Perspective...

I haven’t been blogging lately. It’s not that the ideas aren’t there. Nearly every day there is some new moment with one of my children I want to capture forever or sometimes moments that I want to forget and I know that writing about it is therapeutic. But it’s just that life is so full of well, LIFE!  It reminds me of an old country song by DougStone, “I was too busy being in love”.  

Ever since my baby turned one, I’ve been wanting to soak up every last minute of his baby-ness before it melts away completely.

Here he is with his birthday cake!  

I see it happening right before my eyes and while I cherish each new word and step, I also can’t believe he’s growing so fast.  The next thing I know he’ll be wearing camo pants and lightsaber fighting with his brothers and saying, “hey Mom… look at this!” as he makes a basket.

(Or makes us pancakes on a Saturday morning!)

It’s like my life is on speed… and if and when it does slow down, I slow down too…and suddenly my long “to-do” list (with things like BLOG on it) looks like things that can all wait another day and I pour myself a glass of wine and curl up next to my husband and relax.

But today, I was blessed with an award for my blog! Can you believe it? AN AWARD!!!  

Thank you to Cynthia at Finding GreatJoy, whose blog I read regularly and always find both entertaining and inspiring. Check out one of my favorites.  So my new award was just the inspiration I needed to get the latest blog out of my head and into the computer.

Yesterday my husband had to get to work early so I had to get the boys to school all by myself. Now, I know that there are women who do this everyday… and let me tell you, you are the ones that deserve an award!  Somehow it is physically impossible, no matter how early I start, to get the two older boys to school  on time. Physically impossible I tell you!  Even when things look good and we leave with plenty of time (like on the first day of school this year) there is a diaper explosion of epic proportions and I am stuck with a poopy baby and carseat standing outside the school while everyone walks in their children and takes pictures and my kindergartner who is so excited he could burst keeps saying, “are you ready yet mom?” 

And of course I didn’t have a change of clothes in the diaper bag…

There is a whole history here of failure… and even when it isn’t really failure on my part… it feels like it, since I am, afterall, the responsible one… gulp.   

So yesterday I was barking orders like a drill sergeant and trying to make sure the older kids were dressed appropriately and had teeth brushed, and the younger ones had fresh diapers and everyone was fed… and amidst the demands of the morning I made a lunch that was forgotten on the counter and they were late to school… again.  And I felt like I had just ran a sprint but fell right before the finish line.

After I had dropped them off and was trying to recover, I was trying to tell myself how grateful I should be that my husband does this everyday. But I wasn’t feeling grateful.  And then I got behind a school bus that  had it’s STOP sign out and I waited.  And I watched as a little girl in a pink wheelchair was lifted onto the bus, and suddenly I was grateful. Very grateful.  And in a moment my whole mood and perspective changed and I was the luckiest mom in the world to four beautiful and healthy boys...two of which got to go to an amazing school and two of which got to stay home with me! I wonder if that brave little girl knows what a witness she is... maybe she should be getting the award!