Days in the Life of Moms

Motherhood makes me laugh.

How about you?

What little things in your day today made you just blink as you thought, "Did I really just see that happen?" or "What did my child just say?"

Today I heard my little man, whose vocabulary consists mainly of action verbs, say to his friends on the playground, "Guys, come!" It reminded me how God showed me that he has the heart of a leader pounding in his little chest. Oh, how I want to cultivate that!

Today I fed my baby girl twice for over an hour straight and then heard her smacking on her fist for more when I put her down. Sorry, kid, you're going to have to wait before you get another course.

Today I was scolding little man for climbing on baby girl and when I actually looked into their faces, both of them were grinning at me. Oh no. It dawned on me for the first time that now my mischief-maker will have a cohort...and it looks like she'll be a willing one.

Today I played soccer with my boy who couldn't stop eating the soccer ball. Is this normal behavior?

Today as I was feeding baby girl, when little man came into the living room with a cup and a pitcher of far more iced tea than would fit into that cup, I heard myself say, "Don't pour. DON'T POUR! DON'T POUR!!!!!!" To no avail. 

Today on my way to an impromptu meeting for the non-profit I work for I realized on my way to drop little man off I hadn't even looked in the mirror before I left the house. I smiled when I saw how messy my hair was and remembered that it got that way when he hugged me from behind and got his hand stuck in it. 

Today as I was feeding baby girl, her little fingers tickled the underside of my arm as she grasped for something to cling to. I love her love of the cozy things in life. 

Today the boy dumped an entire bottle of not cheap natural baby shampoo into his bathtub. The. Entire. Bottle. For the second time in the two months his sister has been on the planet. He's the cleanest little boy in town tonight. And our bathtub is the slipperiest one in town too. 

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The thought has been flitting in and out of my mind lately: 

They're not going to be like this long. 

As I followed little man around the public swimming pool the other night making sure he didn't drown himself at the church party (literally - no joke and no exaggerating momma here, folks), wishing I could be chatting with my mom friends on the side of the pool, it came to me in this form: 

One day he's going to be diving off the diving board and being a daredevil capable of not killing himself inadvertently and I won't have to hold his hand or catch him when he comes down the water slide. And that day is going to come all too soon. 

And so I smiled and kept following him around, more contentedly this time. 

Being a mom is no joke. Add in extra work, whether that's work from home or outside the home or church ministry, or whatever else, and life gets even zanier (is that possible?!). Creating a routine with two littles got difficult quickly, and now adding in my work from home I've felt easily overwhelmed in the past two weeks. 

My violin teacher would always say something like, "Excellence is the sum total of a lot of little things done well." I don't feel like an excellent mother most days. Or an excellent childcare provider, or an excellent pastor's wife, or an excellent administrative assistant. But maybe it's more about the little things done well throughout the day than the overall patchwork of how I think excellence should look. (My life feels like a crazy quilt right now!)

Am I living in this moment, fully living? Full of gratitude, of contentment, of dependence on God?

Then I can laugh instead of cry in the motherhood moments that shock my socks off.

And then I can rest in God's definition of excellence rather than my own.

After all, he's the one I'm living for in the end.