Wrapping Presents

We have been putting together our presents since Mon­day morn­ing. The kids are help­ing. I am always a “doing things until the last pos­si­ble minute kind of gal” with the whole wrap­ping, buy­ing and/or mak­ing of presents. Often I’m doing these things in no dis­tin­guish­able order but all at once. This year is no dif­fer­ent on my order. But what is dif­fer­ent is my real­iza­tion that hav­ing my chil­dren help with these tasks has given me a new per­spec­tive on the gift of patience. You know they say patience is a virtue? I real­ized today that’s because it is hard earned & requires a lot of smil­ing, even when I wanted to send EVERYONE out of the room (maybe even out of the house) & just fin­ish it myself. Because some­one took their brother’s or sister’s rib­bon or is sit­ting too close or the pile I just sorted is mixed up again…

Today I real­ized that some­times instead of doing it alone I just have to embrace the chaotic joy around me & accept the moments as they come. And that con­stant learn­ing of patience (AND I DO MEAN CONSTANT!) I’m doing has given me the gift of see­ing the beauty in these moments. Because I real­ized that one day I’m going to be doing this alone. Every­thing will stay nice & neat in its spot. No one will be tak­ing someone’s rib­bon. I looked around at those lit­tle faces, doing every­thing oppo­site of how I want them to because it’s not the “right” way & I was hit with the real­ity that I don’t want that day of per­fect orga­nized rib­bons to come just yet. Instead I want to smile through the chal­lenges & enjoy the lit­tle moments together because those moments are fleet­ing. Even if things end up a lit­tle messier, a lit­tle louder, and a lit­tle more chaotic at the end than how I started.

Tagged as: family, holidays, kids, motherhood