I always say that the amount of excitement I have over a school holiday is nearly exactly commensurate with the amount it will suck.
I was very excited.
Nearly everyone puked.
Right now, one is playing violin very close to my ear; one is bouncing on my exercise ball while screaming; one is playing keep away from her sisters, and one is only quiet because she’s guzzling water from a water bottle she thinks she’s not really supposed to have. They feel better.
But we had a rough couple of days culminating in yesterday morning when I almost started crying. It had just been too much. Too much whining; too much crying; too many belly aches; too much vomiting directly into my mouth.
I can’t stand having the television on in the background, but it had been on for nearly two days straight because what can sick, nauseous kiddos do but stare at a tv. My house was a disaster because I was too busy cuddling the sick ones to clean up after the healthy. And the sick needed cuddling well into the night. And we had virtually zero food in the house because I just couldn’t take sick kiddos to the store. (Grocery delivery for the win!)
And so I was about to lose my mind. I was standing in my kitchen, dosing out Tylenol, honestly believing I was going to lose my fragile mind when I remembered the one single truth I have learned about parenting: reading solves everything.
So I took them all in the living room, and taking advantage of the fact that all Tessie had wanted for days was to lay in my lap, I got them all snuggled and we read a few chapters of Little House in the Big Woods.
And it was amazing. They listened; they questioned; they repeatedly asked for more. Half of us may not have been feeling good, and everyone perhaps wished we could be out on a beach somewhere. But it didn’t matter. We were together and we were enjoying it, and I wish I could bottle the comfort that exists in those moments.
And I learned (again) that parenting isn’t about having things turn out perfectly. They never ever do. It’s not about creating these artificially joyful experiences. It’s not really about anything extraordinary at all.
It’s simply just like anything else in life. To find the joy, we have to forget about what we want. We have to stop expecting. And we have to start finding the unbelievable joy that can come in the smallest of moments.
We’ll all spend nights cleaning up throw up. And then we’ll spend the next day throwing up ourselves. And that’s not fun. But snuck inside of the dirty laundry and nasty smells are moments of tenderness and trust, and if we focus on those, we can find the joy embedded in our every day.
We can remember that these are, indeed, the glory days.