Mondays are long days here on the Range. Kansas Dad has a 12 hour day with three classes, the last a four hour one into the night. Though his schedule also allows two full days at home, on Mondays, the kids and I are left on our own for snacks, lunch, dinner and bedtime. It's easy for me to think "I just need to get through the day." Getting through the day, though, isn't what I want my days to be like.
A coworker of mine once said, "I'm too old to be wishing for the weekend." She was talking about finding enjoyment in every day, even sitting in front of her computer with a stack of paperwork...again. She recognized that our days on earth are numbered. No matter how many they are, each one is a gift.
I'm too blessed to be wishing for the day to end (as frustrating as administering to those blessings may be during the day). I want to be enjoying my day. Sometimes there will be struggles. Certainly with young ones around it will be exhausting, but these days are the point. This time we have together, right now, is important, precious, fleeting. I want to learn to find the joys in today despite the pile of laundry, the wails of a baby, the toddler who has stripped even her diaper and is streaking across the living room (for the third time today)...You've probably been there, too, so you know that feeling.
My prayer for tonight and the morrow is that God will give me the strength and the patience to focus on the fun of Simon Says, of reading together, of singing The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything for the twelfth time, even if Kansas Dad can't be around the share the joy and the burden for a few extra hours once a week.
