ryan and i have a bad habit. a very bad habit. each and every time we start a {simple} home project, in inevitably blossoms into about 800 other home projects as well. ask anyone who knows us. i start mentioning to my girlfriends about a "little weekend project we have going on at the house" and get the raised brow. the silent "yea right" i'm so very accustomed to. ryan's degree is in construction with a minor in perfectionism. my degree is in medicine but with minors in multitasking, to-do list making, and biting off more than i can realistically chew.
what started as a {relatively} small project in the backyard....clearing out some landscaping in order to make way for a covered patio and a kids playspace.....has taken on a life of it's own. the kids indoor playroom is now in the works, drywall texturing has been sprayed, and the entire house is getting repainted (inside and out). this sounds easy enough right? wrong. factor in redecorating, new light fixtures, window treatments....OH and the fact that we have 2 rambunctious littles and 2 full time jobs. ha! and that i want all of this to be done by october 20, ben's first birthday. that too.
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some things never change. as i look ahead at all the things we've got going on....i find myself just wanting to get things done and crossed off that forever growing list. until i realize that that list is my life. i've been reading a book on buddhism & motherhood....how the mindfulness teachings of buddhism can really be applied to motherhood to ensure you don't get wrapped up in that all too common fate. and i'm trying really REALLY hard to work on my need to get things done, crossed off, tucked away. i've never been good at "living in the moment". i'm a doer. it's in my blood and in large part why i've gotten where i've gotten in my life. it serves me well.
but, in the quiet moments i secretly wish, and deeply so, that i could help myself slow down. forget the to do list. soak up a few moments of nothing. enjoy more moments for what they are on their own rather than looking ahead to what they will be. it dawned on me recently that part of the reason i take so many pictures is so that i can look back at my favorite life moments. obvious but why not just live them now?
i was stopped dead in my tracks late one evening after my littles had gone to bed. i was playing on the computer waiting for ryan to come to bed when i happened upon this quote.
“Everything in all the books I once pored over is finished for me now. Penelope Leach. T. Berry Brazelton. Dr. Spock. The ones on sibling rivalry and sleeping through the night and early-childhood education, all grown obsolete. Along with ‘Goodnight Moon’ and ‘Where the Wild Things Are,’ they are battered, spotted, well used. But I suspect that if you flipped the pages dust would rise like memories.” Then she goes on and talks about some of the mistakes she made while raising her babies. “…the biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make…I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of the three of [my children] sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages 6, 4, and 1. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less.” --Anna Quindlen
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and that right there just about sums it up. if there is no other reason to live in the moment, there is everything captured in that quote above. so this weekend, i reveled in every moment. the messy, sticky, silly moments. there was a major kids vs parents dance off to be had. we twirled. we danced in the rain. we had major "talk time" after several tantrums spun out of control. we cooked and cleaned with one another and answered questions that all started with "why...". we snuggled and we {gasp} jumped on beds. boy did i love each of those moments. even the not so nice ones.i will continue to struggle with this thing. this "living in the moment" thing. it is my curse and one it think many of us working mom's bear. but...i'll keep fighting the good fight. day in and day out. moment after messy beautiful life moment.
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