(Estimated reading time 5 minutes] You know we have five children. You know four of them are boys. You know the end of that question will make you pee on yourself. Go pee now. Just empty your bladder and come back.
Okay…I realize you didn’t pee, but you must live with your incontinence, not me.
Actually, let me fast-forward. This post is really about turning 40. That’s what I did yesterday. I sat down to blog about it, but Henry and I ended up searching craigslist for deck furniture. I was installing the Netflix viewer on the iPad at the same time. Henry was flipping between craigslist and the score of the NBA playoff game; I wasn’t interested, so I started watching the first episode of Monk on the iPad. The baby is teething, so we were passing her back and forth. All that plus the late hour took it’s toll, so I went to bed. I watched the second episode of Monk laying in the bed. Must’ve fallen asleep cause drool and a Feed-Me-Seymour baby awakened me. Was I going to blog at this point? Of course not!
And my blog was basically going to be about the best part of turning 40. Doesn’t matter if you’re single or married, a mom of one or many, it’s just the blessed wisdom that comes with 40. Wait for it…
You can pick your celebration day. My birthday fell on a Wednesday. My hair was NOT working. My baby was not well. Another is getting over a virus and is cranky as all getup. I’m exhausted from a 2-week garage sale. I was on the second to last day of pink-eye meds. Was I looking good at 40? No. Was I stressing it? No. No time for that. I just decided that I would look good on the Saturday that we’d selected for my party. So I have a little over a week to figure out this new hairstyle. I have time to get new eye makeup and applicators. My pics of me at 40 will be FABULOUS! But they will NOT have been taken on my birthday. I made sure of that.
Don’t get me wrong, I had a great day. My children blessed me, my husband blessed me, I have time to have good catch-up talks with friends, and I got to see an old friend (Monk). No complaints. But I knew walking into a milestone Wednesday birthday not to have great expectations. We all deal with it: we have a day full of meetings, we get food poisoning, we get rear-ended, a boyfriend breaks up with us, a kid gets diarrhea. SOMETHING happens on the milestone days. By 40, we know this and plan accordingly.
It also happens, in the the world of mom of 5 children, that some things that happen in our day-to-day just happen. I’m in a season when I don’t just “roll with the punches” and do what I was planning to do later. I’m in a season when rolling with the punches IS what I do. On a daily basis, we collect worms, sort baseball cards, learn algebra, recite poems, talk back, make lunch, burn lunch, make a different lunch, throw lunch away cause it’s nasty, clean toilets, explain why we clean the toilets, wash dishes, supervise someone wash the spoons again because that someone took a bite of yogurt that they didn’t like and put the spoon back in the drawer (eugh!), and on and on and on.
My day-to-day is such that I have to choose not to have high expectations on the rescheduled 40th. After all, while preparing the morning of the party, I could have a question arise similar to that of the other day. I was at praise and worship practice with T. While gone, Henry was helping the boys clear the dinner dishes as S queried, “Dad, why are there tadpoles swimming in the dishwasher?”
Told you to go pee before, didn’t I? Tune in next time and I’ll tell you all about the tadpoles!
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