Life with a small baby is hard. There are uncountable tough moments and so many days that feel entirely too challenging. Add to that two older children who are always home with me, and some of my days feel downright overwhelming. After a stretch of 3 incredibly trying days (in which I retreated to my room with the baby at 7PM for the rest of the night), the past few days have been so very good. There has been minimal arguing between my older two, there has been enough sleep for everybody, and we have had lots of fun adventures as a family. Yesterday my husband pointed out how good the past few days have been. I realized at that moment that I hadn’t even celebrated, let alone noticed, how good they had been.
So far, today has been an average, run of the mill day. There are two ways I could choose to see it. I could see us being lazy and not doing much of anything and I could feel badly about being unproductive. I could dwell on the five minutes that my kids were getting on each others’ nerves. I could feel frustrated about how long it took me to get the dishwasher loaded and started. Or I could take another look and see my kids snuggling each other in bed as they woke up. I could appreciate the early morning nap that they baby took, allowing me to make breakfast and enjoy eating it with my older kids. I could see the time I spent bonding with my kids over their favorite iPad games on the couch. I could remember that I nursed the baby while giving my six-year-old a haircut and simultaneously helping my four-year-old spell words for a game he was playing. I could celebrate that amazing feat and see myself as super mom, even if just for the morning.
Today can go down in my personal history as a typical and slightly overwhelming day. Or it could go down as a day with so much to celebrate – small moments adding up to a beautiful day in the life of my family. I am choosing to notice the good, and celebrate the good today. Perhaps tomorrow that will be too hard to do, and that’s OK too. But now is now, and now is good.