Finding Joy

Initially, my instructions were, “don’t fill your boots with water.” I say this to my daughter as she rolls a Tonka truck toward an irresistible puddle and eyes me — sizing up how much she’ll get away with.

It’s cute, isn’t it, how I’ve been a mother for almost nine years, and I still think I can tell a five-year-old standing between a dump truck and a puddle not to get “too dirty.”

We’re on our land, working on our house build, and the whole place is one giant mud puddle. The kids always get filthy here — rolling down a giant hill of dirt produces very consistent results.

We’ve taken to loading the kids into the car directly onto trash bags, barefoot, and generally after dark — so our civilized townhouse neighbors won’t have even more questions about us when we come rolling in covered in mud yet again 🙂

Obviously, I lost the battle with the rain boots and mud.

And I’m glad I did.

I struggle as a mom with being happy and joyful. It’s not that I don’t enjoy my kids or being their mom. I do. I like them a lot.

But I get so tired, and overwhelmed, and busy, and… and it’s easy to lose my joy and laughter amid it all.

It’s a lot of work keeping people alive. They need to eat every day (like, several times a day). They need to sleep even though they don’t believe you. They are absolute germ factories, and I’m not even sure anymore if it’s possible to keep them healthy.

I try, and I try, and I try… and I wear myself out trying. And somewhere along the way, I get pretty grumpy about the whole dang thing.

Earlier this week, when my son was mad, he told me I reminded him of this grumpy, saucy monkey in a movie we watched.

It was sort of funny. But mostly not… because he meant it… and he was right. I am a grumpy, saucy monkey a lot of the time.

But every now and then, I remember to stop telling my kids to stay out of the mud and remember to take pictures of them smiling instead.

This is all you see on social media… the moments I remember to simmer down and let my children laugh and play while I delight in them. But that’s not really who I am most of the time. Just ask my son.

This story doesn’t end with a moral or any solid advice. I just thought, for the sake of solidarity, that you should know if you are a grumpy monkey, or you see people post beautiful moments with their children and you feel like a failure, that you aren’t alone.

I told my kids one hundred times to stay out of the mud before I finally grabbed my camera and took pictures of them having fun instead.

Sometimes you lose battles and win wars. Sometimes the war is with yourself, not them.

The end.