In The Quiet Heart: Mother's Day

I woke up early Sunday morning and the first thing Gary said to me was "Happy Mother's Day, Hon!" and the first thing I said was "Uggg.....I hate Mother's Day!"

You are sorry that you don't get to wake up to my ray of sunshine-y personality, aren't you?!

Yes...I admit it...I hate Mother's day.

I don't hate being a mom. I love my children. They are some of the smartest, funniest, most creative, most annoying, most exasperating, kindest, most loving children I have ever met. They accept everyone just the way they are and draw them in to their circle of friends. They hate doing the dishes or any other household chores. They love all things related to technology. They are good, responsible students who mostly get "A's" and always have me going to the award ceremonies at the end of the year where they are in the 4.0 or higher GPA group. They always wait until the very last minute to do their homework. They love to hear their siblings scream "LEAVE ME ALONE!!" and have gotten very proficient at finding a way to make them say it often. They are always where they say they are going to be. They have the best friends on the planet that are fun to hang around. Their rooms are NEVER clean. They are just GOOD!!

Yet, I still hate Mother's day. It's a low self-esteem thing. I hear all of the inspiring stories of all the most wonderful of mothers and I kind of sit and do an evaluation with my "Most Wonderful Mother" checklist and most of the boxes are not checked off. I won't even go into all of the ways I fail as a mother.

Our day started off with me getting grumpy because we were running late for church and Emily needed to be there early to sing. She ran in just in the nick of time and I was desperately trying to get in to hear her but Carson is the friendliest, most social boy on the planet and had to say "hello" to all of his friends before he could go inside. Luckily, I got in just in time to hear her sing but I had an invisible storm cloud over my head. Then I cried during the opening hymn, one of my children refused to go sing with the group singing the special musical number, and Carson decided that he needed to throw-up during the song so I took him out to get a drink (he didn't throw up, he's just learned the way to get out of church for a few minutes).

Then something happened. I don't even know what it was exactly. Kinsey insisted that we take family pictures after church which is usually the best way to get us mad at each other but we managed to have a semi-good time and then I came home and took a nap. When I woke up, I saw all of the pictures that Kinsey spent the day editing and I marveled at this beautiful family that God has given me. We aren't perfect by any stretch of the imagination. We are all a tad (times a million) bit awkward. We aren't sporty. We're all a little artsy. Some of us are musical. Some of us are not. We all try to be kind to others but sometimes we fail. We are all doing the best that we can.