New mercies every morning

It's Monday which is actually a lovely day for me because the weekend is usually very busy so I like having time to sort the house out & spend time with Chloe. Today we are going swimming which I'm very excited about as we haven't been in ages. Yesterday Chloe was not in the best of moods. This was mainly due to the things we were doing - out of the house all day & expecting her to be quiet & play nicely in public places! I've been thinking a lot recently about the balance between child-centeredness & self-centeredness but I'll save that for another post! The point I'm making is that it will be nice to do something Chloe wants to do today. It's hard not to let your feelings from the day before affect your parenting the next day. But I was reminded of the verse where it talks about God's mercies being new for us every morning. We have to be like that in our forgiveness and grace towards our children. I never want Chloe to believe that I love her only because of her actions. So today I'm forgetting the pulled hair, the tantrums & the screaming and I'm going to treat Chloe like it never happened! Now I just have to find energy for swimming!