a Discombobulated Mommie

A time to Reflect...Rewind...Rediscover what's Important.  For several weeks I have been totally discombobulated and have shared with many friends my concerns on 'what I want to be when I grow up'.  Maybe it's because I'm soon turning another year older and I still have my 'Goals at age 39' list to be completed, but I am really just stuck in a rut!!  Tonight, after the house quieted, I got on my time-sucker (the computer) and went through the literally thousands of photos and I came across this...

Oh... how I long to be perched on one of these chairs in quiet reflection!!  And oh how I wish a little angel would just come right down and sit with me and tell me what to do!  

Last week at church, our awesome new pastor taught of the Hebrew word which means "Be Still", pronounced RaJah.  (I'm sorry I don't know exactly how to spell it).  As with his other sermon (he's only given 2), his words have been circling in my head all week long and surprisingly giving me some calm...a little bit of what I'm in search of.

As a creative person whose in the creative rut, I turn to the countless favorite female bloggers for inspiration.  Recently this has been a Big Mistake!  As I pa-rouse through their pages, I find my anxiety starts to build-up, my worry begins and have to either turn away (to a new page) or turn it off.  You see, even though I love my children more then I love myself and would move heaven and earth to make their lives as good as it can get, I can't be with them all day and be happy too...Ok that sounds really bad but I'm not that 'great' stay-at-home mom.  I don't playing games with them all day long, we don't bake cookies together on any given rainy day (mostly because I'm always dieting), and I don't sit and read countless picture books to them, then have them later recite words on flash cards to me so that I know they learned something. The truth is, most days consist of countless errands, doing things I can't remember or cleaning house...ugh...life as a college education toilet scrubber (puke!)

What sent me over the edge tonight was this poem I found in Seeing the Everyday Magazine (btw, it's an incredible magazine!!). The poem is called, Song for the Fifth Child

Mother, oh Mother, come shake out your cloth
empty the dustpan, poison the moth,
hang out the washing and butter the bread,
sew on a button and make up a bed.
Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?
She’s up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.

Oh, I’ve grown shiftless as Little Boy Blue
( lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo).
Dishes are waiting and bills are past due
( pat-a-cake, darling, and peek, peekaboo).
The shopping’s not done and there’s nothing for stew
and out in the yard there’s a hullabaloo
but I’m playing Kanga and this is my Roo.
Look! Aren’t her eyes the most wonderful hue?
( lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo).

The cleaning and scrubbing will wait till tomorrow,
for children grow up, as I’ve learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down, cobwebs. Dust go to sleep.
I’m rocking my baby and babies don’t keep.

- Ruth Hulburt Hamilton, Lady’s Home Journal (1958)

I feel terrible because I'm the one whose cleaning versus rocking.    In fact, with both my loving children, I did very little sitting...something I regret, yet not so much because I hate  just  sitting...see where the discombobulation is???   So I know I'm not the only peerless mommy out there...looking to find my way.  Oh how I long to find it to become more well rounded (and I'm not talking about my no-bake rounded muffin-top poking up and saying hello through my jeans :))  For tonight, maybe even for a while I need to be "RaJah"...Be still...Reflect...Rewind...Rediscover what is important.  Family is first, now I just to live that belief.