I noticed that many of my plants were on the verge of death for lack of sufficient water. I had grown accustomed to the nightly rain falls that we had been having earlier in the summer, but are now long gone. This year I wasn't in my usual habit of watering everything in the mornings. Plus, my broken leg has made it nearly impossible for me to do all of the watering myself, so I would send a child out there here and there to give the plants a good drink. I decided to set up the sprinkler outside in the grass to perk things up a bit, strategically placing it so that my plants would receive a much needed drink as well as the now golden-browned grass. Honestly, my grass appeared to be beyond help, but I decided to try and bring it back to at least a green-ish-type color anyways.
Since it was a really HOT and humid day here (92 degrees), and I had just got home from running errands in my extra HOT Suburban that doesn't have working air conditioning, I decided to ask the children if they would like to run through the sprinkler out in the front yard (just like ol' times!). My question was only half serious, but somewhat hopeful, thinking that possibly our days of sprinkler-running were behind us, as it seems at every turn I am reminded of the fact that my brood of 4 children, are just simply growing up on me. (SIGH) :)
After I threw that out there, not thinking much about it, and not thinking anyone would really take me up on my offer (except my youngest-whom had been trying to avoid his school work all day long) I retreated to the kitchen to put the finishing touches on my summer dinner of chicken and cold tuna salad.
Well...much to my surprise, and to the delight of my heart, about 10 minutes into my dinner preparations, my ears heard the giddy yells, joyful shrieks, and just all round happy noises of 3 of my children frolicking in the front yard enjoying some old fashioned fun! Alas... they were indeed running through the sprinkler! YES! They're not THAT grown up! :)
It was one of those moments that melts away all of the cares and stresses of my monotonous days filled with shuttling the kiddos to and fro, errands, cooking, cleaning, schooling, disciplining, fussing, refereeing, scheduling, and on and on. Gone were the cares of my morning and afternoon that had me tired, stressed out, feeling behind, standing in line at the post office for 25 minutes (just to remember when I finally got up to the front of the line, that I forgot to do something with the package, so now I must go home again, open the package, deal with it, and then re-seal the package to be sent out again), and then go wait another 20-30 minutes in line at the post office again(!), the errands that I planned to have done hours before so that I could spend the remainder of my "free" day at home in the school room planning and preparing to begin our new school year next week...and on and on! It was one of those days that just didn't seem to go my way from the time I put my feet on the ground in the morning!
These are the sights and sounds that soothe the soul of a stressed out, worn out, tired, and all around weary mother of children! All I can say is...THANK GOD for these sounds today!!!!! I went from being a totally stressed-out, (probably) grumpy, weary, pity-party of 1, wanting to hang it all up and jump in bed with a good movie, but knowing that is not realistic for a "manager" of her home... to being a humbled, grateful mother of children in .5 seconds! :)
Here are some of the sights I saw in my front yard when I got out there...
It's a Lacy Life
No comments:
Post a Comment