motherhood is a ride

Rory needed the house silent today while he took a few sales calls. And since we were still in our pajamas and couldn't really go out in public, I decided to take the kids on a country drive. I kept telling the kids, "oh that's a pretty picture!" and stopping the car to take the shot. Later they were telling me, "Pretty Picture! Mom, take that picture!"

We drove to a nearby town and got lunch at the meat locker. We played at the park and did a show for each other, showing our jumping jack skills, demonstrating our favorite give-me-five tricks and singing our favorite songs.

So here's what I was thinking about while on this super lovely outing: each day in motherhood feels like a bit of a crap-shoot. It's as if dice actually are rolled before I wake up, and the trajectory of our day greets me and asks me to adapt. It's why motherhood is the ultimate test in selflessness. Because some days require total selflessness. But other days are like today. They take you on adventures with your kids where you can't believe your life is this grand. Days when your heart is overflowing with gratitude for these two little lives who make for super fun company on these random outings.

And actually it's not days that are the crap-shoot... it's minutes. Everything changes in a matter of moments when little kids are involved.

So you end up with pictures like the one above where there are two happy and joyful kids, playing hard and life is awesome. But what I didn't know is that Elsie is running over to the swing to try to fly like superman. Except she's going to miss her fulcrum and tip forward, planting her face on the gravel below.  And this moment will be followed by screams and sobs until we pull ourselves together to go meet a dog and his old man owner who are walking through the park and distract us back to happiness.

Motherhood is a ride.

On the way home I turned down a new gravel road that, as it turns out, did not loop me back the way I thought it would. I was sincerely lost, scanning the horizon at every high point looking for a grain elevator that might point to some sort of town nearby. Eventually I spotted a tall elevator and found the town we had left about twenty minutes earlier.

And as it turns out, life is the ride.