Gosh I love these kids. They bring me so much joy, even when they’re doggin’ (Kate). Then there are days that I am counting down the minutes to bedtime because my brain/body/mind/soul can’t keep up with the crazy and we might not make it 🙂 And then after the quiet and bedtime cuddles, and as the TiVo begins “ba-beep, ba-beep”-ing, I start to miss them (well, Kate is still in my lap at this point usually:). Parenting colors us all a certain shade of crazy, right??Mother’s Day in our house is kind of just another day right now. We’ve got diapers and breakfast and baths and outside time and walks and and coffee and then some more 🙂 Today I’m laying low with the kids while James holds it down at church. Luke is recovering from pneumonia and currently ribbit-ing and crab walking at my feet. But what I do love about today is that it gives me time to reflect on all the mothering gone by.
A few months back, James and I were going back and forth about some mindless thing having to do with butter. Luke was waiting patiently as he could in the other room for his toast, while we were passionately discussing the protocol of who gets butter out and when and what temperature it needs to be before we do breakfast in the morning. Because God forbid, we have to spread cold butter on our toast (I will say it isn’t my favorite way to do it) As much as I could say it was “blah, blah, blah” now, at that moment we were entirely engaged in this, and for whatever reason, I had the thought to just blurt out, “it’s just butter!!” .. we laughed and came to our senses. What we realized is there are many other moments like that for us, involving things that we really need not waste our time on.
That moment sort of hinged on an important new season in our lives. Not sweating the small stuff (easier said than done, hands down). Moving past things that just cause unnecessary strife, stress and anxiety. We’ve come to the idea that life really is too short to get caught on these things. I say “really” because I’ve read/heard/listened to this sentiment time and time again, but I wasn’t really able to start working it out until I came face-to-face with it. In my case, butter.
So my reflection on motherhood today is wrapped up in this. And I want my kids to feel it most of all. Life is too precious to get caught up in the stress of things. I don’t do well every day and it stinks when I’ve caught myself in that act again, but I hope that they feel it. Being able to laugh at the chaos, the crying tantrum at the store, the stained/broken/ripped/cracked clothes/belongings/phone/etc, the blowout as soon as the roadtrip begins, the mess that’s back as quickly as it was cleaned up. All of that is butter. And I’m not going to stress over butter anymore 🙂
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