Even sitting down to write this post, I was struggling with what to write about. There is so much that goes on each day and yet nothing goes on. Does that make sense?
One of my fears is to get so caught up in the mundane, day-to-day stuff, that I miss my life. I look around and my floors are clean, the laundry is done, the dishes are washed...and my babies are grown. And I feel like I missed it. Not that you can't have a clean house and still be in the present, but I often find that I get so wrapped up in all the other "stuff" that I lose sight of what's really important to me. My Mom illustrated this for me without realizing she was doing it.
There are so many nights I can remember sitting down after dinner with my sisters and my Dad, getting ready to watch a movie or whatever television show we were into at the moment, and waiting for my Mom. She would be cleaning the floors, or putting away laundry, or straightening the fringe on one of our rugs (yup, major OCD right there), doing something besides sitting down with us. It wasn't that she didn't want to relax and watch television with her family, it's that she felt all of that other "stuff" HAD to get done. And it didn't. If you ask her now she regrets all those nights she didn't just sit. down.
I don't want Autumn and Nate to look back and remember that about me (and from the looks of my house right now, they probably wouldn't!). I want them to always remember me being there. I don't want them to ever feel like I was too busy to just stop. This is a balancing act I struggle with daily.
"Cleaning and Scrubbing
can wait till tomorrow,
For babies grow up
we've learned, to our sorrow...
So, quiet down cob webs,
dust go to sleep,
I'm rocking my baby
and babies don't keep."
~Wendy Lyn
So, in the midst of the blah - the wash, rinse, repeat cycle - I am trying to remind myself that everything else can wait. It will all be there tomorrow. But my babies, they will only be babies for so long before they are grown and gone, taking care of their own babies.
Maybe that's when I will have the laundry caught up!
