Oh honey. Enjoy every moment, it all goes by so quickly.
Have you ever attempted to take your crop of children to a fabric store? I mean, please. I attempt to impress by even admitting I went to the fabric store. A mother? Who sews? Saintly. (Let’s not get ahead of ourselves – it’s MY mother who is the saint and actually does any sewing my family needs.) The store is full of endless rows of fabric rolls that create the perfect set up of dominos, just begging for children to get lost between them, knocking them over and driving me wild.
I think I bought the proper material to make a stretchy tube top instead of the black out curtains I needed. But it was all a blur and a chaotic attempt to be the homemaker I’m know I’m not. After telling the lovely lady to cut far more fabric than I later realized I needed, I was met with the statement I recoil from every. single. time.
“I hope you’re enjoying it all, dear. They grow up so fast.”
Because honestly? I don’t enjoy it all. The hang nail on my big toe nail has been in line to be cut for 3 days. I think I wore my 10 year old’s underwear yesterday after I realized why I was sporting a red indented ring around my middle. My husband and I are joined throughout the night by little people coming and going. And I forget to eat.
Nope. I don’t enjoy it all. And to try to live up to that standard just doesn’t work for me. Too much pressure. I can’t do it. Failure. Again.
Alternatively to the carpe diem quest, I take this approach.
Enjoy some of it. Birthdays come quickly, but days drag by slowly. She is beautiful as she sleeps but devilish as she screams. It is glorious to watch him perform at the concert but a drag to make him practice. They look so dang cute in that family picture but the diaper just stinks so badly every single hour. It’s fabulous. And it’s terrible. It’s perfect. And it’s hard.
Really hard.
It’s ok – let’s not enjoy every moment. But let’s find a few that we do enjoy and burn them on our hearts.
Let’s carpe some of the diem.