Dishes and Daffodils

Sometimes motherhood is so very hard, so hard that I wonder if it was invented to drive me (or mothers in general) to the brink of insanity.* It's kind of funny that I'm saying this since just a few days ago I wondered if I could ever take my children for granted, but they drove me to—and beyond—tears Sunday morning. It wasn't their fault, entirely, because they were only being children, but children can be so overwhelming at times and I'd been alone with them for days on end and though Andrew was home from Utah by that point, none of the children really even saw him. He came home around midnight and left for church before any of us were up and moving.

Anyway, when Miriam said family prayer on Sunday evening she said, "And we're thankful that we can finally be going back to school tomorrow." 

I laughed a bit and after the prayer asked her, "Why are you so thankful to finally be going back to school? Was the weekend that so long?"

But inside I was like, "Hear, hear!"

Truthfully, though, I think I have wonderful, enjoyable children. I might be a tad biased, but also my opinions have been known to be both humble and amazingly accurate. Since my opinion still might not be taken as evidence, I offer two recent situations in which my children were both wonderful and enjoyable. 

On Friday we had a relatively busy day. We went to ukulele practice and then came home for dinner and then watched a movie Kubo and the Two Strings because Andrew watched it on his flight (I guess?) and said it was amazing. When we were finished, obviously, I had to teach the kids Tokyo Dontaku. Obviously. And then we had scriptures and prayer and I started shooing the children off to bed. 

"Wait!" Rachel said. "Can I do some dishes?"

"You can do all of them," I offered (half jokingly). 

"Maybe just some..." she said. 

"I guess," I said. "But then you have to get to bed."

"Ha!" she said, pumping her fist in the air. "I know how to work the system."

Not to be outdone, Miriam graciously offered to do whatever dishes Rachel didn't.

So while I put Zoë and Benjamin to bed (which can take quite a while since it involves lying on the floor beside Zoë's bed and reading until she more or less falls asleep because otherwise she won't) Rachel and Miriam worked together to clean the kitchen. 

It was truly a beautiful moment in my life. 

On our walk home from the park this morning I mentioned to Benjamin that it would be a beautiful day to hang some laundry out to dry but then I noticed the neighbours were burning today and rescinded my previous remark. 

"Who's burning stuff?" Benjamin asked.

"Miss Kimi," I said. "You can see the fire in her yard."

No sooner had I let him in the front door than he was ripping open the back door and thundering across the back deck. 

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" he called to Miss Kimi. 

"I'm burning some branches and leaves," she answered.

They called back and forth for a while until I called Benjamin in for lunch. He wolfed down his sandwich and then shot outside again. Miss Kimi had invited him over to help her. He was in little boy heaven, hauling branches over to the fire pit, throwing tennis balls for Vixie, tromping across the bridge with loads for the compost heap. While they were out at the compost heap they spotted a bright yellow flower a little deeper in the woods, so Miss Kimi helped Benjamin hike out to pick it. 

He brought it home and presented it to me with a flourish.

This beautiful daffodil is brightening up our table

So even though he left me alone to prepare our garden for spring (weeding and burying a healthy amount of compost) while he was off gallivanting through the woods with Miss Kimi (and probably wondering why his mom doesn't have a burn pile), I know that he at least loves me enough to bring me home a flower.

He has a lot of energy, more energy than I know what to do with. And he has a lot to say, more to say than I could ever possibly listen to. So I'm thankful for kind neighbours who love him enough to invite him to dance around their burn pile and hand them tools when they tune up their motorcycle. Otherwise I'd probably lose my mind a lot more often than I do.

* And my kids are still in the young, sweet, and innocent stage of life.**
** [Crosses fingers and mutters "Please be normal when you grow up, please be normal when you grow up, please be normal when you grow up..."]