Learning to Leap

Remember the first time? It was magical, wasn't it?  You had anticipated it your entire life.  Imagined how it would really cement your relationship, where it would happen, and how unforgettable it would be. I bet you still remember it like it was yesterday:  the sacred moment when you first heard your child call you "Mom".   What?  Where did you think I was talking about?   Remember how you coaxed and pleaded and taught your little diaper clad child to say "Mama"?  Remember how you longed to hear that angelic little voice utter your name?  Remember how completely exhilarated it made you feel and how it was absolute music to your ears?   Actually, now that I think about it, yes, I do vaguely recall that thrill.   Nine years and three kids later, all that work I put into teaching them how to say my name has really come back to bite me.   I love it and I hate it.   For the love of all things ...

I used to find it fairly odd to see a scene like this one: Not anymore.   These days, if I see a woman with her rear end sticking out of a large trashcan and her head and arms fully immersed in filth, I hardly bat an eye.  Yep, I think to myself, she's a mom and she's on a mission. In this case, it was a Spiderman action figure her young son had accidentally dropped in the trash.  I'm sorry to say he could not be retrieved.  It was a sad moment for superheroes everywhere.   If you've a mom, you've likely spent some time dumpster diving.  I never really thought I'd be the kind of person who literally digs through the trash of others, and yet, after nine years of motherhood, I'm learning that I never really thought I'd do a lot of things which I do quite regularly .  This happened to me most recently at Costco a couple weeks ago.  Joyfully full on samples, my daughter went to a trashcan to throw away her trash.  Moments late...

I will never forget that night. Now, I am keeping it in perspective and remembering that Hank was, after all, a pet.  He was not my child and our sorrow could have been immeasurably greater.  But we are still sad.   Looking back, I can see God's hand of providence on us that night.  He was protecting our family and providing for our needs in ways I didn't realize until later. Michael has been out of town most of this week.  It is an unspoken law of the universe that terrible things happen mostly when daddies are out of town.  We have a bit of a track record for bad things happening when he's traveling.  Plumbing problems, stitches, behavior issues, etc.   I'd brought the girls home from the ball field that night.  Reluctantly, because it was a school night, I'd allowed Olivia to stay with our neighbors during their son's baseball game.  She wouldn't arrive home til 9:15pm.  This meant she was not home when it happen...

Motherhood tends to change your perspective on a whole lotta things. One of these is my view of exercise.   Before I joined the honorable and blessed estate of motherhood, I used to think of exercise as a chore.  I look back upon those days of my newlywed bliss and remember with regret all the perfectly beautiful moments I let slip thru my grasp where I could've been at the gym or outside running or on a treadmill or watching an exercise video or SOMETHING!  This also had something to do with the fact that I was in my early twenties and my metabolism and I got along just fine.   Today Mr. Metabolism and I are NOT BFFS.  At all.  I hate him, actually.   Once you become a mother, the way you view exercise changes.  It's no longer a chore in my eyes.  It's ME time.  Freedom.  So I may be about to pass out from exhaustion and my aging joints may be screaming for me to stop, but when I am exercising, I am an independent ...