Sunday, January 27, 2013

Loving Ordinary



It doesn't take much for me to complain about the mundane of a typical day in the Wolfswinkel household. Anyone who knows me well enough knows that our mornings almost ALWAYS go to crap starting at about 6:47 a.m. beginning with kids who don't want to get up or conveniently forget the rule about no TV until after EVERYTHING is done, or decide they NOW want breakfast exactly 4.5 minutes before we are supposed to walk out the door. Yep. That's us. It is usually followed by regrettable yelling and screaming in the car about how I'm going to wake everyone up at least 30 minutes earlier and how I'm going to start taking bedtimes away in 15 minute increments if they don't get their crap together. And yes. Sometimes I accidentally say crap in the heat of the moment. They are never some of my proudest moments, and I always promise myself I'll try harder to be more patient the next morning. Being a working mom has it's perks (paychecks, getting out of the house, living the dream), but it also has it's downfalls (constant busy-ness, messy houses, never home, endless to do lists). I'm a whiner by nature. I hate to admit this because it's one of the qualities that on occasion make me want to stick a Free-to-a-good-home sign on my kiddos and set them on the curb, but I guess the apples don't far from this mama's tree.

Anywho, this is where I'm going with this story. I complain a lot about the normal things in my average, mundane, ordinary life. But lately, I've really tried to find the sliver of sunshine in an otherwise normal 24 hour period. I've vastly improved my patience level in the mornings over the course of the last week and a half, and it really does make my mornings go much smoother. I find that my attitude goes down in the dumps quickly during these cold winter months, and I thought I'd share some of the things that I'm loving about ordinary right now.

Sawyer comes and cuddles with me in the mornings for exactly 3 minutes when he wakes up. They are the most glorious 3 minutes of my entire day!
The sunrises in the morning on my way to work have been the most gorgeous things to witness lately. This picture doesn't do it justice, but man I'm so in love.
I have the best job ever. I was never meant to be a stay at home mom, but this right here tops the cake. I love coming to school every day doing what I love!! It hardly feels like work.
The icing on the cake is that I get to see my dad every single day I go to work. Talk about blessed.
On the rare occasions we don't have much to do at night or even if we have a few free moments right after school, I swallow up these moments of lounging on the couch cuddling with my littles.

He's the best cuddler there is.
Two days a week I get to shake my groove thing with my besties at zumba. It hardly feels like a workout and we have so much fun!
Bedtime routines at our house are a blast. Who doesn't love shadow puppets?!

I can hardly believe he's reading all by himself. It makes me one proud mama.



As I look back over this list, I realize how blessed I am and all that I have to be grateful for. Will I still complain? Probably. Will we still have crappy mornings rushing out the door to barely get to school on time. Definitely. But I am looking at my ordinary days with a different lens. A lens of gratitude and thankfulness and the realization that my littles won't be littles for very long. Sunrises won't come up at the exact same time I'm leaving for work pretty soon so I'm soaking it in. Bedtime routines will change because they will get older and shadow puppets won't be so cool anymore. But no matter what changes or what stays the same, I will enjoy these fleeting moments and grab tight. I will put these memories in a lock box and hang on to them tight. What are you loving about your ordinary life right now???
 

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