The Short fuse

After getting my hair cut today I ran to the store, without the children to get a few things for our 24 party tomorrow night! I kept passing by this dad with two kids, one boy who was about 5 and a girl who was probably 2 1/2 or 3. Everytime I saw him he was barking commands at them or sighing with frustration. At first I felt bad for the kids, but then some of the words that came out of his mouth had also come out of mine in the past. A lot of what the kids were doing were just being kids. They weren't moving fast enough for him or were distracted by something or wanted to stop and look at something that caught their eye. I thought, how many times have I barked at the kids out of frustration just because they were being kids. A lot let me tell you. I'm going to choose to deal with them differently and ask God to show me when my expectations are too high for them.