A Tale of Two Days

I would probably be better served if I quit writing this post and swept my floor right now. But I suppose if I really believed that I would sweep instead of blog. ;)

The remains of Jackson's dinner are still scattered haphazardly around my kitchen floor from last night. I am hoping that one of these days he outgrows the need to demonstrate that he is done with dinner by hurling his leftover food as far and wide as it will go. I try to take his food before he starts chucking it, but that is tempered by my desire to get him to consume something besides a sippy cup of milk at a meal.

I think one of the real challenges of being a mother is being able to not lose sight of what you do accomplish in the midst of all that you wish you had accomplished but didn't. Take yesterday for example. A lot of good things happened. I read Jackson his favorite "Elmo Colors" book at least four times. I washed three loads of laundry. I ground fresh wheat flour and made a whole bunch of whole-wheat waffle mix. I ground another batch of wheat and made a big batch of whole-wheat bread dough to keep in my fridge and a fantastic loaf of delicious, healthy bread. Jared and Camryn both practiced piano without being asked and got most of their homework for the week done. I read a chapter in a book on choral conducting. We had a fantastic dinner of Spicy Pan-Fried Noodles with Egg Drop Soup (that Jared and Camryn eagerly devoured) and then had family night together. Dave and I exercised together and then snuggled up to watch a TV show. I'm just a picture-perfect Suzy Homemaker, with a perfect life, huh? (Maybe I should blog this way more often; I'll call it "selective blogging.")

The rest of the story is what didn't happen yesterday: I did not load or empty the dishwasher, let alone do hand dishes. I didn't make dinner (a friend of mine made the fantastic meal as part of a dinner exchange) or even clear the table completely before I went to bed. I didn't get any of the three loads of laundry folded, let alone the two still sitting in baskets from Saturday. My kitchen floor, despite being moderately clean at the beginning of the day, by the end of the day was piled with enough food droppings to feed a third-world country, topped by a spattering of sticky juice and milk in places (courtesy of Jackson and Camryn) and a sprinkling of wheat kernels (courtesy of me). Jared and Camryn had only 8 fights between snack time and dinner and spent a good hour zoned out in front of the Wii (except of course, when Jared yelled at Camryn for "distracting him" and "making him die" on Super Mario, at which point I threatened to turn off the Wii). Jackson refused to eat anything except his milk at dinner, which maybe had something to do with why he had a diaper that leaked out on to his clothes. Our spiritual family night lesson was punctuated by Jackson sliding down his slide and repeatedly bopping Camryn on the head for 10 minutes straight. My "big" workout session was a grand total of 15 minutes.

So which day presents an accurate picture of my life? They both happened... at the same time, to be precise. I guess the difficulty is not letting Day #2 overshadow Day #1 and make it invisible. So today I'm going to celebrate Day #1. Hooray for me! Look at all the stuff I got done! What a great life I have! And honestly, it is a great life, Day #2 or not. Just because a day has negative things happen does not mean that they cancel out the positive things, like some cosmic math problem. Besides, having Day #2 gives me something to laugh at... or at least keep me humble. =]