I knew this would be a hard week. Good hard, but busy hard. I’m teaching my kids in our church VBS in the morning and working in the afternoon (AND early morning – 7 am conference calls), as well as squeezing in a speech in Dallas, but I figured it was only for a week.
But when the first day kicks off with returning home at 12:55 to conference calls at 1, 1:30, 2, 2:30, 3, and 4, and you have to step away from one said call because your daughter gets busted in the nose by her brother and blood spurts everywhere and your husband passes out, well, you just want to throw in the towel even though it’s just Monday.
So instead, I wanted to jot down the sweetest memories from this past week to refocus on all the great things about motherhood as a reminder when it gets super hard down here in the trenches.
After little bit fell asleep one night last week, I sat on her bed in the dim light to kiss her good night. We’d washed her hair and made these little braids all over her head because she likes to wake up with “horsey-hair” (that bushy hair that appears when damp braids are undone). I leaned over to kiss her and could smell the shampoo and see little pieces of her head peeking out from in between the braids. Her eyelashes splayed on her face as she dreamed with her arms wrapped around her precious “pinky” blanket that has been with us since birth. I felt the enormity of this gift of being a girl mommy. I adore her and all her dreams and creativity.
Yesterday morning at church, the baby stood up in the pew and wrapped his arm around my waist as I was singing the praise choruses. He normally stays seated with the other two doing art projects or kids activity games, but he stood up. The song Jesus We Love You came on and he started singing it at the top of his voice right along with me and I could barely keep my composure hearing his sweet voice in my ear singing praise to his Heavenly Father. Then his brother got in on the action and stood up holding on to me on the other side, and I stood there singing and thinking how thankful I am to live in a place where I can worship freely with my children.
The eldest is obsessed with Battleship. I can’t blame him. I was a little obsessed with it growing up too. I’m competitive and love strategy. Yep, he gets that from me. So last night, when we had to cancel our pool party because of the monsoon that hit, we sat at the kitchen table playing. He on his own and me with the little lady on my lap. We played for over an hour. Each of us had hit each other’s five boat, four boat, and two three boats. We were hunting for the “teeny tiny tug boat.” I had called every combination of two on the board. We had to create little white “miss” pegs out of ripped napkin pieces. I had never had this happen in all my Battleship days. Finally I said, there are NO MORE two combinations. He replied emphatically, yes there are, like I6. I retorted I had called I6. He disputed. I showed him my little napkin flag on I6. I looked at his board. There was his tug sitting on I6 which he’d reported was a MISS. We had a grand debate. Little bit and I declared we were the undisputed winners which he contests still today.
Oh some of these days of mothering are hard. But I don’t lose sight of the beauty in the small moments that are unfolding before my eyes all the time. Even now, I’m writing these last sentences with a little bit perched on my knee ready to read our summer time journal stories. So I’ll sign off and encourage you to see the beauty in the in between the hard.
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