The past several days have been spent by me running myself and my children around like crazy people trying to tie up all the loose ends before Daddy comes home. Today, I finished readying everything I needed to do in order to miss my MOPS meeting this week. Tonight, I finally finished up the last of the household chores. And tomorrow, I will take care of the last minute maintenance for my car so we don't have to waste a single second of our time together dealing with regular life junk. I feel a great sense of accomplishment. My spirits are high. And yet...
Something in me knows that reality is about to rear its ugly head in my "happy place"--we've all been there. Let me walk you through mine.
The Vision:
Nathan arrives at the airport. The children run up to the escalator to greet him and wrap him in a warm embrace. I get teary-eyed, yet am still able to catch the perfect picture of them to use as a background for our desktop. We take Daddy home, where he is welcomed into a clean and sparkling house. Dinner is waiting hot and delicious on the table. The kids are tucked nice and snuggly into bed by their father and then my husband and I are able to enjoy time together we haven't had for 5 months.
The Likely Reality:
Nathan arrives at the airport. We are not there yet because we are running fifteen minutes late, as usual. The kids run to greet their father and give him a big hug...but I realize in my rush to leave the house, I have forgotten the camera. We start to take Daddy home, but on the way our gas light comes on because I didn't have time to fill up the tank during the day. We finally make it home--the home that once was clean, but that also had preschoolers running rampant in it for an entire day and which now has toys and fingerprints strewn all about it. Supper? Crap, I burned the supper. Cheerios, darling? The kids are so excited to have Daddy home that it takes forever to get them to sleep. They finally go to bed. Ahhh. Alone time...(little footsteps)...
"Mommy, I need water."
"Sammi, go to bed."
"Mommy, I need to potty."
"Well go, then go to bed."
"Mommy, my blankets fell on the floor."
"Pick them up."
"I can't."
"Okay, but then you better stay in bed."
Meanwhile, an exhausted soldier has fallen fast asleep in a comfy bed...
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I know I am making a bigger deal out of all this than it needs to be. But the truth is, I just have high expectations for happy occasions. All women do. It's why we turn into such nutcases when we plan our weddings. We found the perfect guy. But now we need the perfect dress, perfect cake, perfect venue, perfect bouquet, perfect invitation, perfect color scheme, and perfect EVERYTHING or else no one will realize how perfect we are for each other. (Yes, that was meant to be sarcastic, but isn't it also a bit true?!)
I knew there was no such thing as a "perfect day," but that didn't stop me from trying to obtain it. And from that moment forward, I have done my darndest to try to acheive the 'happily ever after' I have been promised in almost every Hollywood feature film and Disney animation ever created. I am just hopelessly idealistic like that.
My new hope is that I can see the "fairy tale" moments in my reality--
So then, even if my clean house is made dirty, I will enjoy my time with my husband inside my dirty house for two whole weeks. (Eeeeeeee!) Sammi has a cough that she caught over the weekend, and if her cough does not go away and we all end up getting sick, then we end up spending time wrapped in blankets on the sofa hacking up our lungs together. If the oil doesn't get changed in the car, then we change it together. If I burn supper and we have to eat Cheerios, then we enjoy our Cheerios together.
Because for better or for worse, every moment is made better by us being together.*
*With an exception to the bedtime part!
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