Little Blessings

By the time 7pm rolled around tonight I was feeling pretty defeated.  My expanding body brings with it challenges and limitations and as happy as I am to welcome a new little life into our family, knowing I have three long months to endure was a hard realization today.  I knew Justin wouldn’t be home til after the kids were in bed so I didn’t plan anything for dinner, but darn those kids still expect to eat.  So it was hot dogs and frozen southwest egg rolls for dinner and while the kids polished off the rest of the brownies from last night I worked on getting the dishes done and the kitchen semi-cleaned up (trust me, I had more than my fair share of brownies earlier in the day).  Before getting ready for bed I told the kids they needed to put away a load of clean laundry – with a warning that for every time I needed to remind them to stay on task they would go to bed 10 minutes earlier.  When I was ready to help Katie into her jammies, she was insistant on washing her hands.  Knowing she would likely use too much soap, or splash too much water on the counter I hauled her away from the sink and got her dressed anyhow.  She was frustrated which further frustrated me – something so silly.  We read scriptures and then I felt that of all nights I shouldn’t skip over our recent ritual of taking turns sharing something positive around the day.

Carly was happy to have been able to work on homework after school with a friend across the street

Abigail was glad that she and her partner were able to make significant progress on a project even though they’ve had less time that their peers

Jason was excited that he passed 900 on writing his number scroll at school

Katie was happy that she got to eat cookies today (yes, in addition to brownies we made TWO batches of cookies on Sunday to get rid of some expired chocolate and butterscotch chips)

I shared how happy I was that Katie used the potty today (more than once)

I asked Abigail to fill in for Justin tonight and play catch with Jason for a few minutes before reading to him and turning out the lights – there was no objections.  Carly was asked to read a story to Katie and get her tucked in – something she’s always happy to help with.  On an evening I felt I wasn’t giving anything to my kids, they reminded me how much they give to me.  I’m so grateful for them. 

I’ve recently started putting together our 2010 Family album and today I started working on the pictures from Katie’s birth.  A fitting reminder of the joyful day that lies ahead for our family.