Easter Blessings

He is risen.  He is risen indeed.  And that makes all the difference.  I have heard this message so many times I couldn’t count.  And yet, it hits me hard every time anyway.  

The afternoon had one downside.  Knut’s youngest brother and his wife had their 1st child just a month ago.  I have not seen her yet.  I have not held her little body, or smelled her fuzzy head, or heard her little baby grunts except via electronic devices.  My sweet new niece was supposed to ride a few hours with her parents to the family Easter celebration yesterday, but her mother, this brand new mommy, had the audacity to go to the emergency room with intense pain last week and went home on Saturday, weighing one gallbladder lighter.  I know.  How dare her?  Didn’t she new I’m aching to hold this girl?

So I had to settle with hanging out with my own 5 children, and 9 of my other nieces and nephews.  (Well, actually 1 niece and 8 nephews were there.  Silje and David are the oldest of the cousins on both sides.  The rest are about 2nd grade on down, and mostly boys.  It’s a bit loud.  And active.  Just a bit.)  So if you do the math, that’s 14 small children/toddlers/babies, and we were missing the newborn.

I also learned after nearly 13 years of marriage, something new about my husband.  I always start eating a chocolate bunny starting with the ears, and he always starts with the tail.  I cannot believe I never knew that before.

Moving on…

I had a moment of frustration last week, as I was stomping through the house in some sort of tizzy because everywhere I looked there was messes.  I was stepping over messes, sweeping up messes, bumping into messes.  It was interfering with the flow of the day, and the food I was trying to cook.

I can think about a thousand ways to handle the situation better than I did.  It was basically handled through very loud grumbling and complaining.  “Why am I the only one to see this mess?  Do you guys not have eyes?  Don’t you see this bookshelf is dumped out?  Do you not see your sweatshirt that has been laying here for days?  Does this table look like a trashcan to you?  This isn’t where trash goes.  Don’t just set it on the table.  Guys!!  I’m not going to wash these socks if they never make it into the hamper!!  You have to see your messes.  Why am I the only one who sees this?”

Ahem.  I’ll be honest, messes make me rant when they build up.  My kids hate when I rant.  I hate it too.

I tried to settle myself down and be honest with them.  “Guys, I am really trying to get ahold of my stress, and I get really stressed out when this house gets this messy.  I don’t like having people over when it’s like this, and I just don’t like living like this.”

Silje was trying to comfort me, and said, “Don’t worry mom.  We don’t even notice the mess.  It’s not as bad as you say.”

Let’s just say I didn’t feel comforted.

In fact, I may have ranted a bit more.

Don’t worry Mom, we don’t even notice this mess you are trying to train us to clean.  It’s invisible.  What mess?

I actually stopped the ranting before I went further, and just stewed.

They don’t notice the mess.

It doesn’t bother them.

Don’t get me wrong, I want my kids to grow up to be one of those people who just dives into helping.  I want them to pick up trash that isn’t theirs.  Just because they see it.  One of my first jobs at a summer camp had a saying, “If you see it, you own it.”  That was in reference to jobs, not stuff.  If you see a job, it’s your job.  Don’t leave it for the person behind you.  What resulted is one of the most well-run camps I have ever encountered.

I know that I’m on the right side of wanting to train them in life skills.  I know it is good to teach them how to clean.  I know it’s not fun for either of us sometimes, but it’s good training.  It’s good.

And yet, the more I simmered (aka ranted inside my head), the more I saw the beauty in Silje’s words.

They don’t notice.

It doesn’t bother them.

Their joy is not wrapped up in how clean this house is.  

There it is.  I think that’s what she meant.  It’s something that I’ve been repeating to myself over and over.  My kids’ joy isn’t wrapped up in a pristine house.  They just like hanging out with me.  I’m getting through to them about so many other, way more important things.  They love playing board games.  They like looking at bugs.  They enjoy the moment.  They get excited over pretty much everything.

I am not ruining them, or their childhood with my messy house.  Life will go on if the floor isn’t swept.  That’s why we got a dog, anyway.  She can clean up the food the toddler threw on the floor.  She does a pretty decent job on the oatmeal on the chairs too.

I will continue to train them, but I also need to remember where a clean house needs to be on my priority list.  It surely needs to be on the list.  But not at the expense of trampling things higher on the list to get it.  And joy shouldn’t be wrapped up in a clean house.  A clean house is a sterile house.  Sterile means no life.

In fact one of the definitions of sterile is: producing little or no vegetation.  Unfruitful.  We have a house full of life.

In fact, there was this bacteria we were growing that…

Never mind.  You get the drift.

I’m blessed.