Mommy's Moment:Life

I'm lacking quality pictures. You know, those, creative, funny, capture the moment, kind of pictures. And when I lack quality pictures, I lack posts. But, the pictures above, well, that's real life. They aren't perfect. They aren't carefully proportioned and the kids aren't posed. But, this is what we look like. Half the time (and I'm being generous with that percentage) my kids often don't make it into carefully laid and planned outfits. Hannah, well, she ends up in some sort of mismatched, Punky Brewster array and lately, I don't have it in me to argue. For the moment, and I do mean moment, she has chosen to grace the world with her Black Swan attire. Her hair. Oh her hair. I will be so bold to say many a days, if we don't leave the house, I don't brush it. If you want to know why, I invite you to come and sit while I run a brush through it. Apparently, I take after my own mom when it comes to working through tangles.

As for Grant, well, he actually matches in this picture. That's a major accomplishment. There's no telling what he'll wind up in by the end of the day. He too changes several times a day, however, not due to a keen fashion sense but due to an amazing inability to hold his bladder or, well, you know. Thanks to a recent hair cut his hair maintains some sort of decency.

As for why they have placed chairs out our front door, it is one of their many "games" they make up together. Perhaps this was the "train" or the "movie feater." As for me, this was my, get out of my hair for just a few minutes game. It worked. For a minute. As you can see Hannah has a stand in for Kate.

But, this is life. It's not what I expected. I'm not the mother I expected to be. It isn't neatly packaged. Nope. Not in our house. And, I'm sure not in most houses. If you walked through my door you would be met with a mess. Another mess. It seems impossible for me to maintain a house that I am not embarrassed for someone to walk into. I've had to swallow my pride many a times as people unexpectedly have stopped by. Often greeted by children who could be the poster children for an area plagued by a natural disaster as well as a home that also could be described as having undergone a natural disaster of its own, my guests have got to be wondering what in the heck goes on in here.

But then I remember.

Laughter. Imagination. Discipline. Teaching. Learning. Love. That's what I have to remind myself. It's not neatly packaged. We won't be gracing the pages of Southern Living. But this is life. Our life. The real deal. And one day, one day, my house will be clean. My kids will be grown (and well groomed I'm sure, I hope). And I will long for the messiness again.