This is one day where, if it were possible, I would call Husband and ask if he could please come home from work at 10am, while I go and hibernate the rest of the day. Perhaps make the one hour drive to the nearest coffee shop and sit there. Maybe finishing my book, Cry, the Beloved Country and feeling like I’m really expanding my mommy brain. Something beyond child-training and husband/wife relationships. Which is good in its place, but somehow doesn’t feel very mind-stretching. I want to think outside of my world sometimes.
Not that I have a bad life. No, not at all. I really do love my life. Really.
But as we are all human beings, and as rather young human beings can be rather hard on a bit older human beings (read: children are unnerving mother), let’s just say that today is one of those days.
At the moment, life is quiet. Both girls are in bed for afternoon naps. I am sitting on the couch, still in pajamas (is that part of my problem, that I never truly started my day?), with a delicious broiled sandwich and a murky glass of lemonade. The murkiness is due to a certain 3-year old who was helping me in the kitchen one day during a baking project. And was mixing sugar into the flour container and flour into the sugar container. And as you well know, I’m sure, that sugar and flour are nigh to impossible to separate, I now have flour as well as sugar in my lemonade. Thus the reason for the murkiness.
This morning: not so quiet. The girls are beginning to have “sisterly competition,” to put it mildly. Let’s just say that big sister and little sister aren’t having such good days with each other, which can result in not-so-good days for mother as well. Little sister seems to be the main culprit, and loves to tease big sister to the point of tears. This morning was the occassion of many such tears. And at one point, having had enough, big sister pulled little sister off the couch by her feet, resulting in little sister landing squarely on her head, wailing loudly. Well, I would wail loudly too, if I were her.
I, the ever-wise mother (please read that very sarcastically) promptly rapped big sister on the head so she caught a small taste of what she did to little sister. Which was really a very bad idea, because then they were both wailing at the very same time. Well, I would wail loudly too, if my mother had just rapped me on the head. That was definitely not the love and tenderness of Jesus coming out just then.
And that was just a small glimpse of this morning.
Yesterday morning a bowl of cereal exploded in the kitchen, after someone accidentally dropped the honey bear into it from 2 feet above. I thanked the Lord that Zoe had vehemently requested a PLASTIC cereal bowl that morning, or else we would have shattered glass amongst the milk and granola that had landed up to 8 feet above the floor level, and spread in a 8 foot radius around my previously sparkling kitchen. Oh, and landing in my hair and eyebrows and face.
Oh, and did I mention the someone was not my daughter? No, it was, in fact, myself.
This house is full of imperfect people today.
I’m just so glad my PERFECT husband is coming home in a few hours! And will be home for the weekend!
Dear Husband, I’m so glad you’re the kind of man that I know will always come home to us…
And yet, in the midst of days that seem like “bad days” like this, I’m reminded of how precious life is, the lives of children who can have me so exasperated one moment and laughing the next.
With living across the street from the best children’s park in town, both of the girls frequently ask to go and play there. Well, Olivia points and jabbers incoherently. But they both love to go.
On Saturday, when I was outside with both of them, Zoe frantically yelled at me, “OLIVIA’S ON THE ROAD!!!” I look over from working in the flower beds not far away to see her completely crossing the street BEFORE MY VERY EYES.
I raced over to her, as fast as my legs in go in a dream-like state, where you want to run so badly but just can’t quite go fast enough, and scooped her up. Holding her tight as I could. Realizing that on our street, with a lot of fast through-traffic, I might not have ever held her again if…. Heart pounding. Mind racing.
I had nightmares all night and weekend about that incident. Waking up and seeing visions of things that didn’t happen, but could have happened. Realizing that on Sunday, instead of having people over for lunch as planned, we could have been planning a funeral. Sounds terribly morbid, I know, but I would wake up with a jerk thinking of what could have happened…
And I’m reminded once again of God’s Sovereignty, and am so thankful that He protected the life of our little girl. He would not have had to, but He did. And I am so grateful…
So today, I’m reminded of how sacred it is to hold them in my arms and rock them, singing lullabyes… Even though some days it feels like all we do is climb walls and write on white pillows with pencils and colored chalk. Today is sacred.
Even so, Dear Husband, I can’t wait until you come home…
~clarita
