Taking the long view...

I'm no different from anyone else and I am usually thinking about what is next in the hour, the day and maybe the week. It is easy for me to get bogged down in the dailiness of being a mama... the laundry, the dishes, the homework, bathes, etc. This morning I was doing the dailiness of keeping my family feed, clothed and our house somewhat clean. I was picking up things in Lillian's room and wiping off all of the surfaces of the room. I picked up countless bits of paper from crafts and attempted to get Sharpie, crayon, glitter, glue, etc off of EVERY surface. I sat down at her desk to organize it a bit and I looked around. I had this sweet moment of seeing the long view of my life and Lillian's. It just hit me that this sweet, creative/destructive little girl of mine would sooner than it seems be a woman Sharpie-ing her own house. My house would be "clean"- free from bits of papers and countless signs and things would not be written on. And I was very surprised that I felt really sad about that. Lillian is the color in my life and it will be a sad day when she no longer writes on EVERYTHING. I don't think as a mom we can hang on to the the long view constantly. We still need to clean up and do dinner and homework, but we can put Sharpies in our daughter's stocking. I'm so very glad that Lillian is my daughter. She is such a gift to me.