Messy Motherhood

I have my ups and downs.  Lately, thanks to the grace of God, I have been having FAR more ups than downs, and my house (and yard) are showing the effects thereof.  

I've been able to get out of bed on a semi-regular basis while the clock still reads AM, I've been finding my sense of humor that was missing for so long, and when I saw this selfie I sent my husband after our child had spit up all over his own clothes:

I realized that my smile was more genuine than forced.  I actually am starting to look like me again!

Maggie got sick the other day--it was a Sunday, and not just a Sunday, but the Sunday where my incredible older sister was supposed to report her mission.  But because Mags was throwing up and Steve was working, only The Brothers got to go, which previously might have completely ruined my day.

Instead, this time I let Maggie curl up next to me on the couch: 

And we watched The Brothers put on a circus for us.  With a real, live, incredibly patient "lion," and our very own Clark tiger!

And when I watched the video I'd taken of the proceedings, it was fun to see that my laugh sounded almost back to normal.

A little tired, perhaps, but I am still a mom.  I may not sleep well again until I'm dead.

Today was an even messier day, but rather than being messy on the outside with puking kids or plans going awry, it was messy inside my head.

I let some stranger's Facebook post get to me, and after commenting, editing my comment, deleting my comment, and then re-posting my comment, I obsessively checked and re-checked all the responses to see what people thought of my vulnerability, and when a few disagreed (albeit respectfully), I let it get to me, and thus lost my peace.

Again, on the outside, today was a good day.  We went to visit a wonderful sister in our ward.  Jack got an awesome award from school (hopefully more about that later)....I even baked sugar cookies!

But I had the tension underneath it all, and snapped at the kids a lot more than I like to.

We had a spontaneous dance party when one of my favorite songs came on my Pandora station, and as I was grooving and shaking, Jack came up and smacked me on the behind--hard.

It's been a game of theirs lately to smack my behind, and to say that I get irritated by it is an understatement.  I've asked them many times not to, and so today, I lost it and yelled at him--he immediately ducked his head, and I inwardly berated myself for ruining such a fun moment.

Thankfully, kids forgive pretty naturally, and as I was sweeping up my floor tonight, in the middle of the mess was this:

I love tender mercies.