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Ordinary days
Have you ever had ordinary days, well, weeks when everything seems to be in a perpetual state of disarray?
Yesterday was the tipping point for feeling like my life was on a hamster wheel going nowhere. My days are always ordinary and full of dirt, dishes, and multiplication. Our home education routine has been less than on track for a while. So, I already feel the pressure to get up to speed before anyone asks:
“how is that homeschooling coming along?”
Sometimes I wish I could tell them the truth.
The truth is… no one around here likes math. I have to ask NO LESS than 10 times in a day if the lesson is complete. I usually get a mumbled answer that is supposed to hold me off so they can either finish or hide the book and watch me search for it.
“It was just on the dining room table.”
Spelling is a touchy subject around here, and why no one ever knows what day of the week it is, much less able to spell it, I DON’T KNOW! I raise my voice more than I want to when chores don’t get done and I do consider throwing in the towel and giving up.
But I don’t.
Yesterday my boys came giggling in the back door wearing their muddy boots. They were carrying in a freshly filleted fish they just caught with their dad and had not noticed they were dripping all over the floor, on their way to my clean kitchen sink. As I watched the scene unfold and prepared to unleash my fishy rant over the mess,
God reminded me that these are no ordinary days.
So instead of hollering their names and ordering an immediate cleanup. Then rolling my eyes and shaking my head and wished for children who liked to be clean,
I watched them. And soaked them in. I looked at their faces. I wanted to be able to remember.
One day very soon I may miss making sure that math gets done, spelling Wednesday for the 836th time, sweeping up the dirt, and pretty much-corralling mayhem on a daily basis.
These are the most extraordinarily ordinary days of my life.
Yes, my eye starts twitching from the stress of it all. I don’t laugh nearly enough some weeks. Then I think maybe it’s me that needs the lesson.
Chicken shoes
My mom tries to keep me sane by looking for solutions to my plight of constant dirt on the floor and dirty boys.
She bought me these cute garden shoes with chickens on them that are all rubber. She thought I could wear them as house shoes. Hoping that the boys would not steal them because they were girly. (The boys always steal my shoes because theirs are muddy.) Update: They can’t steal my shoes anymore because they are both size 12 men, haha.
She bought me these cute garden shoes with chickens on them that are all rubber. She thought I could wear them as house shoes. Hoping that the boys would not steal them because they were girly. (The boys always steal my shoes because theirs are muddy.) Update: They can’t steal my shoes anymore because they are both size 12 men, haha.
I slip them on each morning and don’t feel the dirt crunch under my feet on the tile, not to mention the chickens make me happy.
If you feel like me most days I pray that God reminds you of the extraordinary work that you are doing for your family on ordinary days. Our rewards may not show up here on earth, but surely they will in heaven!
