maybe I should check in with my own attitude  first. Lots of bickering and fighting? Maybe the kids need my attention. We have all seen how much Mom can set the tone in a family. So, from now my motto will be to check my own shoes first!