If you are blessed enough to already have at least one child in the world, I challenge you to reach into the depths of your memory and try to remember before you had kids. When I think back, I think, no, I FEEL the optimism I felt about having children. My kids would be the cutest, most well behaved, smartest, and strongest. All skills would come easily to them, but they would be courteous, respectful, helpful, and disciplined.
Fast forward ten years and my life is complete chaos. Each day is a dead sprint from the time I drag myself out of bed (assuming I was actually IN my bed all night), until that sacred point in which I get to propel myself back into said place of rest.
I struggle to remember at what point my life transitioned from the wholly optimistic to the wholly chaotic. Near as I can tell, it was sometime between when my first baby slept through the night in his own bed at barely three months old and when my youngest child still struggled with the same task at four years of age.
My mornings are a blur of breakfast, dishes, laundry, collecting of school supplies and permission slips and the sweet, sacred cup of coffee which is the life in my veins before 7:30 a.m. The hurried pace continues with classroom volunteering, field trips, grocery shopping, cleaning house, and pet maintenance. Evenings are the true test of motherhood. After 10 hours of marathon-like activity, the real day begins; dinner, carpools, activities, homework, showers, books and bedtime.
It is a wonder I ever know what day of the week it is, oh wait, I rarely do! Most days that little square on the calendar is not nearly big enough to be up to the tasks of the day. Most Wednesdays, for example, the 'little box' contains the following list of text:
Child #3 snack
school early release
Child #2 Girl Scouts
Child #1 Play date
Carpool to gymnastics
Whew, I feel better. When I put it in print, at least I feel I have earned the heavy wave of fatigue that pummels me 15 minutes after the kids are in bed!
Even though the innocent images of being curled in my husbands' arms, swaying gently in a backyard swing while the children play blissfully nearby can be related to my life with the equality of a million dollar mansion, the reality is so much better. For each challenge, of which there are many, makes me stronger, wiser, more skilled, and more appreciative than I was the day before.
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Amen Sister! I couldn't have said it better my self. I do believe that although I too long for the lush and lavished life of wealth, that will not change my daily tasks. We are still busy from dawn til dusk. We still volunteer, work, teach and provide for our children. And yet, I am happy. Truely, simply happy. I once heard someone say that if you can't be happy with what you have, what makes you think you'll be happy with what you think you want? And that hit home. I am happy. We are lucky to have what we have. Love, family, and making memories.
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