there are days

Today was a great day. My great husband had a birthday today, his parents took the kids so we could drive to Seattle and have lunch with my family. That meant about 10 hours in the car, going into a restaurant, shopping at Costco, and two stops at Starbucks without any emergency potty breaks, any Strawberry Shortcake theme songs, any diaper changes, and most of all no interruptions.

It was amazing. I am still smiling.

If you haven't noticed, I am an optimist. I strive to be someone who finds the good and tries to avoid talking about negative things. I guess I just figure that talking about it, at least in this format, doesn't really fix things for me. So, I tend to tell the funny things, or the heart warming things that happen around here.

This week though, I just wondered if maybe it would help if you knew that I had a rough go. There were lots of choices to be made this week: to be kind to my children, to actually listen to my husband as he told me about his day, to not get angry at the perpetual cycle of mess that my house seems to stay in.

We were fighting some kind of stomach bug all weekend. Three of the four kids were throwing up in the night. This is, for me, the hardest thing about taking care of kids. I handle it in the moment, but oh man! I just hate vomit and changing sheets and watching the kids feel so gross. It is also the lack of sleep, and not knowing how long they will be up, or if anyone else will be up. Then it is an hour of sleep here and there, with a looooonnnnng, tired day the next day.

This was the story on Wednesday. None of us had much sleep for a couple of nights. It was also Shawn's first day back to work, after a lovely summer filled with day trips and vacations. Having two parents, and other family around for a few weeks was glorious. But...Wednesday morning came, and it was just me.

And all 4 of them.

One of them is teething. My Isaac, when in pain, howls like a little wolf. He wants to be held. He walks around like a gorilla with his hands in the air waiting for me to pick him up so he can howl right in my ear. He must think I cannot hear him unless his mouth is two inches from my ear.

Alina and Emma were overtired, and they missed their dad.  There just wasn't enough of me to go around. They wanted to colour, paint their nails, fix their hair, have a snack, all at once. When these requests were not answered within the correct time frame, the request came again only louder and repeatedly until I answered (through gritted teeth) that "there was only one of me, and I can only do one thing at a time! Right now that thing is listening to Isaac yell in my ear! Grrrr".  I looked at the clock....

It was 8:30. Awesome.

With great effort I dressed each of them, packed a snack and put them in the car. I was in a full sweat by the time every one was in, but they are Harvey's and they like the car, so things started to calm down. I called Shawn, we have hands free in the car, so Emma heard the conversation.

"Mom? Are you sick?"

"No babe, just a little overwhelmed today"

"Cause I can help"

My sweet, insightful little girl. Who in one moment can be a dictator can, in the next moment be just what the doctor ordered. I love it when she is kind.

I guess it is easy to feel like I am overlooking important things, maybe missing the mark, or not being as deliberate as I want to be when I am with the kids. I used to feel like I was failing all the time, thankfully I don't really feel that way as often now. But I do worry that sometimes I am not being the best version of myself, or that the kids are not learning the virtues that we would like for them to practice.

Then Emma says something like that. "I can help". Where did that come from?  Empathy? Compassion? Either way, I felt like I got a big pat on the back by a recently turned 4 year old. She sees, and she feels what is going on around her, and she is trying to offer solutions.

That is a good life skill - things are looking up!

One of the strangest things that people say to me, is that I am making this look easy. I am glad I guess, since I don't like the alternative. I want to assure you that no matter what it looks like on the outside, this is not easy.

So if you are a mom, and you are having a hard day,

Or if you are just a human and you are being hard on yourself,

I want to say to me and to you:

Love never fails.

This is my go-to phrase. I say it all the time, to myself, and to anyone who will listen.

I fail every day, and you do too I am guessing. But love never does. It is love that reaches into places I can't touch in my kids hearts and lives. Even when I am being too hard on myself or them,

Love never fails.

In the end, that is all that matters. I am loved, I don't have to be perfect. I can have hard days, I think I can even have days that I am not the best mom. But it is love that makes up the difference, for every inadequacy, and every mistake.

Of course there are hard days that I wonder how I am even going to make it to lunch time. Somehow I make it to lunch, to dinner, to bedtime..and up to do it again the next day.

This is a marathon, and we are running it. My hard Wednesday morning turned into a beautiful day at the park meeting up with friends. Our kids all played well together, then all four of those little faces fell asleep in the car for about an hour while I drove in silence, prayed and asked for help to figure out the mess that was happening in my brain.

I got silence, even better peace, on a day that was spiralling out of control.

It does get better. We are in it together.

And hey Moms...if you love your kids (and I know you do) you are giving them the best gift they never even asked for.