It's 4:30 in the afternoon.

The baby has woken up from her nap too early and is fussing in your arms. The phone rings, so you put her down to answer it, but before you can find it in the basket of clean laundry on your couch, your five year old yells for help from the other room. You change directions, letting the answering machine be your secretary, and notice the baby crawling at top speed toward the legos that you have strictly forbidden your son from bringing into the living room. You snatch them up a split second before she reaches them, and she howls in protest. Like a whisper in the distance, compared to the fury raging from the small person at your feet, you hear your son repeat his request from the other side of the house.

You scoop up the baby, and as you head toward your son, you hear your husband's voice on the answering machine, telling you that he has to work late and won't be home for dinner tonight. You can't decide whether to be irritated or relieved, because you have no idea what you're going to put on the dinner table in an hour.

Thankful that your son considers peanut butter and jelly a perfect meal, you turn the corner to his room, and discover that he has disassembled his bed and two bookshelves. He looks at you earnestly and says, "Can you glue the leg back on this spider I found on the window?" Before you can find words, the baby tries to leap out of your arms to get a screw lying on the floor. As you catch her in mid air, the doorbell rings, and your son says, "I'm hungry, Mama."

Does this sound familiar? What do you do in moments like these? How do you handle the totally normal frustration that is a frequent companion to mothers of young children?

We live in a world that does not like discomfort. We are surrounded on all sides by appliances and toys to make our lives easier, more comfortable. We are pounded with the ideas that we need time to ourselves, need to make our children independent, that we deserve a life of ease.

But is this truth? What if you could figure out a way to handle your frustration that did not involve escaping the source of it? What if you could learn to live joyfully no matter the circumstances?

What if you were a joyful Mama?