"Do not think that love, to be authentic, must be extraordinary. What we need is to love without getting tired." - Mother Teresa
It was one of those days when my husband and promised to come home a little 'early, and bring a pizza to the left.
I also started the day in one of these to be relatively rare, but still very real moods in which I was best able to do in my role as stay-at-home mom would be to fake a smile and turn their backs whenneed to count to ten.
It was on this day that the girls and I had to choose just a distant memory heading the right gift for someone. My 3-year-old is much less experienced (thankfully) when reading the mood of the mother, as her dad is the time, speak every thought that occurred to her. Right now, those thoughts turned to the time of day.
"When you get up early enough, it's night," he announced. "Callie earbubble" (which would"Irritable") "right before taking her nap." "Dad comes home, after dark." I answered: Yes, all these things, only half listening.
Then, in a way that calls are diverted from the way I do on days like this, I stammered out a question: "What is your favorite moment of the day?" Silence.
"What you asked me, Mom?"
So I repeated the question. "What is your favorite moment of the day?"
Again silence. I looked in the rearview mirror. His blank stare told me that my thoughtsQuestion was absurd. After a while, 'he responded: "That."
Now Cassie has a good drive down, so I asked the question again, as he was always ready to bed that night, "Cassie, what's your favorite moment of the day," The answer was the same: ". That"
This. And so it should be for me. How I wish it were. I wish I could recognize the peace and joy in every moment with my children. My daughter is very good at doing something that long to be good. E 'what Richard Foster, Prayer: Finding the Heart's True Home, calls "the prayer of the town."
"We are praying ordinary," he writes, "when we see God in the ordinary experiences of life. We can find meaning in pastel marks on the wall made by children, are somehow the finger of God writing on the wall of our own? Heart" In same chapter, he writes: "And 'in the everyday and commonplace that we learn patience, acceptance and satisfaction."
This is meit is certainly true. Especially the patience part. My fear is that, like everyone tells me, with adult children, it's time to go fast, I'm afraid that I will get back to them, meals interrupted by the whisper, "Mommy, I pooped." Even those who complain, another Go-gurt. Even the stray Legos I nail with my bare feet. I'm afraid that soon pine for as long as I have, I would like to distance.
Yet, even if they are infinitely consciously trying to freeze these moments of good and bad inmy memory for the distant future, it is difficult. And 'difficult, these crayons on the wall to see completely different pastels. Crayon sign that I spot.
I experienced a moment of possible brand pen. How to take notes for the column at the kitchen table, my 3 years old, sitting on my lap and I tried to push my pen to the page with her three little pigs book. He just pulled his grape lollipops in her hair and wiped his nose on my sleeve. "Mommy, make the pen go ALLthe path along the side, "he orders, scooting up my thoughts and make a mess of ink unreadable.
For a moment I have an unseemly and out-of-the-blue like the book loved the feed room. And it is precisely in times like these, when in fact I see as the crayons have to leave something with the finger of God have a sense of reverence for my every moment of my life as a mother. To give a new meaning and the glory, my daughter still dirty cherub face.
ButI'll need some kind of instrument, a trick to the heat of the moment. A trick to get me back in a moment, the kind of mother I have plenty of time to be the kind of mother I know that sometimes, and the kind of mother I want my daughters to remind me to be.
Right now I have a little 'conversation with me. My daughter and I end up stuffing our feet under a blanket on the couch and read the book I wanted to launch. And I like it, as I always do, if easily in the sinkMoment and remember what a small miracle, I am here in my lap.
Perhaps the instrument, then the yield. Or maybe it's a distraction. The same trick that all mothers, when their youngest is about 18 months too old to learn. When Cassie was at that time, and they were angry and frustrated, distraction worked wonders. When he was 2 ½, distraction worked wonders on my anger and frustration.
Maybe the tool is compassion. Compassion for our children and an informed understanding of whatthey need at certain times of their lives must feel expensive and sometimes confusing. And compassion for ourselves, that there are scheduling our lives to the point where you can not get on the floor and play 20 minutes, if that's what we want to show. Or call your own mother just to chat for 20 minutes, if that's what it takes.
Perhaps the instrument is in the knowledge that our life is long and full and that there will be plenty of time to do what we need to be, If not the kids pulling the legs of the pants.
Perhaps it is the instrument of single-tasking. So we do not feel distracted all the time. This is the tool that climbing is an overdrive, because Overdrive is that we talk too much, eat too much, think too much, too little and have fun.
Perhaps it is the tool to shift our consciousness. A store aware of physical sensations maturity of motherhood: the feeling of your wonderful child severe headon the chest. The smell of Cheerios on her breath. This is the way that leads us gently to the gifts under our fingers, and often, just below your feet.
Perhaps it is the instrument of solitude. So that the enjoyment of pursuing solo something, we can go back and without rancor.
Perhaps it is the instrument of truth and speaking out with other mothers. It helps me to remember that we are all in the same boat. Almost every day we really like.Some days we are really false, as did generations of good mothers before us.
There is some consolation in this story about my mother-in-law, their three grown children who each describe an ideal mother, involved, committed and very affectionate. There have been days at home with their children, he says, when you get hurt at the end of the day smiling. A clear sign that his smile was forced for hours at a time. But I do not know their children. With grace,is not mine. And tomorrow is a different kind of a day, with new tools to access those crayons with the reverence they deserve looking for.
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