This Moment

Life as a mother of four has not slowed down in the past year. I don't know why I thought it eventually would, but I did.  And maybe next year when Jack is in preschool, I might possibly have a child-free moment in my day, but for the moment my free time is often measured in seconds instead of minutes or hours.  Which means you are much more likely to find me on facebook than Blogger.  But that is ok for now.  I will take my adult connections where I can get them.

I honestly do miss blogging, and I frequently have moments that I want to capture, but the space in my brain that holds such things is currently occupied with swing set sale ads, online courses I need to take to keep my teaching certificate current, and vacation ideas.  Not to mention school projects, IEPs, and speech therapy appointments.

But right now, in this moment, I am having a moment I want to remember.  A moment when the children are not fighting over video games or whining about their supposed boredom.  And I want to write it down instead of making dinner or folding socks.  Because I make dinner and fold socks all the time, but how often do I get a moment like this?

For the past two hours, my house has been wonderfully argument free.  Will has decided to organize his younger siblings into an afternoon of playing school.  I can hear Will announcing that it is math time, leading them in singing their ABCs, and telling them to line up for recess outside.  (He even sang praise songs while he was "lesson planning". And right now he is reading them a story.  He has taken them on learning adventures all over the house, and they are having so much fun.  The only angry sound I have heard was when it was "lunchtime" and Will made them milkshakes, and Jack loudly insisted that his should be 'NANA!  (He really likes bananas.)  Jack and Kate adore their big brothers, and so they are just soaking up all of this attention. 

Meanwhile, Ben has a massive science project due on Wednesday. I am a terrible mother who used to try to help with such things, but found that this quickly devolved into frustration and yelling.  And so now I just watch.  His dad graciously takes him to the hardware store to pick out wires and switches for his circuitry project, and then helps him to test it all and make sure it works before Ben finishes it off.  The project is almost complete.  Ben just explained to me the difference between parallel and simple circuits, which I also learned in the 4th grade but have long since forgotten. I just go out to the garage every so often to "ooh" and "ahh" and pat them on the back, literally and figuratively. 

And so I want to remember this moment.  When all is peaceful.  I know that soon there will be hungry children to feed, tired children to put to bed, and more socks to fold.  But for right now, in this moment, all is right with the world.