Moments in the Mundane…

Baby Wearing and Walking in Our Field 

So many moments in motherhood can feel so mundane sometimes I feel. Waking up to get Toddler E a bottle in the early morning hours to help her get back to sleep in the morning. Feeding another meal just to watch some of the pieces thrown on the floor to get licked up as a treat to the dogs later in the day. The moments of anticipation before my husband gets to walk through the door after a long work day he had ahead of him. The moments of crying with the girls because they are both crying and the flood of being overwhelmed. The moments of sweeping for the 5th time in the living room because there is dirt on the floor that sticks to your bare feet and it absolutely drives you batty. 

The moments of the sunshine basking on Toddler E as she wanders through the back yard barefoot. The moments of Baby E smiling as you talk to her being held to sleep. The moments of laughter together with your spouse as Toddler E discovered to climb up on the end table thinking it is an perfect thing to be a jungle gym. The moments of laughing with Toddler E just hearing her joy echo through our little farmhouse here. 

My Little Wild Child 

Mundane moments…

But these are the moments I want to choose to remember, these are the moments I want to replay over and over in my mind. Being a Stay at Home Mom I do feel it can be at times a mundane routine, especially if you are anything like me and I have an “ideal chore chart, ideal meal planning for the week and an ideal schedule of what my week will look like,” But what if there is beauty and more in the mundane? What if in these moments we slowed down to be child like minded again. To slow down the mundane of motherhood and start to live at the pace our children need us to be there for them. To remember in the moments of frustration that our todddler is clinging to our leg while we try to sweep up the mess, the loads of laundry and the endless dishes in the sink. 

I met with my good friend this week and that is what we were talking about this week was how it is so hard to keep our home clean with kids just running around and especially the toddler phase, I know the day to day life can feel like you are trapped in a whirlpool of mundane tasks but there is such a bigger purpose to these mundane moments. You get to be the mother to your child, and no body else in this world gets to mother your child. That thought alone my goodness gets me thinking, we get to mother and lead our children despite what seems to be mundane days. 

Mundane is defined by Oxford Language Dicitonary as “Lacking interest or excitement.” But you know what is funny is I don’t believe for a minute our child looks at the day with mundane eyes like we tend to do sometimes. The other night I was asleep in bed and just gave Toddler E her bottle hoping she would go back to sleep soon and the next thing I hear is her pacifier out of her mouth and her saying “Hi Mama.” Despite me wanting to go back to sleep I had a laugh with her and said “yes that’s me good job E.” She did proceed to go back to bed I think an hour later. But they don’t see dull moments in the day they see a world of color, they see the magical moments that we seem to miss as adults. They see a world of color where us as adults have seem to lost the color in our day to day life just more of a spectrum of black and white.  But what would happen I wonder as us as mom’s if we slowed down to see the excitement a child faces each day. 

The opposite of mundane is extraordinary and imaginative. Let that sink in for a minute when was the last time as a mom you had an extraordinary day or an imaginative day? I know this is such a reminder for me as a mom that I need to take time to literally slow down and smell the flowers. 

Toddler E Helping Me with Yardwork

My Toddler E has just discovered that she can pick flowers in our field and it is the cutest thing especially when she hands them to me, before this she would pick dandelions and most the time eat them. However sometimes she would make a wish with them by blowing them to watch them float away with the Arkansas breeze. Every moment she goes outside you should see her face light up of the love of nature she has. Like literally last week alone she spent I think close to 12 hours outside between 2 days. 

Children don’t live in the mundane they live in the extraordinary and imaginative. 

I wonder what would happen to us as society if we slowed down to make each day imaginative for our kids as a Stay at Home Mom. I think society to so often wants us to be focused on the mundane they take the color out of the day as a mom. We can get so wrapped up in other parent’s, parenting style or what Sally down the street house looks like compared to our own. Or overbooking our child’s schedule that we along the way start to introduce the mundane diet into their brains wired for creativity and imaginative play. 

I think this week I slowed down a bit and put mundane moments on the background and really started to try to live in the moment. To live each day as the Lord has made embracing it in my heart and mind “This is the day the LORD has made I will rejoice and be glad in it.” I started this week by doing some yard work as Baby E slept peacefully in the living room without her sister torturing her… Toddler E accompanied me and just loved to eat handfuls of dirt while I tilled the area of my flower beds. I successfully made a play garden area for Toddler E. I look back this week and there was so many extraordinary moments. Moments of Toddler E experiencing her first swim lessons this week, moments of Toddler E helping me pack some care packages for a dear friend of mine and moments of rearranging the living room despite Toddler E not getting her nap in for the day. These extraordinary moments…

Toddler E. Easter

We need more of these in motherhood, I know I get it how easy it is so get in the mundane routine but I want to encourage you to start to look for the color, the extra ordinary moments of the day you are faced with each and every day. Start to bring back the moments of childhood you get to live with your child. Maybe those moments aren’t mundane after all…