Weekends Like This

Sometimes I look in my backyard and I'm overwhelmed.  Sometimes it's amazingly good, sometimes it's amazingly stressful.

The photo above seems like it might appear in a parenting magazine, maybe in a section called "List the Things That Are All Wrong In This Picture."  Last week, when I was in a let's call it a more negative space, this scene would have put me over the edge.  Open flames, preschooler seeing his opportunity to flee this crazy family and building what looks like an escape tower over the fence, surly tween probably telling me I'm wrong about something, puppy totally reminding me I suck at being an alpha male, no shoes for three out of four kids, unbothered husband lighting fire then walking away--I mean come on, it's a mess.  But yesterday, I looked at this mess and proudly claimed it and it felt good.  

Yesterday, I looked in my backyard and sucked in my breath in disbelief that this chaotic, fun-loving, floppy-haired family was mine.  I was overwhelmed alright, with gratitude so deep it was knocking the wind out of me.

Posing with their magic wands and PJ's.
We are all beyond ready for summer vacation.

It's far from perfect, but these are the days, the days that fill me up and sustain me through the the not so amazing days.  And there are a lot of those because life is complicated, crazy, unpredictable, up and down, hectic, exhausting and all that. 

But days like this, weekends like this...

Thank god there are days like this...weekends like this.

Yeah, we all need days and weekends like this to remind us to see all the good in the unperfect messiness of life, to soak it up and hold on to the love and be grateful.