Grateful for friendship, grace and story time

This has been one of the strangest weeks I have had in a while.

I think I struggle with deviating off course. Well I don’t “think”, I “know” I do – it’s the same reason I lack spontaneity and can usually be found with spares of most things I need in life.

When Monday morning found me calling the doctor to make an appointment for my 9year old my Monday went off course (kid at home, no usual gym visit – the one I always stick to on Mondays to start the week “right”, time spent chilling out together while she rested, no work done and so on).  Starting off like that saw my Tuesday and Wednesday fall by the wayside as well – one stupid issue after another combined with hormones saw me start to write off the whole week.

Thankfully the highlight of my week has been friendship – night out for dinner with moms from the 9year olds class (thankfully I was already friends with most of the ladies going so it felt like a real girl’s night out dinner rather than awkward, I don’t know anyone, school function), email exchanges that let me offload, coffee catch up that finally shifted the black cloud. My week finally turned around after a large cappuccino Thursday morning. So grateful for all the women in my life.  So grateful that after 5 1/2 years in Brisbane I can actually say that. It makes me want to stop moving around so that I no longer have to start over yet again (it is so hard to get the friendship thing down pat when you are new or leaving eventually).

I am also grateful for grace – the grace I gave myself as I struggled through the week. I was able to let things go and make the most of my days – calling a load of laundry completed a triumph, tidying up the coffee table finally so we could see it was a table under there, relaxing in the evening with a DVD with my hubby (taking a break from True Blood as it was an intense 2 weeks) instead of feeling I needed to play catch up after the kids were in bed. No pressure, just breathing through it and trusting the tide would turn – and it did! When I  texted my husband on Thursday at 2pm to say I had finally done my (long avoided by now) work I got a reply text of “woo hoo” – indeed!

Finally, I am grateful for story time. My girls are 7 1/2 and 9 years old. They read fluently and often, but now mostly alone. We used to have that evening routine of reading together while I cuddled them. We would excitedly pick stories to read – first picture books and then chapter books. Then a mix of both. In recent months they have turned down my offers of story time. In recent weeks there has been endless fighting at bedtime and an inability to get their teeth brushed etc in the same bathroom at the same time.

Wednesday night I did not ask, but decided to insist on reverting to our old routine. I declared it was time to get ready for bed and then come to my room to read a book on my bed together. We had ordered a book from the library and no one was reading it. We settled in cozily on my bed – well Alice and I did. Lulu brought in a pile of stuff she was working on with her drum music. I trusted she would find her way to us eventually – and she did.

A few pages into chapter one her desire to see the occasional sketched illustrations overtook her desire to organise her drum pages. By the start of chapter two I still had my arm around Alice and now had Lulu nestled into my other shoulder. By the end of chapter two it was bedtime, but no one wanted to move. We agreed to snuggle and doze until daddy finally got home from work. Five minutes later he found all three of us in bed half asleep and content. The girls reverted even further back and asked him to carry them each to bed – cradled “like a baby” was their request.

This – the reading in bed and snuggling- will be our new routine and I am trusting it will reset all of our clocks to our old rhythm and restore a sense of peace (well that is my hope anyway – it is now in the hands of 2 young girls growing up fast and trying to pull away into their own spaces).

What are you grateful for this week?

Find your simple,

Deb

Tagged as: friendship, grace