Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Oh black paint, how I loathe you

For the last few months every morning I wake up and wonder if today is going to be a day that Amara naps. She has always been a good sleeper. She usually took really good naps at home when we kept to our schedule. Then suddenly we moved and everything changed.

The days of both my children napping at the same time so I can get an hour of peace and quiet are gone. I cherish some afternoon time alone because it is usually the only time I ever have to myself. No quiet drives to work, not even a five minute shower in peace. Amara no longer wants to nap or even stay on her bed. I am pretty sure this is common due to her age not to mention all the change in the last year. Generally I just try and keep her in her bed or at least her room. I am learning to adjust to Amara not napping, but I do think that she should be able to lay quietly in her bed and read or play or something.

Well today, that something she chose to do was sneak out of her room, open my craft cabinet (that I have been needing to get a lock for but haven't found the time), climb up the cabinet to the the top shelf, grab black chalkboard paint... thus beginning the massacre. BLACK.PAINT.EVERYWHERE. There are no words. It was sad. I cried (I do that a lot). There was a lot of lecturing and unfortunately yelling. And a lot of scrubbing. And a lot of laundry.

So not only did I not get even fifteen minutes of peace, but I had to do extra work. And as I was scrubbing and crying, I began to wonder if this is the best course for my life. Maybe I should work and put my kids in daycare. Maybe I should do something, anything other than clean up dirty dishes and puke and paint.

Days like this are weary. Weeks like this when I wonder if my house will ever be clean or the laundry ever be completed make me weary. I feel like an episode of Lost where everyday I wake up and think I will have more answers, but instead every night I go to bed with only more questions.

Then A quote I heard recently came to me.

"Anything highly worthy of doing is the hardest thing you can do."

Being a stay at home mom isn't always easy. But it is highly worthy of doing. And God is faithful. I stay at home because I believe it is the best thing for my children and our family. I want to teach them to be Jesus in this hurting world. I stay at home, and work from home, because although the days are hard, I don't want to miss it. I don't want their lives to fly by and I missed it because I was at work and they were being taken care of someone else. I want to witness every part of their lives because I know it will be gone when I blink my eyes.

I don't want to miss the beautiful things. And I don't want to miss the messy parts either.

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