Restlessness Passes. Thanks Mom.

My last post was a little...well...restless, wasn't it? It matched my mood. I suppose the mood makes much more sense in light of the fact that I had gone to a memorial Mass on Friday (the day before The Great Restlessness) for my son's 5th grade teacher. We just left the warm embrace of her classroom last month, and now she is gone. She was a wonderful teacher, a wonderful woman. We will miss her very much.

So I think I was recovering a little bit when that post came pouring out. Too bad I didn't realize this on Saturday; I might have been much easier on myself. But the comments I received helped in that regard, so thank you to everyone who wrote.

Especially lovely was the note I got from my mom, who couldn't get the commenting window to work on my post and sent it in an email instead. (Don't worry mom, it probably wasn't you: the same thing happened to me today when I tried to leave a comment on another blog.) Here's what she said:

Anyway, I just wanted to comment on your "restlessness" piece - actually, taking your kids to the park and getting a load of laundry done is a pretty good day's work. You know all those people you see making "progress?" They think they are not getting anywhere. They could not begin to do what you do in a day.

It depends on how you define "progress." Just getting your kids through another day is progress.

Mom

Thank you, mom. Those words helped. I will have to hear them many times over the next several years, but this weekend, they helped enormously.

I did get them to the park, and they had a fabulous time. I did too, even if it was a lot of work to shepherd them around, coax little ones to use gross bathrooms, tend to boo-boos, and yes, push the damn swing. (Why am I so swing-averse?) I took them out again today, to Wildcat Canyon. Fresh air does wonders for us.

To thank my mom, I am posting a sort of photo album of our recent Fresh Air Refueling trips. Restlessness passes. These smiles live forever.