The "Boring" Life

A friend of mine posted something amusing on my Facebook page this morning. Murphy's Laws of Motherhood. You know what it's about. If you change your clothes, the baby will spit up on you. If you tell a child no, they will. If you want them to sleep, they won't.

I spend the day working to maintain a practical schedule that incorporates my to-dos and meets my kids' needs. But it can only account for a certain amount of the unpredictable. Really, motherhood is managed chaos. The only thing predictable about it, is that there WILL be unpredictability!

Some days have a little more of this craziness than others though. That was my Monday afternoon. I had a dentist appointment, and I had planned to the minute everything that would need to be prepared and accomplished in order to exit the house and arrive on time. Of course, that would be the day of multiple fits, the dogs refusing to go "potty" and repeatedly tangling their leashes, the baby pooping in his new diaper as we're about to walk out the door and, the icing on the cake (or last straw, whichever witticism seems most appropriate), my toddler falling out of the car while I was occupied getting the baby settled and before I could buckle her in...and busting her lip. She screamed and flailed, and I tried to slow the flow of blood with my shirt, which I didn't have time to run back inside to change. And so I put the whimpering child in her car seat, with her fat lip growing ever plumper, feeling more than a little harried and disheveled (and now dirty!) and...of course...I got behind someone going 45 mph in a 55 mph zone all the way to the dentist when already running late.

Days like that just feel so infuriating! Who ever said life the plain old family life was boring?! It is anything but that! And while sometimes the unpredictability can feel overwhelming and stressful, at the heart of it, and the point of the cute little post on my wall, is that in the middle of all this mess is a family I love and delight in!

Sure, I cringed today when my toddler daughter came running the minute I turned on the water in the kitchen sink, as if I was filling it with hot, sudsy water for the sole purpose of her enjoyment and play. It would be so much easier to have straightforward and uninterrupted dish duty. But right when I was beginning to grit my teeth over all the water she had poured on herself and the floor, she cheered me with a "Beep, beep Mommy" and a little hip bump to move me out of the way as she stretched her arms into the water.

Motherhood has never been boring! Even the repetition of daily tasks is infused with the unpredictable! And it's oh so sweet, even in the mess of it all, to see those little grins and just give in to this "boring" life...and it's mud-holes and skinned knees and sleepless nights and tears and drawings on the wall and Tu-tus and too-big boots and Legos and Hot-wheels and laughter and bugs and grass stains and dog-eared books and hugs...and love!