Later May Never Come

There’s a never ending merry go round of thought stuck inside my brain.  Every time there is enough courage to know I can do something and the peaceful quiet within my soul to conjure a few lines on a page, I spit up the first paragraph about the fact that I don’t write enough or it’s been a long while since writing and oh, I have thoughts people, I have thoughts.  

Who cares?  I care.  Maybe you'll care, too.  Something will resonate and be helpful.  Maybe.  

These are the last things people want to hear or read, rather, and rightfully so. 

The baby dumped out the beans in a furious cascade of defiance.  She proceeded to pee on my beloved piano, yes, she literally peed on my *electric* Roland piano to the point of it dripping through holes on the underside.  My heart hit the floor(can the mom of the family have and keep anything for herself?!) while she proceeded to hit someone in the head, my life of days is a stop and start event, pretty much every five to ten minutes of telling her no and it was a Jonah day for me yesterday.  I cleaned all day and dealt with a toddler who is clearly from Mars or some planet designed to dole out absolutely no mercy to its creators.  I cried.  My kids hugged me after I cried and not before.  I made my accusing rant slash case against them and they were unmoved.  Smart kids...they know baloney when they smell it.  

Accusations never work by the way for anyone, the giver, the receiver, no matter how convinced you are that you are right in your accusing.  Don't worry.  I told them I was sorry.  Always say sorry when you're wrong.  That's a hard one to do but one of the most rewarding things you can do especially when done faithfully.

There are other things that caused such an overwhelming reaction on my part, some worries plaguing my mind about one of my other children and also...what if the baby wakes up before I finish writing this?  Big, honking deal, right? 

But, no, really.

Everyone is fast asleep on this rare occasion and it feels like heaven and that's the big whoop for me.  A few chores in on my part and typically, they (meaning her first) are up and running and this morning I got those chores in, coffee brewed and the sitting in silence to write.  I felt like I had conquered Mt. Olympus, Mt. Rushmore, oh, what's that dang mountain...Everest, I conquered with those beautiful elements of joy colliding!  Minus the dog fidgeting next to me, well, and now the extra reasoning of a seven year old trying to make sense of the stories she is reading out loud, things were set up for perfection.  Mom, how can they ride dolphins in the ocean without being eaten by sharks and stung by box jelly fish?  Good question, kid.  I’ll talk about it with you later.

And as always with her usual radar perception the toddler knows when I wake up in the morning and comes crying to find me with such accurate and concise precision, she knows no bounds, well, this morning she does.  But how does she do that?  You know...the part where she knows when I am up and that she needs to find me asap?

And I worry about that never stopping.  Then when it stops I worry about it never beginning again...this need for me, for mom in her life.  But reality predicts something else and it always does.  Our fears versus reality...it's a huge struggle, isn't it? 

Never having the ability to pursue all the things I was made for and not just some of those things.  I do fear this.  The whole mothering thing is my life.  Am I ungrateful right now?  Am I whiny?  Am I just down right annoying?  And, hey, these were my choices, right?  Nobody held me at gun point to have all these kids.  I wanted everyone of them.  I would have more if my body would let me.  Yeah, you heard right.  I know...I am good and crazy. 

Maybe, maybe not.  

It occurs to me in any event that the ability to pursue one’s dreams, aspirations and goals while having so many children is an ebb and flow experience.  I have peaks of time where I can peruse my singing, my playing, my writing, my, well, and my how about making money curiosities.  So there is hope in the midst of the bellowing chaos that walks before me each day in the form of demands, my children’s education, their well-being, my availability to them all when they need me most and knowing who needs that first at the top of the other heap of priorities, my relationship to their dad and myself and God?  Well, that good old time for me is in there somewhere.  

Some people say...you should love yourself first, put yourself first, and pay yourself first.  I don’t know what they are talking about.  If I get a special something for me...I feel bad and immediately want to give it to my children.  If I sit down and there is a take care of self or them question, it is usually them I choose.  This is my life.  Is it the better choice and always?  I sure don’t think so necessarily or I wouldn’t be writing all this. 

This.  

Maybe I need to make some changes and maybe I don’t.  I’m not solidified in that choice.  It just is what it is.  I do feel resentment at times, but I never want to resent them, my kids, full of life and love and crazy and chaos, so maybe some changes need to be sought when the toddler grows up.  The number three has had a record of bringing a little more maturity in this home.  I have had five others turn three and that magic number always brought a sigh of relief and the number four even more until one day you wonder how they were ever as crazy as they were, maybe not as a complete rule but for some part of the whole.  I am a bit crazy even now as such an older person than they, so crazy can’t possibly be all bad, right? 

I remember being a happy go lucky child despite my circumstances.  I was told by my brother that I was tough, but happy.  I would dance and put on shows for people and crack every one up.  I was a ham.  What I was like as a toddler?  Hmmm...I don’t know.  I will have to ask my mom or siblings.  

“Goooood morrrnnniiiing!” 

Wow, is that my son?  And the questions are coming already again.  

He says and I quote, “Here’s what I don’t understand...why does my hair stand straight up when I get up in the morning when I can’t even get it to do that during the day with hairspray?”  

Good question, kid. We’ll talk about it later.  Later is almost here.  Later is almost gone.  Later may never come.  Later is a bad word maybe.

And why in the world is he up so early?   You don’t even see, smell or hear the man child until after lunch during the summer.  

And she is up.  The she from Mars or wherever ya’ call it, that planet place she comes from.

If she gets up, we’ll all get up and it’ll be total anarchy.  

Well, hopefully not.