A Wonderfully Ordinary Day

Yesterday I woke up to sunshine and a sweet little girl curled up next to me. Time for us both to get up, since it was a Kindergarten day. She looked so peaceful. I waited a moment before giving her a nudge. She opened her eyes and focused on me, smiling. We stretched, yawned, and made our way downstairs. Soon my son was up too. Another happy child... it's so nice when they both wake up "on the right side of the bed."

Didn't take long before I had two kids chiming in for pancakes... how could I say no? I flipped as they ate. My daughter ran upstairs to put on school clothes and finish getting ready. As I cleaned the mess of dishes, my son came closer and asked, "Mom, what are we gonna do today?"

I thought for a moment and glanced outside. "Would you want to help me in the garden?" His grin and eagerly nodding head were my answer. Olivia came back downstairs, and we stood out on the porch as I finished doing her hair. We said our morning prayer and had a laugh when we thought a yellow cement truck was her school bus. Sure enough, the real one came, and we waved goodbye.

Soon after she'd left, we decided to make Jell-O. My little guy picked out strawberry. He handled it pretty well when I told him we couldn't eat it just yet. I'm sure it helped we were heading out.

Once in the flowerbed, I started digging and pulling... and noticed there was a growing number of toy dump trucks and tractors lining up. Zach stood beside me, a little winded, and said, "We're ready to help, mom!" As I pulled up clumps of grass and other weeds, he loaded them into his various little trucks and transported them to a designated dump site.

While working, we talked about grubs and worms and those noisy birds chirping in the crab apple tree. At one point, I heard, "Oh, I forgot something!" and looked up to see an excited little guy running inside. He returned - carefully balancing our Jello and 2 spoons.  "Is it ready now?" It was. So we took a break and he leaned against me, saying, "You know... I love helping you work in the garden, mom." One of the best moments of my day.

We went on to pick my daughter up from school, have supper and bath time... I tucked my son in to bed first. He said, "I can't wait for more weeds!" and thanked God for our garden in his prayer...

I gently shut his door and led my daughter to bed. We noticed the moon in the sky, and she shared how she loves to look up at it sometimes from her bedroom window... "even after Daddy tucks me in bed." Moved, I said I've always loved the moon too. I turned to face her, and said "You know, today has been one of the best days I've ever had." To which she responded, "Well, that's good... now just go to sleep."

I chuckled at her perfect timing, got up to leave and smiled while closing her door.  In fact, I smiled until finally drifting off... reluctantly closing the book on a wonderfully ordinary day.