The silver lining

Today was just one of those days... I know I usually only write about finding the silver lining in all your days, no matter how negative the outcome. While I still hold true to that belief, sometimes, I like to throw in a story that makes me seem more human behind my words.

Today, I was awaken to the sounds of Lego Batman seeping through the baby monitor at 3:02 am. Once my brain caught up to what I was hearing, I looked over at my tiny picture screen to see my son sitting up in his bed with his kindle rested on his legs. I immediately pulled myself from the warmth of my bed to his room and removed the kindle from his possession with very little words. Only, to have him shush me for walking too loudly. I kindly lied down beside him to help him fall back to sleep, only to be woke again, 3 hours later, by my daughter asking for chocolate milk.

3 cups of coffee later...

Being a school day, I rushed breakfast, did homework, packed a snack, and dressed all three of us before walking out the door for kindergarten drop off.

After drop off, my son and I went to the grocery store for milk and bread, only to be halted in the store for a half hour waiting in line with only one register open and a lady with a book of coupons. 

I finally get home and trouble shoot with Amazon on how to set up parental controls on my son's kindle to prevent him from buying every known app on their online store.

Then with my one free hand, I make a cake for dinner at my in-laws later in the evening.

Once I'm off the phone with Amazon and the cake is nicely baking, I finally hear back from my local post office and they found my package that was missing for three days, because my mailman didn't want to get out of his truck and instead, left a "sorry we missed you" ticket in my mailbox, while I was home. The missing package ended up being at a completely different post office and that post office was closing in a half hour. Obviously, it wasn't going to be redelivered today.

By this time, I had 45 minutes to pull the cake out of the oven, get my son ready, run to a post office that was 15 minutes away, and get to my daughter's school for pick up that was 20 minutes away from the post office.

Are you following along?

Then, when I did arrived at the post office, there were 9 people in line, all with boxes and envelopes in their hands, with one register opened -once again. I paced for a few seconds, while my son chatted about all the mail trucks that were parked out front, before walking up to another woman who was sitting off to the side, eating a bag of chips. I told her about my package debacle and thankfully, she knew who I was and offered to scan my package separately to send me on my way.

By the time I arrived at my daughter's school, my son was softly sleeping in the back seat, with fragments of peanut butter embedded around the corners of his mouth from his snack on the go. My hands and fingers were still tightly gripped around the steering wheel and my brain was still reeling with my to do list that needed to be done in such a short amount of time. I eventually, let out a sigh of relief that I was able to sit for a second without having to run to another place.

These type of days are my constant as a stay at home mom. While my husband is at work, it is my responsibility to tend to everything else that needs tending. I am not only the full time caretaker of my children, I am also a full time homemaker and all of it's entity as well. However, some days, I handle the tasks more gracefully than others. This day in particular, I wanted to cry into my steering wheel.

The silver lining?

Well, the silver lining is, when I look back upon my motherhood days, I want to remember my peaceful sleeping son in the backseat of my car or my overly happy daughter running into my arms after she steps off the bus. I want to remember my son singing Baa Baa Black Sheep at the highest possible volume, while I was chomping at the bit, trying get to the post office. Not the crazy moments that lead up to that.

Because, quite frankly, children don't care about your stressful, chaotic, hair pulling moments. They care about how much love they're getting or how special you make them feel. They crave stability and time. As a parent, I try my best to drown out the complicated life around me and look at them with a big confident smile, even if some days, I cry behind closed doors.

So, my process to obtaining the silver lining during a less than stellar day is to absorb the happiness my children exude. To live in the moment and not speculate what tomorrow will bring. I also reflect on the best moment of the day, even if they were quick little blips that were barely noticeable. I'll sometimes pull myself away from the adult baggage that needs to be done and have an uncomplicated conversation with my 5&3 year old. Because children are singular and rarely think to a deeper level that adults do. And to them, everything in life is simple and fixable and the sun always rises again tomorrow... A cue that even adults need to hear every now and then.

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