Days

This post was written last night...please forgive any tense confusion!

Even in the midst of the beginning of brand new year…fresh, with no mistakes in it yet…there are moments of craziness, bewilderment, and just plain hilarious messiness (well…hilarious a few hours after!) So often these moments occur during the “making dinner” part of the day…it seems this will be true in 2010 as well!!!

Today I made dinner while holding a little one (who’s not so little) on my hip. I made bread bowls with all ingredients measured by a four year old (they were fantastic). I set a kitchen towel on fire (not smoldering…on fire). I made soup with no plan or recipe…it was eaten…! Today, seconds after putting out said fire I watched my little boy pull a jar of water off the counter all over himself. I got into a bit of a slippery mess with the olive oil and the boy that we don’t need to go into! I listened to constant chatter from my daughter to me and to the nativity set that she sat and played with at the counter for almost an hour. Today, while making dinner, I discovered the reason that my pants felt so strange was that there was a can opener in my pocket. (Have you ever had a can opener in your pocket?…I don’t believe I was the one to put it there!!!…am I the only mom who finds bizarre things in her pockets?) Today I realized dinner served on the kitchen island for the fourth night in a row wasn’t going to hurt anyone. It wasn’t a disastrous mess by any means. But it wasn’t the calm, cozy, reassuring routine that I aim for.

Yes…2010 will very likely be a year full of moments just like these. The down and dirty, crazy and messy, fly-by-your pants, underbelly of parenting. Yes, I imagine I’m in for a decade of these moments…balanced and of course over ridden by the overwhelming joy, humor, fulfillment, and blessings of little ones.

This isn’t what I normally like to use this space for…but I wanted to share my moment of chaos with you so I could share a few images with you also. Because even the slightest flash of this image in my mind brings such pure silly fun, such adoration, that it pulls everything back into perspective for me. I have three images like this. One is of my daughter when she was four or five months old and has an enormous grin on her face. This image has hung in my kitchen since it was taken and has helped me through many dinners. (It was taken in the age before digital cameras…and my brand new shiny scanner is still in the box…so I can’t share it with you…you’ll have to imagine your own little ones grin!)

The second is of my son. There really is no words!! If he only knew at that moment how that face would make me smile each time I saw it. Oh, how I am grateful for that image.

And this…my newest day-saving image. Again…no words!!! So serious…so unawares…yet so unbelievably bright and alive. I think I need to hang these two images with the first in my kitchen…I do believe they might change my “making dinner” hour forever!

Do you have images like this. Images or memories that can pull you out of the most harried of moments. I truly hope you do. Oh, the blessed joy they bring!