The Finest People

Today's been a wonderful doozy of a day, and I really want to record it.

I had all the kids dressed and ready for school, lunches made, ready to kick them out the door, when Ryan texted me, "Check the news....it's -15 outside".

In trying to stay optimistic, I pulled up the district's website, and had Tanner read what was in BIG RED BOLD letters.  A grin spread across his face as he read that school was indeed, canceled, because of freezing weather conditions and extreme wind chill.  Woot!  SNOW DAY!  *deep breath*  I put aside all hopes of making a knitting needle case, and just decided to make a day of it.

I sent the boys to play in their rooms and I headed to my own room to fold a load of laundry.  Just trying to stay on top of the pile of clothes that inevitably end up on my bed each day.  Then the phone rang.  I could see it was the school, and assumed they were calling about the canceled day....I usually get a text, but didn't this morning....funny enough, the secretary said that my boys were right there at the front office!  What the whaaaaaaaaaaa?!  I SWEAR they were playing Legos 5 minutes ago!  Then I remembered telling them "no" when they asked if I'd take them to get their money out of their desk so they could buy a goldfish (Tanner recently read a book about taking care of pets for a Wolf Arrow Point...he's determined to get the rest of that elective finished.  LOL!).  I mentioned this to the secretary, and she offered to unlock the classroom for them.  I told her that would be great, and to send them straight home.  She asked if I wanted to come get them, and I was like, "nope!  They walked there, they can walk home!".  And they did.

I was picking up pajamas from the front room floor when Tanner burst through the front door, "Mom!  Taylor's tongue is bleeding!!  Hurry!  Call dad!!!"  As if *I* wouldn't know what to do about a bleeding tongue?!  I asked what happened, and was told that he stuck it to a metal pole.

go ahead.  laugh.  I certainly did!

I asked how that could have possibly happened, and Taylor explained that he had tried it before, but that the metal wasn't thick enough....this time it was...and this time, it worked.  Much to his surprise.

Well, since we were off to a FANTASTIC start of a snow-day, I decided to jump right in, feet first, and make the day an AWESOME day.  I replied to an invitation to come play in the church gym, and decided we had better run our errands and then we could go play.

After finishing breakfast dishes and bandaging the finger I sliced cutting veggies for my morning juice (I REALLY need to sharpen my knives!), we loaded up in the van, and set out to get a few odds and ends at the grocery store, stop at the pharmacy, and drop something off to a friend.

I'm really not CRAZY to drag all 4 kids to the store...I just have a LOT of faith in them!!!  As I was zig-zagging my way back to the produce isle to get some celery (it's so hard to get everything on the list in order when there are so.many.helpers!) an elderly gentleman stopped his cart and complimented me on my cute kids.  Thankfully my little rascals were actually being obedient and I thanked him, to which he replied, "I don't know if you know this, but mothers are the finest people."

I told him he made.my.day, and smiled like I'd won the lottery.  I almost forgot the celery.

This being a mom thing is not always easy.  There are so many days I want to go get a job outside my home and say "to-heck with all this!".  But then there are days like today, when strangers notice that I'm trying to keep it together and not wring any necks.  There's moments when my oldest two have their hands around each others' necks, kicking and screaming, scratching and wailing, and I put them in timeout for one hour....two hours...and silently say "who are you kidding.  You just punished yourself!".

There are days like today when you're in the throws of a play-date with 9 other moms and there's seemingly 70 children running around the church cultural hall, and you decide that an hour is long enough...it's naps all around!  And you can't get out of there and home fast enough.

There are days like today that you decide that time-out can be educational, so you whip out the manual wheat grinder, slap on those burrs, and dump in those peanuts and make the oldest two make their own peanut butter!

There are days like today that you don't really care if the 3 year old is getting chunks of ice with his brothers, but he's wearing only underwear and cowboy boots....and you let them melt the ice in the steam bucket on the wood stove.  Don't sweat it, right?

There are days like today when you realize that you haven't practiced spelling or reading all.week.long and so you send the other kids to bed to spend time with that ONE CHILD and promptly fall asleep on the couch, giving him words from last week's list in between REM cycles.

There are days like today when I realize I'd rather be nowhere than HERE.  IN MY HOME.  WITH MY CHILDREN.  Teaching them, loving them, laughing with them, bathing them, wiping their snotty noses and dirty bums, feeding them split-pea & ham-hock soup and them licking the bowl with their little fingers.  HERE, picking up toys, tripping around forts, unplugging the computer that gets turned on one-too-many times, sitting side-by-side on the piano bench with tears streaming down both my face and theirs as we learn that practicing something ten times is indeed equal to imprisonment.  HERE, stoking the fire, making bread, washing dirty stinky socks, drying out sopping wet snow clothes, cutting one sandwich in triangles and leaving the others' open-faced.  HERE, reading stories, singing songs, blowing kisses and giggling till we've assumed our workout is complete for the day.

There is NOWHERE I want to be, other than HERE.

The finest people may have to endure some of the most un-fine moments, but it's the little moments of joy that keep them going and waking up for more.

And THAT is what I hope to become....the finest mother my children could ever ask for.

Edited to add:  My microwave just blew up.  Yup!  Smoke, sparks, and flashing of lights!  My day would not be complete without something blowing up.  It gave us a good 10 years!