Mommy Musings . . .

I got home from work tonight and was unwinding, watching some TV. During a commercial, I turned my head to look at the pictures we keep on the shelf. There's one of Chicken Nugget, the Easter before BW and I got married. She had just turned four, had long hair, was wearing her pink and white Easter dress, had her chubby-cheeked face cocked to one side . . . and I thought how big she is now.
I looked around the house. Toys scattered everywhere. Laundry undone. Lots of work to be done in the morning . . . I stumbled into the living room to lower the blinds, and there were more toys. And I thought, one day our house won't be full of toys to stumble over. But instead of that being a hopeful thought, it made me sad.
I worry a lot about a lot of things that don't really matter. I worry about not keeping the house clean enough. No matter how hard I try, it's never clean enough. The laundry's never done and the toys are never all picked up and there's always a spot I missed while dusting or mopping. But at the end of my life . . . is it going to matter if I missed those spots?
When Banana's such a ready cuddler, happy to be nestled in my lap, should I really hasten to put him down again and begin all my cleaning? How much longer will he want to cuddle and give sugars and tell me what the dinosaur says? When will he stop sticking his feet out for me to do "this little piggy?" As fast as I have seen time go with my oldest child, I know that there's really not that much longer for me to enjoy those things.
I worry about dirt getting tracked through the house or paint getting smudged on the walls, when I should view these things as signs of life and joy and cheerfulness. When I should see Noodle's smiles instead of her messes . . . when I should be getting messy with her, instead of always picking up behind her. Right now it is her joy in life to share with me. It's foolish not to participate in that.
This day, after all, is fleeting.
I should laugh more, relax more. Not worry so much if Banana wants to sleep in the bed with us from time to time. Not try to be a textbook mom who flips if the schedule doesn't go just right . . . one day these people who are now my precious little ones will be in college, and they won't even remember sleeping in bed with us or getting two snacks before lunchtime.
I'll be the one with all the memories, of the toys on the floor and the mud in the house and the running in the rain and the toilet paper trails and the paint on the belly and the morning hair and the being crowded out of bed by snuggly toddlers who needed mom and dad in the night . . .

This day is fleeting, after all. In a few more months, the girl who used to be my first little baby will turn eight years old. What a fast eight years. So for this fleeting moment, I'll cherish and savor and revel in the fact that there are toys on the floor. This day's just about fled, anyhow. Might as well just let tomorrow worry about itself . . .