Rest can wait. Life Can’t.

My girls woke up at 8 am last Saturday morning. 8 am seems like the perfect hour for many people. If you tell a new mama that her baby will sleep in until 8 am, she might kiss you or hug you or buy you chocolate. 

And normally, I would be excited about 8 am too, but not last Saturday. Last Saturday I was tired. Our entire family was recovering from the late winter crud that always seems to hit in March, which is why I often dislike this month. Is it spring? Is it winter? One can never tell. I had a tired week full of late nights and anxious mornings. And the last time my eyes saw the clock, it read something like 2:10 am. And I was really hoping my eyes wouldn’t be opened again until at least 8:10. 

When my youngest, Gracie came into our bedroom and started whining for apple juice and breakfast, I begged for 10 more minutes of silence. 

“Please be patient,” I asked her. “I will get you breakfast in 10 minutes. I promise, 10 minutes!” 

She’s not a fool. She’s 4 and according to my husband, she knows how to work over her Mama. She kept whining, and whining until I selfishly gave in. In a moment of weakness (this happens a lot) I popped out of bed, ran to the fridge, poured some apple juice into a cup and threw a brown sugar cinnamon Pop-tart into a bowl.

“Here,” I said. “Breakfast.” 

 It wasn’t my proudest moment. Kyle was ticked that I gave in to our daughter yet again, and I cringed at the breakfast choice I made for my growing girls. It’s not the first time a Pop-tart made the menu for the “most important meal of the day.”  We all know it’s not the last, either.

But that Pop-tart and glass of apple juice earned me another 30 minutes of shut eye. And that made me happy. Selfish? Yes. Happy? You bet. 

This motherhood thing is awesome and abundant and full of love, but it’s also a disorganized mess. And sometimes I just want an extra few minutes to recharge. I wonder if you’re there, too. 

Each week I tell myself I’ll get the laundry cleaned and folded at the same time; but the week turns into weeks and suddenly we have 8 baskets full of clean laundry and a pile of dirty clothes on the floor just staring at me.

Each week I tell myself I’ll be organized and won’t have to run to the store 5 times to get milk. But by the third trip, I find myself in the middle of Target, placing chocolate and wine in my cart wondering what it was I needed to buy – besides a moment of sanity. 

Each week I cringe at the dirty toilets, and the messy pantry, and the coats on the floor and the cat hair under the couch and the piles and piles and piles of my kids’ art work and school papers that I really want to throw away but somehow feel wrong doing so. I currently have 13 sticky notes on my desk because I know a kid will scream or my phone will ding or the weather will get nice and suddenly my brain will shift from what it is supposed to be thinking to something else and I will forget to do what my mind told me I needed to do. 

Like buy eggs, or milk or brown sugar cinnamon Pop-tarts. 

This morning when my 4 year old came into my room 30 minutes before her usual wake time, I should have told her to go back to bed. My sticky note brain full of questions and concerns and day to day thoughts needed more time to rest. But instead of begging for 10 more minutes, I lifted the blanket and found myself snuggling with a little girl who is growing not so little by the day. 

Apparently, my overly tired brain decided rest could wait, life cannot. Thankfully, that happens a lot.