Mother's Day

It was a great day today. My sweetie made me breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and was basically Martha all day so that I had the luxury of being Mary. I took some time to myself to reflect on this job/duty/calling/blessing I have of being a mom. While motherhood is challenging and every single day I have moments I wish I could escape it, there are also moments I can't help but smile and laugh. Thankfully the latter moments are generally more numerous. I can't think of another job out there this demanding (yes, Tim, even more than banking)! It is unglamorous, mundane, and downright dirty. Your bosses can be quite rude and snotty. You don't get sick days and there is no workman's comp. And yet, it is noble, heavenly, and incredibly fulfilling. No other job on Earth offers eternal benefits.

Fairly recently somebody told me I looked happy. I didn't realize at the time just what a compliment that is. How many people can say that they are truly happy? The kind of happiness that lasts, the kind that is earned through hard work--blood, sweat, and tears? Blood shed in childbirth, in nursing your newborn until your nipples bleed, in smashing your finger while folding a stroller, in burning your arm baking your husband's birthday cake. Sweat shed in childbirth, in cooking dinner in your non-air-conditioned apartment, in carrying a toddler on your hip and an infant in the other hand up the stairs only to take 3 more trips up the stairs with the groceries, in trying to burn off the baby weight and toddler frustration while you exercise, and in sleeping snuggled up to your sweetie. Tears shed in--again--childbirth, in seeing your baby's face for the first time, in latching her on again and again onto the aforementioned bleeding nipples, in feeling guilty for just wanting to sleep instead of deal with those kids, in sorrow when your husband doesn't get the score he needs on that test, in loneliness on a Friday night when he's still at work and all you want is to be able to cry in his arms instead of crying to him on the phone. It's only because of the blood, sweat and tears you've shed for the ones you love that you can experience the kind of perfect, enduring, incandescent happiness that illuminates your life day in and day out.

What a grand design by our Father in Heaven. He knew, as only a parent could, that it's only through the blackest of sorrows that you have enough contrast to appreciate the brightest of joys! Here are my joys:

London wanted to make sure Eden had a toy to keep her company for the ride. What a sweetie :)
Here is the lovely dinner Tim made: