Triumphant Bobbing

One load of laundry folded and put away, another in the washer and one more in the dryer. I'm sure there'll be another ready to start before we finish breakfast tomorrow morning.

Dishwasher emptied and reloaded. Two kids bathed. The season's first pot of potato soup on the stove waiting for Derek. Trash at the door to the garage.

One proof gallery posted, another on deck. Two CDs burned. Emails replied to, website changes implemented.

Worksheets printed, school books reviewed and discussed, foreign currencies examined. Reviewed counting by fives, counting by tens, values of American coins. Again.

Derek's birthday gift selected and purchased, four kids in tow. Selah did not feel the Mother Death Grip around her arm, nor was she left downtown to wallow in her whiney tantrum-y two-year-oldness out of my earshot. I am not proud that I AM PROUD OF THIS.

But I have to be proud of this. The time and energy spent doing, mending, driving, separating, fixing, talking, teaching, studying, reading, diapering, dressing, analyzing, feeding, nursing, wiping, cleaning, editing, replying and maintaining typically accomplishes just that last one: maintenance. It's all just to keep my head above water. But while I may be bobbing on the surface for now, I know those moments  await when I dip below for just long enough to fret: 

(How many videos did they watch?)

(I really didn't want to do drive-thru lunch...)

(Will Selah remember that I did, indeed bring her to the toy store with her siblings even though she was a whining tempestuous MESS and decide that's how she should get her way?)

(Would Eden understand counting coins if we sent her to the school down the street? CAN I DO THIS?)

(Were the kids really out of earshot when I let the f-word slip?)

But we read, we read, we read. The videos were at least partially non-fiction titles from the library. Eden knows her memory verse by heart. Selah wasn't a miniature terrorist IN the store, and half of us will crawl into our beds freshly bathed. So yeah, the fact that I DIDN'T totally lose it on my two-year-old the 92nd time she whined, "Meeee HONnnnn-geeeeeeeeeeeeee" like a diabolical mosquito IMMEDIATELY AFTER refusing to eat the lunch she whined about getting in the first place- the self control I dug so deep and prayed so hard to maintain- it is something.

He gives me grace, grace, grace... I feel it when I'm quiet before Him at the end of the day and the beginning of another. I can plug forward and plug into HIS strength, just enough for today. 

And pray that they give me grace, too.