As I was reading an email from my Mother of Preschoolers subscription I was thinking of the long wait I have before rest may truly come to me and many of my friends who are moms. I thought this might give all moms and parents some perspective and hope for a time when rest will come.
I know when I have four one year olds screaming for more food, or chasing one another for a the same toy, or climbing on the couch, or crying because they are still tired being one of the other siblings woke them up too early, or doing my third load of laundry for the day and knowing I have more to do tomorrow, or, or, or … the list will go on and rest is far from my future. I sure do cherish my two hours when four kids are napping and Taylor and I can read library books together or when we have all five kids in bed by 7:30 and I can just rest and let the ringing in my ears stop for the day, rest then seems a little closer to me. It will come …
Enjoy this story.
Rest Wanted
By Moyra Jean Stiles, mother of three
I am so tired. I have just dropped my eleven-year-old nephew off at the airport. Did you know that when an unaccompanied minor travels on an airline you actually have to escort them all the way to their boarding gate? It would have been good to have had this data prior to standing at the check-in counter with my own three sons thinking that the airline escort was going to begin from there. Instead I discover we all have to go through security and wait at the boarding gate until ... really? ... until the plane actually pulls away from the gate?
"I will get time to rest,
time for myself."
I jockeyed four boys through security, traversed people movers, fed them a varied array of snacks found at the bottom of my purse, changed a dirty diaper in the ladies room (yes, with the other boys wedged in the corner of the restroom with me) and walked my nephew right to the threshold of the jetway. No escort for my nephew. And sadly, for me, no escort back to my car parked at least 97 miles back the way we’d come in short-term parking.
So yes, I am tired. But as I sit here listening to the quiet sounds of a napping house, I feel something else too. I look ahead to tonight and smile because I get to pull dinner out of thin air, put it on a grill and serve it up to people I love. I will get time to rest, time for myself. True, it may not happen for another 18 years, but at least I know the waiting won’t be boring.
AMEN! I am off to bed to get some rest. Sleep well everyone!
