Today has been stressful. I feel like that word is overused, but it does seem like a very good word.
I love my children more than I can even describe. I love them so much it makes me cry sometimes. Sometimes I can’t breathe for the awe of it.
It is crazy having five little people and I will come right out and call it like it is, five selfish little people, around all the time. We are all selfish. That’s just the way it is. Part of my job is to help them put others first, to not act on every impulse, but to treat others the way we would want to be treated.
And sometimes it’s not even the selfishness that is the problem, just the childishness.
My day goes like something like this:
- Try to make the bed. Child runs in screaming because other child zipped his penis into his pajamas.
- Try to get a meal train set up. Child hits himself in the face with his toy and promptly starts screaming.
- Try to get laundry started. Discover child has “washed his truck” in the new bathroom sink and left a muddy wet trail all over the sink, the floor, the rug and the clean diapers hanging on the drying rack.
- Try to make cookies with child. Get overwhelmed by the number of times I have to redirect and remind.
- Try to get the drawstring out of my pajama pants where it has naughtily creeped into the casing halfway around. Have to listen to child have a crying fit because she wanted to pick the food for Friday, not Wednesday and even though she gets to have what she wanted to pick today, today isn’t FRIDAY.
- Try to talk on the phone to make a surprise plan for a couple children. Get interrupted forty-seven times. Or maybe it was forty-eight.
- Try to get the winter and too small boots sorted out so I know what we need to get, and what (boy! is it a lot!) needs washed before it gets put in storage. Enlist the children since they know what fits and what doesn’t. Am nearly bested by the chaotic cacophony that “simple” project entails. Am stunned by the stubbornness of someone insisting that winter boots 2 inches longer than the foot fit now and ought not go into storage.
It is hard. I thank God I can turn to Him, breathe a prayer and He calms my heart. I thank Him for growing me so that I am not constantly on edge about all this nuttiness. I thank Him that I can laugh and find joy and teach. I thank Him that my “Yell Chart” hasn’t had any new entries for a couple weeks.
I thank Him for all these moments. For the muddy handprints (or are they footprints?) on my nook chair. For the happy cricket voices that constantly fill my home. For the giggles and groans and the laughter and lunacy and silly centipede games. For the whining and the bickering and the mess and the help and the hugs and the hearts of these small people I’m given the privilege to raise.
I am especially thankful for Now though. Now the Bigglets have gone to Good News Club. The Small Boy is with his Dada at Farm and Fleet. Babe E is (finally) asleep cozy snug in her favorite place, in her wrap next to my heart. I am listening to her breaths and the ticks of the clock. Watching the raindrops on the window.
Thanking God for this moment. This breath.