I'm Just Not that Kind of Girl

It's always a little bit awkward when someone asks me what I enjoy as a "hobby".  If Jonathan is in the room we kind of look at each other and laugh.  I'm just not that kind of girl.  I'm not saying I don't want to be.  I really would love to be absolutely great at something.  Anything.  But....

You are never going to see a really great craft idea on my blog.  I wish I had something like that to share.  Not gonna happen.
I don't take pictures of anything other than my boys.  Most of the time I forget the camera anyway.
I don't sew, knit, crochet, quilt, scrapbook...or anything else that takes vision and follow through. 
I love to bake, but that's only because I like cookie dough and not because I'm particularly great at creating any dessert. 
More often than not, Jonathan comes home from a long day at work and only then do I think about what we could throw together for dinner.  I don't meet him at the door in an apron and a house that smells like the next Southern Cook-Off entry. 
I use to have an immaculate house.  Enough said.

There are days that I feel like I'm drowning by the regular day in and day out activities.  I don't know how the supermoms I know have energy (or brain space for that matter) to also take on and be the crafty little devils that they are.  And sometimes...I do think they are the devil. 
Not REALLY the devil of course.  But they definitely add to the sick inner voice that says, "How are you possibly going to do this for the rest of your kids' childhoods when you are hardly hitting the bar today?"  And I'm calling that voice out.  It is the devil.  He hates me.  He wants me to fail at this job. 

I know that it's important that I only take on what I know I can do.  And still...that seems like so little when at the end of the day I take inventory.  Are my kids alive?  Yes.  Yes they are.  But oh it would be wonderful to say, "Yes they are and they are wearing clothes that I myself manufactured, they are eating food that I picked right out of the organic garden in our immaculate back yard and I have documented this in a beautiful scrapbook that they will someday cherish and know that their mother loved them with every last drop of her blood."
Okay, I know this is totally unrealistic.  But there are OOOODLES of women who have as many things to do as I do and still manage to be amazing at something other than breaking up fights and changing urine soaked sheets.  I'd like to be amazing at one thing that doesn't have to do with keeping children alive. 

Here's something pathetic.  I don't even like to write cards to people because instead of opening it and saying, "Oh that's so nice of her to think of me,"  I imagine them saying, "Geez!  Did a serial killer write this note?  Thanks for the thought but grow up and learn how to write for crying out loud."  Yeah, I don't even write like a pretty grown up girl.  It looks like I'm writing while driving on the road to Hana. 

What I'm not asking for is a compliment.  I really don't need it.  I'm just venting on one of those days when I feel like things are spinning out of control and I don't have the first notion as to how to stop it.  And I see moms around me who are doing it with a smile and a sweet homemade accessory in their hair and I can't for the life of me figure out how they are doing it!  Is their house a wreck while they put together an amazing quilt for orphans in Africa?  No.  I've been there.  It's not.  Are their kids malnourished while they gallivant around taking brilliant pictures at glamorous weddings?  Nope.  Kids are thriving and healthy.  Do they skip showers in order to have fresh baked muffins for breakfast and home cooked...whatever on the table for dinner?  Again... no. 

So what gives?  I don't know.  I'm just not that kind of girl and probably never will be.  It is time for me to move on. 

What I can say for myself is this: 
a. My husband knows that I'm madly in love with him.  Madly.  Maybe pathetically...
b. My boys know that I would drink poison and be skinned alive for them.  (Though I hope it never comes to that.)
c.  And hopefully at the end of the day, even though they'll never have a scrapbook to prove it, they will all know that I desperately enjoy being the wife and mom that I am to them. 

I am grateful for this precious role and for these days that I am reminded all to often... are numbered.

Supermoms:  I know this is true for you as well, but I need to be content with these things until I have somehow cracked your secret and arrived at the next level. 

Big Love

"Mom I wonder if God's love is even bigger than HE is!" 

Sam actually said this to me the other day. 

We were hugging and competing over how big our love is for each other. 

So it sounds like this: I love you bigger than the highest mountain.  I love you bigger than the ocean.  I love you bigger than the whole world.  I love you bigger than anything ever! 

Sam always throws in, "I love you bigger than God and Jesus and Heaven!" 

I always laugh and say, "Wow that is REALLY big!" 

This time, with his arms still around my neck he comes out with,

"I wonder if God's love is even bigger than HE is!" 

These are the moments I just stop and stare at him like he was just born to me and I'm holding him in my arms for the first time. 

In absolute awe of him.  What a wonder! 

What a wonderful, beautiful truth that Sam already knows. 

God's love is BIG.  

Amen.