Today was one of those perfect summer days – about 82 degrees outside, a little bit of a breeze, not a cloud in the sky – and the little man and I spent most of the morning with my friend NK and her two girls. Alex and NK’s older daughter played and ran and chased while NK and I sat on her patio, in the shade, entertaining her baby and talking about some Life Junk we’ve both been dealing with lately.
The baby was a little fussy, so I offered to take Alex and C. to lunch – just a little jaunt up the road to ChickFilA – and the three of us sat, and ate, and talked. I grabbed a couple of balloons – green for A., yellow for C. – as we left the restaurant, and then we dropped C. of at her house on the way back to ours.
I expected that Alex wouldn’t make it home awake, but instead he balked at his nap this afternoon – he pretty much sat in his room and played and talked during the two hours he’d normally be sleeping – and finally around 4 I pulled him out of isolation so we could eat popsicles on the front steps and run around the yard for a little while. About an hour later we came inside, fixed something to drink, and I started working on supper: making hamburger patties, chopping stuff for a salad, shucking corn and getting it ready for the grill. Alex handled all the “shakey shake” duties – meaning that he sprinkled seasoning wherever it needed to go – and we talked on and off while he watched “Blue’s Clues.”
D. finished up his work around 6, and he and Alex headed outside for grill duty while I checked email, read some blogs, and vacuumed up the corn silks that had scattered across the rug in my kitchen. We sat down for supper, the three of us, and Alex said his Official Blessing: “Dear God, thank you for today. Thank you for our food. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.” The hamburgers were great, the corn was okay – Alex went a little heavy on the dill when he did the shakey-shake – and the salad was fresh in a way that only happens in summertime.
By the time I ran Alex’s bath, he looked slightly like Pigpen. His feet and legs were filthy from all his outside activity; his mouth was surrounded by a ring of peanut butter coated with a couple of layers of Cheese-Its and Cheetos crumbs. I thought to myself that he looked and smelled like little boys should once the weather turns warm – dirty, for sure, legs covered with little cuts and bruises, the official battle scars of his summer adventures.
Once he was clean and pajama-clad, Alex and his daddy played trains, then came downstairs for a little TV time, neither of them doing a very good job of keeping their eyes open. So Alex went up to bed, said his prayers, and was out like a light in no time at all.
It seems like, with my personality, I’m always on the lookout for “the funny.” I see the world around me at sort of a skewed angle, so I tend to go through my days being entertained by the oddest little occurrences: the way a clerk at a grocery store pronounces “celery,” or the way a political candidate announces that she is “for education. Absolutely for education” (I’m sure the anti-education lobby, powerful as it is, was shaking in its boots at that bold proclamation), or the way a little boy at Walmart dodges behind a rack of clothes just as his mama’s hand is about to make contact with his behind. I am, as a general rule, pretty easily entertained.
What I am not, at least not often enough, is easily grateful. There was absolutely nothing spectacular or special about our day, but what bowls me over as I think back on it is that it was absolutely everything that I never thought I wanted. I never dreamed of marriage or of children. I never pictured myself living in suburbia, shuttling kids to fast-food restaurants, playgrounds, and zoos. I certainly never thought that I’d belong to a church where there is no stained glass, no kneelers behind the pews, and instruments that require electricity. So while I don’t know exactly what I thought my life would be, I do know that I had some vague notion of living in a big city in a fabulous apartment and walking to a job where I edited what other people wrote. And I’m certain that I never thought my life would be this one that I have.
In light of all that, I just want to write it down and make it official: I’m so thankful, as I look back over this very ordinary day in our very ordinary life, that God has blessed me with all the things I never wanted.
Because there’s absolutely nowhere else that I’d rather be.
Amen, sister. Good for you that you’re able to recognize your blessings.
I usually rush through my days. I have to make myself stop and just play with the kids, rather than saying, “Not now. I’m working.” Or, “Just let me finish this first.”
Young Toni envisioned being in New York, directing some Peter Jennings-type through his earphone. It didn’t happen. God knew better.
Very nice Boo! Sounds like a perfect kind of day.
Toni – just curious. Did you too want to be Jane Craig from “Broadcast News”? I actually saw that movie and switched to an English / broadcast journalism double major, then dropped the second half when I realized that it was going to take me approximately 7 years to get my BA. But all of my college friends will testify that I was OBSESSED with that movie.
And Addie – it was perfect. Except for the part where Alex refused all potty training. But all things considered, mighty fine. :-)
Ain’t it neat how one day can seem much like any other until you look at it with eyes that are touched by the Holy Spirit to detect God’s blessings? The blessings are always there, but a prayerful seeking spirit will reveal them to us if we are really looking for them. Strange how our impression of “perfect” changes as God molds us, too. :)
Happy “Perfect” Day, BooMama. ;)
It sounds like a perfect day to me. Burgers, corn, salad! Yum. Oh but what is this Chick-Fila you speak of? More food perhaps?
AWWW, how wonderful! You know life is good when you wouldn’t change a thing!!!
Yiippeee for you!!!
Life is sweet, isn’t it? Especially Ordinary Life. It’s like when God’s voice wasn’t heard in the big, dramatic ways, but in the smallest whisper (somewhere in the Bible, can’t remember)–I think I sometimes feel Him the most when I’m having a nice, Ordinary day like you had today. Hooray for you that you spotted Him in it :)
Amen. I love that God knows better than we do what we want, need, and can handle. He takes ordinary and makes it extraordinary. Just because He can.
Yes, life is good. Life in Christ is even better.
I’m right there with you on being blessed with things “I never wanted”– including a love of country music. :-)
I also love those days that are made perfect by having a grateful heart!
Boo – I’m sure that God enjoyed your praise offering to Him in this post. Funny how He often has different plans for our lives than we do.
P.S. My view of the world is skewed as well by my quirky sense of humor. I think I could find humor in about everything. :)
You have just gotten KOUNTRY…that’s all….
I’m ignoring my brother’s TACKY comment. :-)
Moving on.
WHAT IS WRONG WITH BLOGGER?
I haven’t been able to post at all today…finally got a post written, then POOF, got an error message that Blogger was having an unexpected “outage.” And we’ve already had one outage too many today – power out from 10 until 3 – so I’m in the beginning stages of severe technology withdrawal.
SIGH.
Amen sister! Blogger is on my crap list right now. I’ve been feeling ill and the only thing I want to do is sit down and BLOG!
BTW – sweet, ordinary day you had. I love those kind of days. I started thinking about what I wanted my life to be when I got older, as I read your post…the funny thing is, I’m not sure I knew.
Yes, you attending a church where there is a lack of stained glass and the presence of an electric guitar does surprise me! :)
Shucking corn – that’s something I don’t do very often at all. Just makes all my vision green. Peace, yes, there is a peace to this blog. It was a minute vacation.
Thanks for sharing.
More precious will be someday down the road when you realize Alex remembers days like this and thinks they were the perfect childhood, being “ordinary”. THAT’S a blessing! Ordinary childhood!
Isnt sweet summer just the best?
BooMama, How wonderful that you were able to just be, and not imagine that life unfolds like we think it should. This is risky, of course. We have to let go of needing to control it. I do better some days, than others, but I can tell you this: Most of my life hasn’t unfolded like I imagined, or thought I wanted it to. God does a much better job of directing it than me. So, good for you, that you’re doing this. P. S. thanks for the encouragement about writing. Will see wha I can come up with next. There are certainly enough memories to pull from. Judith
Lover-ly. . .
I don’t know if you see new comments on old posts but here it goes…
I too love a wonderfully boring ordinary day. We have the first two sets of dvds from “Signing Time”. Along with the dvds came the cds with all the songs used in the series. All of the songs are wonderful, btw. They don’t make parents want to drive an ice pick through their ear drums. Probably because the woman that writes them is a mom. She KNOWS better.
ANY-WHO…There is song called “The Good” that makes me cry EVERY single time I hear it. Your post reminds me of that song.
Keep up the good work!
~Faith alone in Christ alone.