I got home this morning from getting some groceries and finished getting biscuits and gravy on the table for breakfast. While the family began eating, I noticed out the window that Max was acting rather strangely. I hurried outside and found Mya had already began delivering her puppies! Thus began the mixed-up day.
I had tentative plans to take Alex Fry's senior pictures today, but found myself instead playing a balancing act between sitting with Mya, managing the house, and making sure the ignored kids were relatively safe.
Part of the day, everything was happening at once....David ran to the store to get last minute puppy supplies. I was fixing nutritional supplements mixed with icecream for Mya (calcium and sugar for labor), fixing a bottle for Corin, monitoring the heat in the shed, warming towels, helping Mya to calm down (she's nervous in the first stages of labor), trying to keep things quiet and calm in the shed while leaving periodically to pretend like my kids had a mom. The kids are comfortable with the puppies and the process, and I like that. I loved Karissa hanging out in the straw, tending Mya and the puppies like a little mama in her pink frilly skirt and pink wellies.
I had other grand plans for the day that didn't happen, but we did have a wonderful meal together tonight, and a very meaningful discussion about Palm Sunday, Holy Week, Passover, the Resurrection, the Lamb of God. It was one of those impromptu table conversations when you see in their kid eyes that they are making fresh and meaningful connections. One of my favorite things about trying to explain spiritual concepts to the kids is that in the process of putting it on their level, it becomes new and fresh and powerful again.
After supper we decorated our Palm Sunday Dinner dessert....a large (store-bought) cookie decorated with the scene of the Triumphal entry.
It was so fun to see the story so alive for the kids as they came up with ideas for the cookie scene. The cross and the lamb were their idea. The army guys (with weapons surgically removed) are raising their hands in praise and the horse/donkey is carrying the Lamb of God on its back, through the crowds of praisers, on the road to the cross.
Okay...so maybe it looks a bit like a bunch of grey, unarmed army guys surrendering to a sheep stuck to the back of a horse with green icing, but it was meaningful to us. (I loved it - one of the kids found an army guy with a big bazooka-gun-thingy and said, "Oh look! Someone with a really cool video camera!" That's my Generation Z girl.) Caiden was in charge of paving the triumphal road with chocolate sprinkles. Make no mistake, those are bonafide palm trees you see there.
The lullabys are playing, the kids are all finally asleep after some tired drama, an accidental finger-smashing incident, asthma medication, and me walking into the next room and standing there for a full minute before I could remember what I was getting for whom.
David is sitting with Mya and the puppies. I just took out some nutritional supplement & agave nectar for Mya and fixed a bottle for a puppy that is slow to latch.
I'm excited about decorating the table for tomorrow with my Walmart and dollar store finds and whatever I can find in our Easter decorations tub. A white table cloth, artificial palm fronds, some ceramic lambs, a king's crown. And I found a beautiful plush lamb to give to the kids tomorrow. I think the passover blood/sacrificial lamb concept has connected with them for the first time this year. I'm hoping falling in love with this gorgeous stuffed lamb will help them to connect even more with the story of sacrifice.
I feel pretty happy, pretty fulfilled.
So why do I still have such a sense of failure? I feel like this was such an unproductive day, like I mostly spinned my wheels and splashed mud around. I'm embarrassed that my house wasn't tidy today. I'm frustrated that my children don't automatically clean up after themselves unless I am present - monitoring and reminding them. (Why have I bothered with all that training for the last 7 years?) The clothes are only partially ready for church tomorrow. I had plans to go to my mother-in-law's to do our laundry, but that didn't happen. Mya and the puppies still need tending. Ding-bat-brained me decided to make homeade challah for tomorrow and it needs finished. The eggs need deviled. Dishes need washed (always). I'm not crying or falling apart, I just feel tired, a little overwhelmed, and a bit discouraged. Nothing going on that needs any pity or even encouragement. Just "that time of night" for a momma, you know? I know you do, so I stopped in the middle of it all to chat with you awhile. It has helped my perspective. (The Dove chocolate didn't hurt any, either.)
If you're sitting in your very tidy home with your crockpot simmering and your starched clothes hanging, that's okay too. It's all good. I like how our life is periodically wild. And next week we should return to some normalness.
Tomorrow is a bright and exciting Sabbath day. I can't wait. I even have some pre-packaged-frozen cinnamon rolls to pop in the oven for a special breakfast treat tomorrow.
Blessings on your Palm Sunday!
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