Reflections on Motherhood

Lent was good; but not great.  I've been feeling out of balance for a while now.  Honestly, I've been feeling frustrated lately.  I have "all the time in the world" right?  My girls are in school all day (okay, well not Abigail this week) but usually.  Last year at this time I thought about how much time Id have and how much I'd accomplish each day.  Gourmet dinners, scrapbooks all lined up and up to date, spotless house, and on and on and on.  I was sure all of this could be accomplished by 10am too.  Not so...

I sure don't waste my time while they're at school, that's for sure. I have my list and I go and go and go.  Add in their schedules after school and my school and religious ed volunteering and I find myself sometimes frazzled.  And there I go again thinking thoughts around the same circle.  I say to Scott often at night, "I'm a stay at home mom with my girls in school... why can't I get it all done?" 

But lately I've come to realize through just 'no choice' or maybe it's the still small voice of the Holy Spirit that no matter what age my girls are, life as a mom is always busy.  (ps~ I rarely use that word; it's outlawed in our house... I hate the word busy) Anyway, back to my thoughts. 

Scott reminded me that what I'm doing is all good.  It's all for the girls and that yes, it's shifted, but it's still all about building and raising our girls in the way that we want; with purpose and not haphazard. 

But I miss the simple days of playing with toddler Anna on the playroom floor.  Building with blocks and knocking them down.  No activities really... just library time with us together.  I spent those days a bit like these in the fact that I had my list and was all about checking things off.  But in those Anna was just two days life was more simple.  There seemed to be so much time to lavish hugs and kisses on this Chinese daughter I was falling more and more in love with every day.

Now I manage and encourage large school projects, instrument practices, lunches, snacks, and bedtimes.  We chat through friendship issues; I give baths and wash long hair.  I read books, and tuck them in with hugs and kisses no matter how grouchy I can be by the end of the day.  And ya know what I realize as I'm doing this?  These THESE DAYS... these days are the good old days that one day I'll look back at and realize oh those were the days. 

They are playing the magnatiles and stuffed animals behind me.  One still has a little voice and one still needs me to wash and brush her hair every night. 

(this post is not going in the direction I thought it would... thought I was going to write about starting reading the Bible on a daily basis... insert change of pace)

And so I've decided that I'm not only going to stop describing our family life as busy but I'm going to stop looking back.  Sure, when it's time to watch old baby movies I will but every single day; I'm not going to do that anymore.  From now on I'm not only going to make an effort to stay present in each day I'm soak in each day and look for the good old days in it... the things that I'd look back on and miss one day. 

So just for me at the end of every Friday post now I'll type a few things that made that day one that would make me look back and long for that day again instead of longing for Anna to be a toddler again.  There are plenty of those moments in each day. It's just that now I'm going to choose to see them. 

It'll go something like this... as if I'm chatting about this day years from now with Scott like we do about when they were little.

1.  Remember when Abigail walked down the playroom stairs and need to do one step at a time? 

2.  Remember when Anna had her nose buried in those Harry Potter books?

3.  Remember when Abigail got cold after cold after cold in Kindergarten and she and I stayed home together and I got to love her back to health from all of those ear infections?

4.  Remember when Anna ran upstairs to use the bathroom and shouted down to Abigail as she ran, "wait for me!  Don't play without me!"

5.  Remember when Abigail was learning how to write words and she sounded out each letter? 

"The moments I hold most dear are those that arise unbidden in the course of any day - small, evanescent, scarcely worth noticing except for the fact that I am being offered, just for a second, a glimpse into another's soul.  If my experience as a mother has taught me anything, it is to be awake for such moments, to keep life simple enough to allow them to occur, and to appreciate their fleeting beauty."  (from Mitten String for God by Katrina Kension)