Numbering My Days

The note hung on the last page of the day's workbook assignment.

 

Several pages had been assigned. Irregular verbs and demonstrative pronouns, adjectives disguised as prepositional phrases, comparative forms and principal parts and diagramming. It had been grueling.

 

The note looked like a way out of that last assignment.

 

"Why?" I asked. "You can do this yourself! You don't need me!

Why didn't you get this finished?"

 

"Because this part is fun, Mom, and I wanted to do something fun with you."  (It was a crossword, an attempt by the publishers to lighten up the grammar load.)

 

And so the note brought another one of those slap-you-in-your-face-Momma moments, ice cold water on the head, breath knocked out. I stopped
and scrambled to make sense of the heaviness in my throat.

 

Because if I am anything, I am not the "let's have fun while we're doing school!"

kind of mom.  Really!  How can I be with all I have to do around here and all

that's on my plate and all that's screaming for my attention from the moment

I get up til the moment I lay it on the bed?  Can't you just get your school work

done so we can move on to the next thing?  Yeah, that's who I really am as

I pursue the me-time with my feet up, the time that actually never exactly

 comes and so continues to look like greener grass on the other side...

 

All the while, time comes and goes with a swiftness that doesn't even register on my radar anymore.  And I am missing it.  I am missing this God-ordained, God-blessed life.  I am missing out on so much with my boys.

 

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We finished the assignment together. I watched his face more than usual. I tried to really live every second of working that page together, using all my senses to take in the ten minutes it required of me.

 

The note will hang on my kitchen cabinet until it looks too bad to stay up. A reminder above my coffee pot, my first stop each morning.

 

I am praying that I will never fail to see it. To remember that these days

of being asked to work on homework together, the seeking-out-Mom

-to-do-something-fun, are fleeting. Praying that I will be reminded

to stop, just stop, more often, and for longer. To sit.

 

To walk with, and not just point the way.

I know that the kindness of God is behind my reminder-note.

So I thank Him, and look forward to watching for opportunities

tomorrow to stop and enjoy my family.