Mother's Day Imperfections

Today is Mother's Day. A day where moms are supposed to lounge in bed until noon, have a lavish breakfast prepared (and cleaned), and ignore all daily tasks and petty squabbles as if they will somehow all magically disappear.

Fun fact: children never argue on Mother's Day.

Except that's ridiculous. So is staying in bed half the day or expecting life to stop because Woodrow Wilson signed a law over 100 years ago.

Mother's Day has to be filled with imperfections, because Mother's Day is a microcosm of motherhood.

In the last year, our children have put red gashes in walls, damaged furniture and broken dishes, and slowly and systematically left their traces in various other less-subtle ways.

Just this afternoon--after I put in a load of laundry, before I did the dishes, and while I supervised a knock-down drag-out between two overtired children--I noticed that the grass under their swing set is starting to wear away. Because even when they don't mean to, children slowly and methodically leave their impression. In their messes and their dirty feet and their obliviousness to the world around them, they leave indelible marks on our hearts and in our lives.

On Mother's Day and every other day, the struggles and the messes and the everyday challenges are what ultimately endear our children to us, despite that fact that we're not always sure if we'll all survive the journey. Or even until tomorrow.