Today chewed me up and spit me back out.
Boys are out of school for Thanksgiving holidays and I am off from work, and it should have been a lovely morning with all the warm and snuggly feelings of holiday weeks, where a mama and boys play games and talk and maybe even brave a Jedi fight with the light sabers we made last weekend for the oldest boy’s birthday.
It started that way, too, for a whole hour.
And then the world started crumbling apart.
Twins answered, “No,” along with a whole string of words that proved their opinions were not the same as mine, every single time I opened my mouth; and an 8-year-old left an explosion of Legos all over the playroom so we couldn’t even walk through the minefield of buttons and droid starships and headless Jedis without stepping on something that punctured our heels; and the 4-year-old pretended like he couldn’t hear me the six times I said, “Please stop touching the Christmas tree,” because he’s enamored with the ornament he and his daddy made last night.
I only got to lunch before I started thinking that I should have just gone to work and I wish there were holiday schools and, my God, what are we going to do this summer, when another baby will join their relentless ranks?
But then it was time for naps and quiet time, and I closed myself in my room, unaware that the worst was to come.
Because there, on my phone, was a text from my mom, about a family from my hometown who lost five of their six children in a house fire this morning, and my heart dropped all the way to my feet.
I didn’t know them, but I could easily be them. And that’s where my mind took me, to a place of unimaginable pain and sadness and loss.
I sat there, staring at words I could not even see anymore. And then I wrote myself into gratitude and whispered it all out loud, into the home that was quiet now, but not for long.
Thank you for sandy-brown hair that all looks the same whether they’ve just woken up or they’re going to bed, because I don’t have to brush it.
Thank you for patches of shampoo they forget to wash out of that sandy-brown hair.
Thank you for sturdy couches that will hold bouncing boys and for furniture arms like floor vaults that prove they could be gymnasts if they wanted.
Thank you for light saber fights that always end in someone getting hurt.
Thank you for water spilled on the floor and the culprit keeping their secret and a victim falling in a hilarious way we will laugh about later. Much later. And for years to come.
Thank you for chocolate smudges across cheeks on the rare occasion they get treats.
Thank you for snotty kisses because they’ve been playing outside all morning with no shoes on and it’s a little cold today and they just wanted to come inside to grin and say hi and love on a mama.
Thank you for big boys sitting in a lap when they’re not really paying attention to what they’re doing.
Thank you for sticky, jam-stained fingers because he likes to take his sandwich apart and eat the peanut butter side first and save the raspberry side for later.
Thank you for all the shoes pulled out of a doorway basket just so they could find flip flops five sizes too big and pretend to wear those.
Thank you for building and taking apart and building again all those Lego Star Wars creations so the pieces are scattered all over the house now, even though we told him it’s hard to build a Jedi Interceptor with that yellow wing missing.
Thank you for chocolate oatmeal the 2-year-olds decide look better in their hair than in their bowls.
Thank you for the same lunchtime story we’ve read together ten thousand times.
Thank you for blue blankets dragged downstairs so they all have to be carried up again for naps, all piled in the arms of a mama who almost trips climbing the stairs because the pile is too big to see over.
Thank you for brothers who love each other most of the time.
Thank you for twin laughs and twin grins and twin plots and twin kisses and twin curiosity and twin defiance and twin snuggles.
Thank you for 4-year-old whine.
Thank you for a baby who keeps me up at night because he likes to stretch and puts pressure on my bladder and is growing big and awkward and uncomfortable with 11 weeks to go.
Thank you for art papers under the table and all over the playroom and upstairs sitting like presents on a table and bed and desk, even though we told them to keep those creations in their notebooks.
Thank you for permanent markers they can always find, no matter how well hidden, and use to their heart’s content before we think to investigate why it suddenly sounds so quiet in here.
Thank you for a table that must be wiped down and a floor that must be swept three times a day.
Thank you for walking on hands and spinning in a circle and front flips on a carpet.
Thank you for toilets that never get flushed and lights that never get turned off.
Thank you for a sink full of dirty dishes.
Thank you for sixteen cups used every day, even though there are only five of us who use them.
Thank you for eight loads of laundry a week.
Thank you for strong wills that don’t take “no” for an answer.
Thank you for emotions that turn a whole world upside down…and then, with the right response, snap a day and a relationship back in place, better than before—because the ones who anger hard and cry hard and explode hard are the ones who love hard, too.
Thank you for shirts used as napkins, even though there’s a real napkin sitting right beside their plates.
Thank you for the “need-to-go-potty” cries from twins that may or may not mean anything, because they’re strapped into their high chairs, and they really just don’t want to be there.
Thank you for laughter that shoots milk out of a nose and mouth into the bowl of broccoli and cheese we haven’t yet dished out.
Thank you for the broken picture frames everywhere you look around the house and the crayon art in unexpected places and the holes in random walls.
Thank you for scooters left in driveways and art notebooks forgotten outside and sidewalk chalk crunching under tires.
Thank you for handprints and footprints on the windshield of a van because boys wanted to be on top of the world and thought the top of a car would be the way to get there.
Thank you for water wasted because twins want to wash their hands 6,000 times a day.
Thank you for a door opening at 4:55 a.m., five minutes before the alarm will chime, because someone had a bad dream.
Thank you for dirt smudges in the bathtub I don’t get to use anymore because half the boys have taken it over and they’re.just.so.dirty.
Thank you for eyes that don’t see all I do to make a home home and the hearts that don’t understand how much I love and all the heads I can smell and kiss when they are lost in sleep.
Thank you for a job that never, ever ends (but may get easier?).
Thank you for naptime. And bedtime. And storytime. And dinner. And silent reading time. And playtime. And lunch and breakfast and the whole long day with boys who make a life brighter and harder and much more beautiful.
Thank you for naming me Mama to all these boys.
I don’t want to change this life, as it is, right now. I know the years will take care of that, but this moment, frozen in time, is full and loud in its wild chaos, and sometimes it drags me fast toward crazy, and sometimes I wonder how much easier it would be if…
But always, at the end of my wish-I-could-do-it-over or longest-in-the-history-of-the-world or easiest-one-ever day, I end with this:
Thank you.
Because family, being a parent, watching boys grow and learn and become, is the best treasure in all the world.
Rachel is a writer, poet, editor and musician who is raising five (going on six) boys to love books and poetry and music and art and the wild outdoors—all the best bits of life. She shares her fiction and nonfiction writings over at her blog, and, when she’s not buried in a writing journal or a new song or a kid crisis at home, she enjoys reading Cormac McCarthy, Toni Morrison, William Faulkner and the poetry of Rilke. Follow her on Twitter @racheltoalson.
