For the two basketballs and the soccer ball that (seem to) (always) live in my dining room…
For the 9-10 pairs of shoes that (occasionally and for far too long) linger near our front door (how many pairs of feet live in our house?)…
For too much time in Party City and too much time in JoAnn Fabrics trying to discover a way to make my blue-eyed blonde into Isis for this week’s Pharaoh Day…
For treks to guitar lessons on Wednesdays and drum lessons on Mondays and dance classes on Mondays and youth group on Sundays and yesterday’s drives for science projects and to friends’ houses and birthday parties and the spring dance and not enough time to clean the bathroom…
For parkour practice on the kitchen counters and the top (yes, I mean it) of the refrigerator…
For the empty (empty??) bag of Ghirardelli chocolate chips discovered in the wastebasket that I thought I had Successfully Hidden at the back of the pantry…
For Constant Conversation…
For books left open on coffee tables, end tables, beds, the floor…
For having to call them (sometimes) multiple times to come to dinner…
For having to ask them (sometimes) multiple times to turn off the television…
For un-made beds, un-put-away clothes, un-closed shower curtains and thebathmatstillonthefloor…
For forgiveness for crabbiness, forgiveness for cross-ness, forgiveness for (yes, I admit it) yelling once (or twice) this week…
For waking all three of them on the weekday mornings, all soft and slumbering in their beds, and my voice the first thing they hear in the day…
For hugs in the hallway– even in front of half the sixth grade– and delight in seeing me– even though, try as I might, I missed the 4th grade Grandparents’ Day performance…
For a 9th grade son who will kiss and hug his humanities-teacher-mother right in front of anyone who might be around in the high school hall…
For this life that exhausts and challenges and Asks So Much…
I am So Deeply Grateful.
