Okay, MAYBE it's just the life stage but MAY is beginning to BE one of the most stressful months of the year. Open my calendar to MAY and it's comical. There are...
- Eight Baseball Games (for one kid)
- Three Band concerts (for one kid)
- One 8th Grade Dance (for two kids)
- One Gifted Expo (for one kid)
- One 8th Grade Graduation (for two kids, on same night as Gifted Expo for other kid)
- Two Youth Groups (all three kids)
- Two Prayer Events at church (Thank God, cuz they are likely what's going to get us through the rest of the list)
- A Silent Auction (blew it off - not very sorry about it either)
- Legacy Night (all three kids)
- Three Birthdays for extended family
- One Family anniversary
- Mother's Day (felt kinda short to me)
- An Ortho appointment (one kid)
- Another doctor's appointment (me-sigh)
- The annual church business meeting (on same day as one of the band concerts)
Oh and two full-time jobs.
My Star Wars crazed children said "MAY the fourth BE with you" to me on MAY 4th.
Get it?
"MAYBE I'm Amazed" is my favorite Paul McCartney song.
The Traditional Gaelic Blessing has four MAY's...
MAY the road rise up to meet you.
MAY the wind be always at your back.
MAY the sun shine warm upon your face;
the rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again,
MAY God hold you in the palm of His hand.
My favorite camp director is Chip MAY at www.camp-arcadia.com
The Word "MAY" appears 1231 times in the Bible. I'm going with Psalm 19:14 for my MAY post closing...
"May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer."
Especially this MAY.
Monday, May 13, 2013
Sunday, May 12, 2013
Mom's Day
Mother's Day is kind of funny. Not ha ha funny, but an odd little effort to honor a role that roughly 80% of women over 40 hold. It's good there's a day dedicated to mother's, I guess, but I'm not sure how special it is when you consider there's also a Groundhog day, a Bosses day, an Arbor day, an Administrative Professionals day, a Flag day and so on. We honor lots of things. Or at the very least we mass market merchandise to them.
What's weird about the day is it alters your expectations - it's like the get out of jail free card in monopoly. You tell yourself I can pretty much do anything I want today, it's my day. I don't have to cook, clean, make decisions (unless I want to), run errands or deal with disgruntled children today. Which basically boils down to, I don't have to be a mom today. Because mom's do all that stuff.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying dads, kids, brothers, sisters, singles, aunts, uncles and grandparents don't do all that stuff too, I'm just saying it's definitely part of the mom repertoire of duties. So it's odd that there is a day set aside to honor mom and the way in which it's often done is to essentially take her out of the role for the better part of 24 hours. The thing is, it's hard to not do all the mom things for a whole day. Especially when the kids temporarily forget it's your day off and continue to act like you're their mom. And if our expectations are that there won't be any of the stressful mom duties and then those ugly duties call, we end up disappointed that someone swiped our get out of jail free card while we weren't looking.
Because there are dance recitals and travel baseball games planned on mother's day. There are kids who are tired and sick and cranky on mother's day. There are overpriced brunches and clogged toilets and dog vomit (actually experienced that last one today and we don't even have a dog, but we were sitting for another mom).
It shouldn't be about flowers and candy (though by God's grace and my brother and husband's thoughtfulness I got both) and trying to shirk all responsibility for a day. It should be the celebration of one of God's wonderful methods for caring for His people.
So there were ups and downs today and for a short while I was resenting the downs, but at the end of the day, I am reminded what a blessing and privilege it is to be given children to raise, nurture, guide, discipline, teach, comfort, rebuke, encourage, feed, clean and love.
And to bask in the home made cards. I hope I still get that kind when they move out.
What's weird about the day is it alters your expectations - it's like the get out of jail free card in monopoly. You tell yourself I can pretty much do anything I want today, it's my day. I don't have to cook, clean, make decisions (unless I want to), run errands or deal with disgruntled children today. Which basically boils down to, I don't have to be a mom today. Because mom's do all that stuff.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying dads, kids, brothers, sisters, singles, aunts, uncles and grandparents don't do all that stuff too, I'm just saying it's definitely part of the mom repertoire of duties. So it's odd that there is a day set aside to honor mom and the way in which it's often done is to essentially take her out of the role for the better part of 24 hours. The thing is, it's hard to not do all the mom things for a whole day. Especially when the kids temporarily forget it's your day off and continue to act like you're their mom. And if our expectations are that there won't be any of the stressful mom duties and then those ugly duties call, we end up disappointed that someone swiped our get out of jail free card while we weren't looking.
Because there are dance recitals and travel baseball games planned on mother's day. There are kids who are tired and sick and cranky on mother's day. There are overpriced brunches and clogged toilets and dog vomit (actually experienced that last one today and we don't even have a dog, but we were sitting for another mom).
It shouldn't be about flowers and candy (though by God's grace and my brother and husband's thoughtfulness I got both) and trying to shirk all responsibility for a day. It should be the celebration of one of God's wonderful methods for caring for His people.
So there were ups and downs today and for a short while I was resenting the downs, but at the end of the day, I am reminded what a blessing and privilege it is to be given children to raise, nurture, guide, discipline, teach, comfort, rebuke, encourage, feed, clean and love.
And to bask in the home made cards. I hope I still get that kind when they move out.
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