Snow Days

I sat down with a lot of words.   But, most days (especially the snow covered ones) are more about the effort.

Truth or Dare

I haven't really been inspired to write in this space for awhile.  I don't have anything loving or inspirational to share.  I don't have a special message to convey.  Sometimes (and by sometimes I mean all of the time) I am completely overwhelmed with even the suggestion that any one of us is capable of doing all of the things, all of the time,  that being a mother seems to require.

Sometimes motherhood just feels like a giant game of 'Truth or Dare'

Dare:  Be the most inspiring, amazing mama on the planet.

Truth(s):

1. I don't know how to divide my energy between satisfying my dreams and supporting their needs, at the same time, all the time. I am working on it.  We are all a work in progress.

2. I rush home at lunch to clean the house because sometimes trying to create a clean home and a loving home at the same time after work overwhelms me.

3.  I've bribed, I've begged, I've borrowed and I would steal if it would guarantee me one morning of sleeping past 7:00am.

4. It's insane that nobody warned me how indescribable the bond would be between me and these girls.  There are no words for it.

5.  I'm tired.  I am tired all the time and I bet you are, too.  I spend a lot of time (too much time) beating myself up for not finding a way to get to bed earlier, manage my time better, manage my children better…..

6.  I need to acknowledge that at some point the way that I treat myself will be the model my girls will look to when deciding just how important their place in this world should be.

It's a work in progress…
 

On Gratitude and Turning 34

So.  34 was supposed to be really good.  Mid-30's, settled in life, feeling comfortable in my own skin and all of that.  I took Harper to the pediatrician for her healthy visit early in the morning and thought of a million magical ways we could spend the rest of my day off together.

But then.

The annoying twitch in my left eye I had been ignoring for the past 24 hours decided to hi-jack my birthday.

A couple hours later and I'm sitting in the waiting room of my own primary physician's office trying to smile politely at other waiting individuals while discreetly shooting 'don't you dare' stares at my girls as they deviously assess the situation and start to understand they are free to bust out, because mama can't see!  My eye kept swelling bigger and my vision got worse and they took advantage, enough said.

Conjunctivitis while caring for toddlers is merciless.  I left my dignity back in that waiting room somewhere between my tug-of-war with Harper to put her abandoned rain boots back on and the one millionth time I threatened Maggie that she would go home to a closet emptied of princess dresses if she didn't stop tearing the contents of her backpack apart.  I nearly lost my shit.  I let self-pity and anger wash over me.  And trust me friends, the next couple of days didn't look much better.

Because for the love of God.

How many visits to pediatricians and primary care doctors does a girl need to make before paying her first year of pre-school dues??  We've spent a lot of ordinary days in waiting rooms this year, hot and sweating, sick and tired.  This one just happened to fall on my dreary, rainy birthday.  Just like any other ordinary day of parenting.

But here's the thing.  Some days are hard.  But hard is a relative concept.  Each one of us Mamas is facing a hard, hard, battle on any given day.  Some battles are minor and some are unimaginable but regardless, we all fight with the same intensity because it is born out of love and gratitude for the little miracles gifted to us, however fleeting.

Love.  And Gratitude.

Perhaps what I really needed to be gifted, with rain falling upon the faces of two beautiful, healthy babies on the day of my birth, was Gratitude.

Gratitude that the worst worry on my mind that day was a harmless eye infection. Gratitude that I have reliable, accessible healthcare and insurance that means such a minor inconvenience could be treated so immediately.  Gratitude for the fact that my babies are safe, healthy and loved.  Most importantly, loved, and by so many.

Perhaps sometimes we need to be made blind so that we can feel true love and gratitude again.

I was blind, and now I see.

Where Dreams Await

She won't be little forever.  I get that.  But she still fits in my lap.  She still uses a pacifier to sooth herself and she still fits in a size 2T.  So she's still little...for now.  

I still see her as an extension of me.  Not yet giving her credit for being a fully developed little soul that is independent of her mama.  So seeing her on a big stage?  At a preschool Christmas concert?  

Looking for direction and guidance from a loving teacher as I sit in the audience playing the minor role of spectator during one of her life experiences aches in such a lovely way.  In fact, it splits my heart wide open for her.

'In your light I learn how to love.
In your beauty, how to make poems.

You dance inside my chest,
where no one sees you,

but sometimes I do,
and that sight becomes this art.

Rumi

And then I am reminded that this little piece of magic still has a few precious moments left with her mama before her independence pulls her from my grasp.

Where dreams await...

In Between

I spent most of Saturday in Friday night's yoga pants studying my littlest and realized something.  'In between' is a season of its own.  The quiet space where one door is quietly closing and you can just barely make out the light spilling in from the one that's opening.   Legs lean out, words start spilling from tiny rosebud lips, and if you blink, you may miss it, like waking up on a cold fall morning and seeing bare branches and wondering how you missed the fire falling from the trees.

The time slips so fast in between and leaves me quietly aching for the moments that have past and cautiously laying faith in the ones that are waiting for us.  With age and time we shed our skins and reinvent ourselves time and time again.

The in betweens.

The place where grace lies waiting for us in all that is unknown.

It Was A Good Day

I read a lovely blog this week (that I should properly give credit to if I could, but I can't, because the frantic pace of the holiday season turns my memory to mush...which brings me to my point.) It was all about being the mama during the holidays and it basically spelled out this, "You don't need to do everything everyday, you just need to do one thing, preferably the one that does not bring you to the point of yelling at your children to FOR THE LOVE OF JESUS' BIRTHDAY HAVE FUN.'

It hit home.

True gratitude belongs in the moment.  You need to settle with it and let it rest over you.  It can't be rushed.  It doesn't flourish in hindsight but while right there, bathed in the light and the love of the moment.  Live your life in the present, doing the one thing.  Not the next thing, not the thing you are late to, not the thing you forgot, not the thing you missed.  It belongs in step with the thing you are doing right now.  Love all of it.