We were due for severe thunderstorms but they never made it. All is quiet and though the storm came crashing along the coast...just a 50 minute drive east of us...we never got a drop or a rumble...just the calm, sweet, cool breeze that follows a storm. I just plopped into bed around midnight, upon my return from bringing the rest of Levi's friends home, after a night of them playing manhunt.
The curtains are billowing in and the fan is humming. The soft, mellow snoring coming from Kevin is like a lullaby, a familiar comfort that typically tolls bedtime for me. But tonight I am wide awake and am fairly certain that sleep is still a ways off for me. The boys are all still awake and up...Levi has 2 friends sleeping over...but even with 6 boys/young men here, it is surprisingly, amazingly quiet?
I know come morning I will get up to a kitchen filled with dishes from over night cooking and refrigerator attacks and to trash bins full, not to mention the dishes and trash I will find all over the living room, scattered among the 3 sweaty, smelly sleeping boys on the living room floor. I know as I descend the stairs in the morning, I won't find the cats vying for the gifts of sun halos that peek through windows making their slants of light and presence of shadows across the hardwood floors like usual. Instead the curtains will be drawn and the sprawled out mess of teenage boys will be vying for blankets to cover their heads as they realize that...the light of day is trying to peek between the fabric of the curtains...calling them to wake and rise and greet it. Of course the boys will resist the days' beckon as long as they can.
I know these moments won't be here forever and that once the sleep overs stop and the boys are all tucked away in their own homes, as men with children of their own...I will wish for nights...days...mornings, like these. And even though I know I won't sleep soundly tonight due to the repeated reminders of curfews, the ssshing not to wake Kevin, and the occasional, noisy, boyish laughter or crash echoing up from downstairs...I am okay with that...because...well...for one, in all honesty I know...I won't be doing it alone, I'm sure once I do fall asleep, I will poke and jab at Kevin until he gets up and puts some finality to the night time play...and two...it won't last forever...if I could capture time in a bottle...like the song says...this is one of those moments I would capture and keep forever. It isn't perfect, and my boys aren't perfect and I am not perfect but that is what, seems to me, to make the moment so perfect. So imperfectly, wonderfully perfect.
This is one of those moments I thank the Lord for making me a mother and for giving me my men, His men to raise up. Even with all the stress and the sleepless nights and the tired mornings and the laughter and the joy, and the pride, and the fighting, and the humility and the heartaches, I am so glad that the Lord has blessed me to walk this journey as a mother. I know no greater peace or distress, all rolled into one, than this. These boys/young men are much like that storm...rumbling and loud and sometimes destructive but awesome to watch as they grow and stretch out and pass through our lives causing an awesome raucous in their wake and yet they transform the air before us...leaving a cool, refreshing breeze as they pass through. They change our lives forever, we are never the same once we have children. Thank you Jesus...Praise You for Your wonderful creation and gift and blessing. Goodnight all.
© Copyright 2010 Christine Maxwell
You talk about wanting to capture time in a bottle. Your writing does just that! You so vividly describe the sounds, smells, actions, and emotions of the day; that time is suspended and can be revisited over and over again. When ever it pleases you or me, we can hear the soft, mellow snore of Kevin; see the light beams peeking through the curtains; even smell the sweaty boys. Yes, thank God He made us mothers. No other job, duty, or career comes close to the joys of being a mom. I miss those days when my kids were young. What fun we had!
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