We are having one of those weeks where the laundry is growing exponentially by the hour, the kitchen has not been clean before dinner all week, and we keep eating all of the food in the refrigerator which means constant trips to the grocery store. Iain and Fiona have drippy noses, the kind that start dripping right after I have wiped them. Iain thinks it is funny so he laughs and blows more snot onto his little "mouthsill" (like a windowsill, but you know that part between the nostrils and the lip...that area that can collect food, dirt, dust, snot, and is appropriate for things like milk mustaches). Fiona does not think that the snot is funny and dashes her head away from the Kleenex that I must use to grab that snot off of her. I really am not an uptight mom about the runny noses. Trust me! I will allow a little to hang there on the mouthsill, but when it is a stream of "tasty cakes" as Husband likes to call the situation, we must take measures to clean ourselves up.
Jake has coughed up almost 87% of his lungs for the past 3 weeks. He is out of the cough medicine with codeine that he was prescribed last year, and I was devastated to realize yesterday morning when I found the bottle abandon in the sink that there will be no more codeine induced sleep for him (and me). The coughs shake his entire body, and mine, and the rafters on the house and since this has been going on for about 3 weeks, I have had all about I can handle. I need to get on the husband website and find out if there is a patch that has been released for this version.
Our adventure in potty training was a short lived two day ordeal. Iain was very excited to pee in the toilet, and any time he heard a tinkle would exclaim "Whoa!" He would push and push to get a little dribble out, even if I had taken a saturated diaper off of him. I caught one official poop in the toilet followed by a few more pee trips, but now he is traumatized about the whole thing. I have tried to get him to sit on the toilet, but instead of shouting "Whoa!" he is whimpering, "Owww!" and starting to cry when we try. So I am done for now. When he shows interest again, we will be back at square one. I need to do some more reading on methods before I go down this road again, because I am sure that I made many mistakes, one of which could have been premature potty peer pressure.
The one good potty day is in a long line of daily fads that we have experienced this week. Iain seems to obsess about one particular thing throughout the day, and by the next morning it is fish paper. Yesterday he was enthralled with the knick knack shelf in the dinning room. I was wiping months of dust out of the dining room, and he realized that all of the breakables were off of the shelf. He seemed confused that I was allowed to touch and move the little pieces of china and special tea cups. As I was dusting, I became aggravated that I even have a stupid knick-knack shelf like this in my house and as I wiped every item off I realized that none of the items have any importance to me at all. Iain was so excited to look at each thing, and he wanted to get them all back on the shelf I decided this could be a good lesson in being careful with little items. Since he has really enjoyed helping with chores (unloading the dishwasher and taking out recycling) he was very eager to place each little dust free piece of junk back on the shelves. It was very cute to see him gingerly arrange all of the little cups and plates and use his soft little voice to talk to each piece. There is a little porcelain couch and chair in the mix, and he felt that the couch was a piano, so he was pressing it and singing as if he was making his own music and my heart just burst! Before the knick-knack cupboard he was in love with his own home videos and watching himself as a younger baby.
After reading 1Corinthians 7, I was comforted by my position in the "trenches" of motherhood and I have been able to be content and seek joy with my calling as a mother. Verse 17 But as God hath distributed to every man, as the Lord hath called every one, so let him walk and verse 20 Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called and I found peace especially in verse 34 There is difference also between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit: but she that is married careth for the things of the world, hos she may please her husband.
I was also encouraged by watching one of my favorite childhood films National Velvet. When I was a child, I loved the story of the horse and how Elizabeth Taylor and Mickey Rooney had faith in their horse to win the Grand National horse race in England. Watching it through my adult eyes, there is such a bigger story at play and I was able to learn from Mrs. Brown, Velvet's mother. The character reminded me to be content in the life that you are living and that there are seasons and experiences to be enjoyed and respected throughout our lives. She tells her daughter to enjoy her horse and her youth, but have the insight to know when to walk away and move on to the next thing. Mrs. Brown believes in her 12 year old daughters dreams enough to give her all of the prize money that she won in a race when she was 20. She cultivates and nourishes her zealous spirit, but also tells her that there is a time to take chances and to meet a challenge in your youth. There will be a time for marriage and children and it will be necessary to put those things behind you and to take care of your children and your husband, and it is great to look back on memories without living in the past.
I know I have some Mommy colleagues that occasionally read my dribble and thoughts, and we all love our babies and our husbands immensely! Maybe I am weak in regards to the rest of you in that I do catch myself thinking "What have I done?" when I look at these little people that I have been entrusted to raise into decent members of society. It only happens when I am cleaning up multiple barf puddles, folding baskets of laundry and preparing another thankless meal that I hope is nourishing enough for their little bodies. I want to be a SuperMom that graces the pages of a magazine or the label of the latest baby trendy clothing item "developed by a mom!"
Instead, I will attempt contentedness and not worry about inventing anything or writing a fabulous how to book, and I will not get in a dither if my chore list has no check marks yesterday and didn't even get printed out today. Iain and Fiona won't know that I am disorganized until they are much older and so that gives me time to get my act together and realize that this is my calling for this season, and maybe there still is a chance for me to invent something or write that book...just not this year.
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