"Normal" week

Normal just means that we didn't have anything fancy on: no family over, no meals out, nothing planned. We grocery shopped, post-officed, and otherwise kept busy with the usual cleaning, playing, bathing, and chasing each other around.

Two things stick out from this week in particular. One was an exchange on Thursday between Mom, Ginny, & me, and the other is a lesson that needs learning as long as Dylan is working from home.

So, the first: Thursday became a "Day in the Life" via picture text messages between Momma, Ginny, & me. Our days are all so different, we thought it'd be neat to see. Ginny was at work, as was I, and Miss Franny was down at the beach with a friend on Padre Island, well la di da. Needless to say, her hour-by-hour pictures were all achingly similar: mom on the beach, mom with a pelican, mom on the pier, mom with a drink on the beach ... you get the drift. Ginny showed us her day at work via her office view, her ideas board, her snacks and breaks (ha), and her keys-in-hand-at-5pm entitled "Freedom". And these were mine:

Hr 1:

 Hr 2:

 Hr 3: one naps, one plays

Hr 4:

Hr 5:

 Hr 6:

 Hr 7:

 Hr 8, post-nap snack & bubbles:

 Hr 9, hard to please:

 Hr 10:

 Hr 11, calm after the chaos that is dinner hour:

 Hr 12:

 Hr 13, beeeeedtime!

I learned something through all of this - yes about Momma & Ginny - but also about myself. And it reminded me of this quote from Padre Pio, "One day the Eternal Judge shall call each of us and ask us to give an account of our deeds and how we made use of our time. We shall have to give a most strict account of every minute." Or Romans 14:12, "So then each of us shall give an account of himself to God." Now, I'm not saying that showing my mother and sister that I went to the park with Paul is the same as my accountability to God, but what I am saying is that being held accountable hour by hour last Thursday really helped me embrace my time with Paul & Ada and left me wanting to be good for them all day. I didn't do anything extraordinary just so that I could take a picture of it to send, but I either kept on top of engaging them (silliness between lunch/nap) or relished the normalcy before us (morning smiles).

Apparently it takes me a day or two to figure stuff like that out, though, because Friday was lame. It's like I hadn't made any connection whatsoever between what I did the the day prior and was doing in the moment. Now in hindsight I wonder if it weren't just the disappointment after such engagement. In any case, I carted the kids off to run errands with me, and somehow managed to make everything Dylan's fault for the rest of the day. We ended up having a chat about our expectations when he's home/nothomebutworking and should do better in the future. There's likely to be an adjustment period, but I think it'll be good for us all.

Now lookit these - Ada likes books! And Paul likes making funny faces: