Finding grace in the middle of life’s little messes

Flipped Waffles and a Broken Brush

This particular morning was not my shining moment.

Far from it, in fact.

Moving the morning routine along takes a kind of mental energy that’s hard to quantify. This morning though, when my daughter announced that she still had to complete her homework—after we had spent hours the day before asking if it was done (clearly I should have inspected)—I just had it.

My husband had made her waffles. I was still cleaning up dishes from the day before, making lunch for our other daughter’s daycare, making sure our son brushed his teeth, packing my own things for work, and more. Then came the hair.

I was brushing my eight-year-old daughter’s hair (yes, she’s eight), about three-quarters of the way through when she shrieked—that high-pitched, soul-piercing whine—then bolted away like I had intentionally hurt her.

And something inside me just snapped.

At that moment, I didn’t sound like a mom. I sounded like a peer, a woman who had been stretched too thin for too long. I turned her plate of waffles over—syrup and all—and flung the hairbrush to the ground just hard enough to snap it in half. I screamed. I don’t even remember what I said. I think the breaking brush did most of the talking.

It wasn’t just the hair, or the homework, or the waffles. It was the emotional buildup that overflowed. The dam broke.

When you’re diagnosed with cancer and have surgery scheduled the following week, your body doesn’t politely wait for a safe, quiet moment to let the pressure out. It ambushes you. And it rarely shows up with grace.

Did I feel better? No. I felt worse.

Now I had a daughter in tears, and all she could see was an unregulated adult—me—modeling emotional chaos. What am I teaching her? That tantrums are the answer when things don’t go your way?

All I had left was the recovery and redemption.

Everyone has their moments. Hopefully most don’t end with syrup-covered counters and a snapped brush handle. But maybe what matters more is what we do after the mess.

Maybe the moment wasn’t my shining one.

But how I own it—how I apologize, take accountability, and try to do better next time—maybe that’s the part my children will remember? At least I hope.

And maybe, just maybe, that will be enough.