I’ve decided to follow along with the ever inspiring ladies over at Life Captured Inc with their December writing project called Write your Heart Out.  They have a list of posts and are encouraging participation through words and photographs to document your life story. And since I am working on my December Daily this year for the first time I thought I’d tie it all in together if possible.

December. Day 1. Describe a moment from today that you always want to remember.

In my experience mothering is not a day filled with peaceful loving moments. Instead it is a way of fluctuating moments. Quiet, peaceful moments hidden inside loud, head hurting moments. Moments when one, two or three kids are all crying at the same time and moments that fill up my heart to the very top. There have been times that I have been trapped in the routine of only noticing the hard moments. When I am ready to cry along with my kids. Thankfully, other times I can easily see the beautiful perfect moments all around me. I am so grateful for those times. They carry me through hard mothering days.

I decided a few months ago to get over myself and my constant tiredness and just exercise. To cast all my excuses aside and just do it. Now it is in our routine to send the older kids off to school on the bus, dad off to work and then I put on my exercise clothes. I might still end up cleaning the breakfast mess from the kitchen counters and if I am smart, start a load of laundry, and then I set out some toys for Oliver and Norah and I get on the treadmill.

Today before we ventured downstairs to the huge toy disaster in the basement and the treadmill waiting for me I made my bed. I love putting new sheets on and I’ve even say if I didn’t have to wash and dry them I’d be a fan of putting clean sheets every single day. Today was one of those lovely days when I had clean sheets to put on. And, as usual, as soon as I started to spread out the sheets my kids came running to climb on top of the bed. I dunno what it is, but every single time I make my bed any of my kids under 7 think it is so fun! They love to climb on it and have the blankets spread over top of them. They dive in between the blankets and the sheets, squirming their way to the middle of the bed. It instantly amounts to sweet little giggles and lovely belly laughs. It is never a 2 minute job. But instead it is drawn out as they yell “AGAIN” in between their fits of laughter.

Today, Norah’s sweet gap toothed grin and her bell like tinkling laugh drew me in. She has this new laugh that is seriously the cutest thing I have ever heard. Her eyes were lit up and taking me all in. Oliver was squished right next to her and laughing in his loud, low belly laugh. He was yelling peek a boo at the top of his lungs. And every time I would  spread the blanket out on them I was turning the laughter switch on. It was absolutely lovely.  Their two heads were next to each other in the middle of the bed and Norah’s wispy blonde hair was every where from the static. Oliver was pulling on the blankets too and I had to keep saying Let go, so I can do it again. He was too excited to let go. He’d smash his arms down on to of the blanket every time it would gently land on him. His cheeks were rosy from laughter and Norah would look over at him and keep laughing because of his laughter.

I leaned over and kissed them both on the neck and that added to the giggles. Norah was patting her neck where she wanted me to kiss her and giggling profusely. Oliver’s whole face was lit up with that great smile of his and he grabbed my neck tightly with his arms and squeezed me as tight as he could.

Just as quickly as the moment started it was over. We moved on with the morning. A brief, wonderful moment that filled me up for the rest of the day.

I’m sure lucky to be a mom.