Sing a Song

We'd closed the door on hours' worth of bathing/dressing/ironing/diaper-changing explosion, and it seemed as though (Miracle of miracles!) we might arrive clean and on time, but--as our headlights cut through the darkness--the baby wailed even over his sisters' arguing.

The twelve-year-old in the passenger seat turned his face toward me and said: "Sing a song, Mama, and cheer us up," so I did; I opened my mouth and sang. The little ones behind me quieted, and my young man wiggled his fingers at me.

"See," he said, grinning. "You're magic."

And I am not and have never been magic. Nor long-suffering. Nor organized and scheduled. I fight for happiness, patience. I beat back the piles, never really conquering them, just making dents here and there.

What I am--that is, what I try to be--is wholly myself. I try to live up only to my own standards. That means I choose other things, often, over cleaning. I sleep as much as possible and almost always with my baby. I make time to write out the most important things so my children will know them, someday, also so I won't forget them. I might nurse like crazy, but I don't aspire to diaper in cloth or blend peas for the toothless. I doubt that homeschooling will ever be for me; my young man made it through both fifth and sixth grades without my even knowing he had study cards for SOLs.

All of it is very personal; I don't know another mom who thinks exactly as I or places the exact same emphasis on the exact same things as I. That's ok: good, even.

I'm just trying to live in such a way that I carry a song in my heart, to sing on demand.