I’m vacuuming while wearing Elsie in the Ergo and I’m loudly answering the boys. They are at the table, practicing rainbows with color crayons. ROY G BIV, I say. And then I realize they have no idea what I’m saying. So I just say, Start with red.
What’s next? Asher asks.
ORANGE.
I am a multi-tasking superhero mother-woman. Or so you would think, if you didn’t know that I am only vacuuming because it makes Elsie fall asleep so I’m just vrooming that thing around everything that’s all over the floors so I’m not really getting anything clean. Everything is done just sort of these days and I’m perfectly fine with that. Most of the time.
The vacuum juts out in front of us and Elsie quickly starts the deep breathing of sleep. I hold one hand to her back just to feel even closer to her and I move the vacuum around a laundry basket and some toys. They’ll just stay there on the floor because bending over with her in the Ergo is tricky and my pants are falling down anyway.
What’s after orange, mommy? It’s Miles this time.
YELLOW.
This loud-talking doesn’t even wake her. lately she’s been going to sleep more easily but she wakes up a lot. I still see this as a glass half full kind of thing because of comparing it to before. She even falls asleep if we put her in her crib on her own a lot of the time.
Miraculous. Truly.
I have never once ever been so completely thankful for my family. You would think that wouldn’t be possible but sure enough it is. The propensity to see the beauty is always there and never-ending, infinity. It gets clearer and clearer and more felt with every trial this life brings. I guess this is how it works and so I’m grateful for all of it even while I’m sometimes so scared. What will be the next hard thing that happens and then brings me even more gratitude?
It’s like the hard things are making the sound of a vacuum and it’s all fight or flight or rest in peace fast asleep.
Sometimes you just have to choose the fast asleep and answer, Green. Green is next, sweetie.
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This is the eleventh installment of Just Write, an exercise in free writing your ordinary and extraordinary moments. {Please see the details here.} I would love to read your freely written words so join me and link up below. You can add the url of your post at any time. Just be sure it’s a link to your Just Write post, not to your main page. There are really no rules, besides Just Write! (Then link back to this post in your post so people know where to go if they’d like to join in.) (Any links not following those two guidelines will be deleted.)
Also. Please take a moment to visit someone else who has linked up! It’s a really good way to meet new writers and get inspired by the meaning behind their moments. Word?
Thank you!
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{ 26 comments }
Oh yes. I know what you mean about the trials we experience bringing forth such a sense of gratitude. I remember a saying about having to appreciate the rain because without it there would be no sunshine or rainbows and still I find myself wishing it wouldn’t rain quite so much but at the same time being thankful that I have been able to withstand the rain (and storms) so that I might see the rainbows waiting for me on the other side. “What will be the next hard thing that happens and then brings me even more gratitude?” What a question. Simple and yet profound and true. So true.
I have been extra thankful lately, more than usual (and I’m a thankful person) and I’m looking forward to Thanksgiving way more than usual. I can’t put my finger on it and am not sure it’s even something I need to put my finger on. I’m just going to go with it, you know? And be thankful for THAT. :)
Love you.
Steph
First time to join in…may be the therapy I need.
oh wow. you have NO idea how these words have struck me so perfectly. SO profoundly tonite.
Thank you.
I needed to read this.
Needed to find “my thankful”.
That was so beautiful. Heart-achingly beautiful.
Just LOVE the line I am a multi-tasking superhero mother-woman!! :)
thanks for hosting this again!!! I just love Just Write Tuesdays ;)
What a lovely scene you paint, on multiple levels!
So sweet!! New to your Just Write Tuesdays. Thanks for a wonderful introduction :)
I love this. There are so many rules about this and this and that and really all we need to know is right now. What’s next is a luxury. Thanks for the reminder friend.
“What’s next is a luxury”
OH MY YES. I needed to have those words to hold. Thank you.
xo
A great reflection for Thanksgiving week!
But don’t you wish it didn’t take hard things to make us see? I know it is part of the plan, maybe, and how we are made, but still.
I do wish that sometimes. Then I remember that it must be this way because I have such a tendency to lose my gratitude. complacency or what have you. to get negative and bogged down. I don’t think the hard things are punishment for that though…not at all. I think the gratitude is just a grace-aside to the inevitable trials. If that makes sense.
Oh how I wish I could hold on to this heightened sense of gratitude…but alas, I’m only human :)
I was just thinking the same thing, kind of, that hard things are just an inevitable part of life, not punishment for anything-and yet we keep being given just enough grace to not STAY bogged down, and just enough hardness to stop getting complacent. Or to stay complacent for a lesser amount of time. :)
I love how your writing is simple and BIG at the same time. If that makes any sense at all.
It does make sense and I thank you because that’s how I want to write. simple and BIG :)
And I wanted to tell you this is a lovely post, and I relate so completely. I left Josie sleeping in the swing for TWO! HOURS! on Sunday simply because she miraculously fell asleep in there and there was no way in hell I was going to wake her up.
Perfection! It was like I was just hanging out on your couch watching that whole scene myself! Oh, and I totally didn’t mean to link up twice…the first time told me there was an error, so I relinked without checking :( Sorry!
Yes, this. There’s so much beauty in stepping back and finding the beauty and gratitude in what we have. And while we vacuum over and yell GREEN louder, is the perfect time to notice and appreciate this. Thank you, you. xo
Tuesday is becoming my favorite day of the week. I love this meme – it makes us step back and appreciate the things we’d normally lose. I used to stand in front of the kitchen sink with the water running, just because the sound put her to sleep.
This spoke so much to my heart. I’m in the midst of hard things that make me grateful, and small blessings that ease my way.
I love this post. It speaks to how I try to live my life lately – appreciating the small things and just loving my family. Happy Thanksgiving!!
The hard things do make us thankful, don’t they. And sleep, in any form, is always at the top of the gratitude list. :-) love to you, and happy thanksgiving!
i really enjoyed this. gets me thinking about my responses to hard things. i long to learn how to sleep in loud noises, not just in still silence. thank you.
Just. Lovely. I like what a previous commenter said about your writing being simultaneously simple and BIG, and I feel that hit the nail right on the head. So I’ll just say “ditto.” Also? Glad I’m not the only mom who walks around the house with my pants falling down.
Thrilled I was able to participate this week and link up in spite of it taking me all day to get the damn thing written (in 5 minute spurts of stolen time scattered throughout the day & eve).
I love the picture of chaos you have painted here. and only moms can appreciate it. Grandparents don’t always appreciate the chaotic time we live in and instead of embracing it as we moms have (or are learning to) they try to avoid it. They may be able to.
But we can’t. So why not be thankful instead of frustrated/annoyed/perturbed….etc. This is life. And life in it’s fullest!
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