Limit Reached

I set out a few months ago with an ambitious list of things I wanted to accomplish.  And in true me fashion, I took that list with the intention of tackling the whole thing.  And in true me fashion, I found the proverbial wall and crashed into it with impressive force.

I have incorporated a lot of the things I wanted to do.  That includes both actions and schedule fillers and also just a better awareness for myself of  what I want to use my time doing.  And I'm happy with what I've done.  But, I'm tapped out.  All of the sudden all of the things, more prayer, more cooking, more reading, more exercise, more family time, more time with friends, more focused parenting, more time outside, more more more MORE MORE MORE MORE has gotten to the point of, well, too many "mores".  But it is also the season where it gets nicer outside and all of the sudden the schedule of things to do explodes.  But the problem is that I don't want to stop or slow down on any of the things I've added.  So somehow I have to figure out how to reorganize what I have with what is coming.  Now I have to make room for gardening and forest preserve walks and baseball games and swimming and vacations, and whatever else summer brings.  Which is all good stuff.  But my brain starts to smoke a little when I think about managing it all.  And I kind of just want to crawl onto the couch and turn it all off and pretend I have plenty of time to do whatever I want.

But I can't.  So I won't.  I'll figure it out.  I think.  Stay tuned.

Mommy, Mommy, what do you hear?

There are certain sounds that always make me smile.  Happy birds twittering in the yard (after I'm awake).  The powerful crescendo of a beautiful song.  The soundtrack to the movie Hoosiers.  The laughter of children.  I would bet that some may not agree with all of those items, but most probably can't help but enjoy the genuine laughter of little kids.  I got to spend my morning today surrounded by that beautiful sound.

We took our son to see the production of Treasured Stories of Eric Carle, performed by the Mermaid Theatre of Nova Scotia.   It was simple, colorful, and stunning.  And the kids there roared and squealed and clapped and laughed and it was awesome.  

Going into the show I was curious what they would do.  I've read "The Very Hungry Caterpillar," and "Brown Bear Brown Bear, What do you see?" and I couldn't help but wonder how they would stretch these very simple and brief stories into more than 8 minutes of show.  But they did, and it was a good reminder to me that we adults don't always have to be in such a hurry.  They took their time with every moment of every scene and had the entire audience captivated.  An entire audience of antsy, twitchy, short-attention-spanned children, mind you.  And they made it clear from the beginning that this was a "shoosh-free" show.  How liberating for all those kids to not have to be quiet, whisper, sit still, be proper, get scolded, and all that other boring stuff that happens when you go places with adults.  They could laugh, point, ask questions, give away the ending, and no one cared.

Before the show, as we sat in the lobby and waited to find our seats, my husband made the observation that it was very heavily girl-populated.  To which I replied, "well, that's no surprise, look at who primarily attends theater events as adults?" And I have to say I find that so sad.  I can say with total certainty that my son, his friend, and the entire rest of the little boys there enjoyed every second of this the same as the girls.  I won't deny that I enjoy playing, watching, following, teaching, and any other possible action you can take in relation to sports, and I see that my son is well on his way to picking up the same traits.  But I also see that he loves to dance to music, and paint, and read books, and sing songs, and it is really important to me to encourage him to do all of those things too.  It doesn't come as naturally to me to remember those things, but when I do, it is so worth it.  The excitement in his voice every time he has talked about since is more powerful than any motivational speaker on the planet.

Chapters

Life can be separated by many different generic stages.  Childhood / Young Adult / Adult/ Senior.  Pre-college / College / Post college.  Single / Married.  Pre-kids / Post-kids / Post-grand-kids.  Jobs / Career.  Today I came upon the idea that I can also break my life into chapters based on church.  We worshiped with our Goddaughter and her family at the church we transferred from about a year ago, and sitting there was a very pleasant reminder to me of where I've been.

So far I have spent most of my life in three different churches.  For most of my childhood I attended the same church, which I almost now consider my parents' church.  I find it kind of odd that I view it that way, since I went through first communion, confirmation, graduation, and my wedding at that church, which encompasses about half of my life.  But I guess in all things, once you're an adult you feel more ownership of the things that you do, rather than just being a tag-along. So that church now, which was such a constant for so many years, has become Chapter 1.

Present day, Chapter 3, we are at a new, well, new to us, church.  We have been there about a year, and really just starting to get more involved and take ownership of our role as members.  It will be the first church my son remembers, and maybe even the one he looks back on and dubs his parents' church.  Chapter 2, then, is the church we visited today.  That was the first church my husband and I joined together after we were married.  I think we were there about six years, until a few months after our son was baptized.  I sat there looking around and couldn't help but think about the people we were during the time we spent there.  What was happening, how we lived, who we spent time with.   I sat with my little blessing on my lap, staring at the same cross at the front of the church that I stared at for all those prayers to bring him safely into our lives.

The person staring at each of those three different crosses at the front of each church is so very different.  The first was filled with the confusion and distraction of everything that goes into growing up.  The second was consumed with marriage and home ownership and work and family.  Well, I supposed the third is currently consumed with the same types of thoughts, but at a different stage.  I'm not quite the newbie to any of that anymore like I was then.  But I recognize now what I didn't then, that things are happening.  Now that the book is a little longer, there are more chapters to show me where this story is going.