Special Days

All week I have been thinking about special days that happen in the late spring.  I wanted to write a post on Father's Day that I have been mulling over since last July and then I thought of a good one for Mother's Day as well.  But this musing of a mother is a little bit different. 

The past week I have been watching and listening to my children more and slowing down a little bit, it is near the end of May for which I am so thankful to Jesus!  So with a decreasing schedule coming upon us, now there will be more time for refelction, more time to plan, set goals, think, play, and just be. 
This morning during Sunday School I was actually in the Sanctuary.  We have some nice fellowship there.  The children's classes start right on time and our class, well, maybe it begins some 20 minutes or so later.  Therefore JB has made a habit of taking the baby in to see "Grandma Shirley" who plays the organ.  They sit and chat and she used to hold the baby but now we just watch her run all around.  Then we mosey on down our way.  Today, however, I was still there putting my Mother's Day present together.  JB and the children added another shoe to my necklace and all the shoes were in the wrong order (since I dropped it the other day in haste to an event), so I needed to spend a few minutes with this having promised the children I would wear it today. (If you don't know why I didn't get this done before leaving for church, just come hang out with us sometime, or read more of my blog!)  While I restrung it 3 times (yes, I kept messing up, not their birth order, although this would hardly be surprising given that there have been 9 births in 13 years), I let myself drift back 11 years. 
Sarah Kelly is such a young lady, on the verge or the cusp as it may seem of a whole new world.  Childhood is still here but the promise of what is coming is right on the horizon.  I indulged in all the memories I could think of in that short time period, both in the sanctuary and the last 11 years.  It really feels short and it is short, she looked so much like our baby now and I remember the little dresses and the beach and her hair all wrapped up on her head, teaching her to read, JB teaching her how to ride a bike, her first bike when I was very very pregnant with triplets, birthday parties, reading aloud, baths with Scott in the tub, working in the kitchen.  I thought of each age, one year at a time, all those times, I was pregnant but focused on loving and living with my children at the same time. I remember her enthusiasm with Jackson as an infant, her desire for another baby when Jonathan was being "stitched together" in the womb, her prayers for a new baby being answered in our newest addition.  Right now, I am sitting on the front porch wathcing her run and play in the yard with that new babe, chasing the ducks, pulling her in the wagon, belly laughing and flopping on the grass. She stops the wagon for an instant so the baby can wave at me and goes on.  Just like her life, it is here an instant and then it goes on, whoosh!  And I am so not ready but all so ready at the same time.  For as much as I want to freeze the days, the moments, the smiles and yes, the tears, I want what's next too, the next stage, the next time with these precious children. 
Reality is reality though, something I remember when people ask me why I have so many children.  This is not always Norman Rockwell.   I'm not obscure or only bliss, children do mess up our lives.  They break our stuff, they ruin things, they sometimes are the cause of our dissapointment and our gnashing of teeth.  Right now, as I type, our car is an absolute mess, really it's just disgusting, my kitchen floor is gross because of a neglect, the trash can has something gooey in the bottom, *someone* still hasn't taken their laundry upstairs, piano music is scattered all over the living room, *someone* else is in their room for climbing the trampoline pole and ripping the padding and it could go on and on.  My husband has said today more than once that he just doesn't understand how this all happens. 
But here I am on the front porch stepping away because when I take a breath, or rather ten breaths, I know this is all about stuff, it's about selfishness, I see it for what it is; that I am viewing it as what is happening to me or my stuff.  Forgetful, impatient, argumentative, impulsive... Yes, children are all these things, but it should not be about what is affecting me, but rather, how I am affecting them for I am sometimes those things too.  For there will always be those inconveniences and such but I am in this for the long haul. So is there no training, no consequences?  Or course not, but I look forward to tomorrow and the coming years because I want to be with my children forever and a lot of what I do today including if I lose it because of my selfishness, has a lot to do with eternity. 
The wagon just went by me again, the triplet wagon, full one time, years ago, now with just a babe in the back, the first 2 seats glaringly empty and SK exclaiming that she could pull Peter and Jon Jon in there as well as the baby.  "Will she see them again?" she asks even though she knows the answer.  It all brings to my mind those popular song lyrics:  "You are more than the choices that you make, you are more than the sum of your past mistakes, you are more than the problems you create, you've been remade".  I've been remade and I need to remember that my wonderful lovely children who give us such good times but fail also, sometimes just need the same privilege I've been given.. to be remade. Sarah Kelly has chosen Jesus, his redemptive power in her life, she walks in grace.  She will see her brothers in heaven one day and hopefully raise up a flock of believers herself.  I am reminded once again that despite occasional heartache, trials, and difficult times, my goals for my family are out of this world because only eternity will afford me the pleasure of holding my 2 sons once again as well as the pleasure of being surrounded by all the others and what I do today might make all the difference.