Monday Morning

Maybe it's just Monday morning. Maybe it's the clouds and cold permeating the scene through my window. But it's only 11:00 a.m. and it's already been a day for me.

The dog started barking at 5:30. Dead dragging, toe freezing, pull myself up with every ounce of energy I haven't got kind of a morning. As I was making lunches with the last crusts of bread I could scavenge due to my sinking dread of returning yet again to the grocery store, I was inundated with paperwork. Flu shot papers, sign the reading record, testing reports, everything that was tossed aside with backpacks and lunchboxes on a whimsical Friday afternoon. Shoes and jacket thrown over my still pajama clad self as I went into the garage to remember that my son's bike chain had come off last week - its disrepair another casualty of the weekend. Dashing in the van to cart him to his destination, only returning home to find the dog had made a chew toy of my daughter's headband. Her departure joined by simultaneous barking and frenzied response as her friends rang the doorbell. Out she went. Moment to breathe. Only a moment.

Turning then to see my youngest still in pajamas, upset already about the fact that I wasn't allowed to join him in the preschool field trip today. Too many moms signed up and I wasn't high enough on the list to merit chaperone status this time. Finding shoes, coat, lunchbox & pizza party money, I had just pulled out my cereal bowl for a moment of quiet to myself when the garage door opened and in trudged my terribly sick husband who had earlier dragged himself to work only to find after his arrival, he was in fact too sick to be there after all. After getting him settled, I realized my time for breakfast and a shower had disappeared and it was suddenly time for preschool carpool, hearing again how much I was wanted at the field trip. Coming home to walk the restless dog, pick up his business all over the back yard, start the load of towels that had been left soaking all over the bathroom floor and throw the remaining dishes left from last night's dinner into the dishwasher that had been left sitting on the table as I ran out the door to a meeting for church.

10:30 - finally - breakfast, read the paper, a moment of silence and solitude.

I have been trying for months, years really, to understand how to take things in stride. How to find balance amidst the demands of my family's busy lives. I've made significant efforts to simplify, to slow down, to be content. I feel like I'm making progress, I'm changing and slowing down and then I have a Monday morning...

I guess part of motherhood and raising a family is learning to be fluid. Trying to take life as it comes and not let it phase you too significantly. People eat, dirty their clothes, come and go and then do it all again the next day. And the next day and the next. There's really no such state as 'finished' in a busy household of growing children. I guess the trick is to be present, truly engaged in the moments that are important - saying goodbye, holding hands during prayer, saying I love you, hugs before field trips, cold Sprite when you're sick. The rest of it will all wash away with the day, and into the next and beyond. I guess I'm learning to move with the current of life, trying not to feel drowned or let it wash me away by clinging to the buoys of meaningful moments along the way.

Off to finally take my shower...