I've been looking over the recent postings around here, and I realize they're not very substantial. And I feel like that's an accurate picture of how I've been feeling lately. I feel ike everything I do it insubstantial. The dishes I do that just get dirty again, the laundry that gets worn again sometimes even before it gets put away, the endless preparing and eating of meals, the cleaning up of the toys so they can be strung underfoot again. And just as I'm feeling the most aimless, I read something that Lindsey linked to over at her Parents.com blog.
"Clean. And the papers and books and Legos multiply. Cook. And scrub and repeat and repeat and repeat. Wash the clothes. Fold the clothes. Stack the clothes. And watch them migrate back to the laundry basket. A mother's work is but sand etches; the next wave washes it all away."
Yes! That's exactly it. The neverending assalt that undoes anything I work for.
"But don't grains of sand carve stone?" *
Wait, what? Hold up a minute here. Oh! This is what I need to focus on. This is the reason I'm looking for. The meaning for it all. And I think about all the inconsequential things I've posted about lately, and I realize that it's nothing like what's been going on. My kids are getting older and growing and learning, and having a good life with us and I'm not writing about it. I'm not focusing on the right things. It's so hard to do sometimes. Especially in the midst of the dark and dreary winter in Illinois. But I don't want to rememerb that. I want to remember the things that make all those dreary tasks worth it. I know I've come to this realization before. But that's part of it too. It's yet another of the things that the tide washes away, and I have to work to find it again.
Anya is learning her letters. She knows how to spell her name, and she is delighted to find the A's in words. She's mad at me because she'd rather have two Y's in her name than two A's. And she just gets more righteously pissed when I tell her that I'm sorry, but there's actually FOUR A's and no Y's in her name.
Ally called out to me the other day to come take a picture of her. She never holds still for pictures anymore. But this time, she wanted a picture of Natalya sitting with her on her lap. Natalya is Ally's cat, through and through. i found her the other day sitting with Ally on her top bunk natalya purring on her lap, with 4 or 5 stuffed animals gatthered around watching. And I feel the love that they share and it makes me smile. Of course I took their picture. And she held still and smiled for me.
Anya is and has almost always been my goober girl. She started out as girly girl, morphed into google girl, to goober girl and there she's stayed. but recently, she's been insisting that she's not a doobah durl, she's my punkin. Ally can be my doobah durl. And she squeals with laughter when I mix her up and call her bunches of crazy names instead.
Ally is reading words more frequently, I feel so bad sometimes that we've slacked off on reading with her. It's just so hard to find the time to focus on teaching her to read since Anya was born. And then that suilt spills over to Anya because we haven't taken as much time with Anya teaching her as we did with Ally before she came along, and oh my god, the guilt that comes from that - the thinking that we are shortchanging our first child because we had a second one, but NO we don't resent our second child - is a never ending circle. But, really? Ally is fine. Anya is fine. And Ally is still learning. No matter what pace we take, she's getting there.
I find myself searching the sides of the roads as we're driving along. The kids have started a game to see who can be the first to see the 'merican flags out their windows. As much as the competition annoys me, and the fighting and the whining over who has more on their side or who saw it first grate on my nerves, their enthusiasm drags me along into the search. And I smile because I know - I saw it first.
Tonight we're going to go paint ornaments for presents. There's a ceramics place nearby that we've gone to a couple times. Since we are giong to be dead broke this year, and I don't want to be grinchy with no presents, I'm going to let the kids paint presents for grandparents. And I know that it's going to be an effort. They are gong to fight over which ornaments they get and who is usuing which paintbrush, and even what colors to choose. I'm going to have to be vigilant about their level of mess making (although everything is wonderfully washable). And it's going to be stressful. But when we're done, we're going to have some personalized ornaments made with love by my kids. And hopefully, the stressful part of it will fade away, and the memories that will stick around will be full of laughter.
Because my children are a reflection of me, I have to make sure that the grains of sand I leave behind will etch the right picture. Life is good. No matter how bad it is.
*I hesitate to link that, because I don't want to give the impression that I agree with the rest of the post. It's really not aligned with my beliefs at all, but that quote was enough to make me think, and she deserves credit for writing it.
