Three vignettes to illustrate my point
[ 1 ]
Picture this. Your neighbor is out mowing his meticulously cared for lawn. And the two youngest children are watching him from your bedroom window. Now, these are not just any bedroom windows. They're the windows that are large and down low to maximize a person's window-viewing. They're really nice.
I decided it was fine for me to finish doing the dishes, so I left the room. The boys continued to talk to the neighbor (though he couldn't hear them over his mower). As I washed dish after dish I couldn't believe how much fun they were having in there. I could hear them giggling and talking and laughing.
After a few minutes, I went in to check on them and discovered their source of excitement. They were pounding out the screen one jolly punch after another. The square screen was now sort of triangle-shaped. I simply removed the distorted screen, explained to them that they had destroyed it, and left the room. I couldn't believe how calm I was being. Though, sometimes, I don't think they realize exactly what they're doing. One thing was clear, however, I was entirely sure that my neighbor witnessed the whole incident. And, I am confident that this case further illustrates to him that our lives are completely out-of-control.
Flash forward two weeks when Marcel and Jerzy again destroyed another screen. This time, it is on the front of our house. The screen's shape wasn't ruined, only the screen itself. Completely ripped into shreds. The good news here is that we only have to replace the screen, not the frame. The bad news is I feel we are running out of time for all these fix-ups. We were hoping to have the house on the market soon.
[ 2 ]
About 6 months ago, Marcel colored down our living room wall with an orange marker. Since our walls were a kind of dark peach color (which I couldn't wait to paint over), the marker wasn't noticeable. So, it was left uncared for until our recent paint project.
This past weekend, I painted the walls a gray-blue. This wall I painted twice. And the marker popped through both coats of paint. "Wow!" I thought, "Those are
some markers."
So, in between our weekend landscaping project (see #3) I primed and primed over that spot. That darned marker shone through each coat of primer. It was just there, on the other side of the paint, laughing at me and my menial attempts to cover it. "Ha Ha! Why not try
one more coat of primer. I'm sure that'll do it!"
I don't take to challenges well. I applied three coats of primer and declared that I was finished with that wall! That afternoon, we painted the entire wall one more time.
This time, I had won. The marker was gone! Amen. One item off my list!
[ 3 ]
Nate and I were hard at work landscaping our front yard. Since we just purchased the house 1 year ago, we hadn't made much progress. Boys, budgets and busyness had all gotten in the way. Last weekend, however, we had the resources to do the job!
We purchased mulch, two bushes, and two really pretty, ornate flowers that will grow 2' by 2'. Since my green thumb has been missing since my birth, I cannot name theses flowers for you. They were pretty, they went well with the house color-scheme, so I bought them. End of story.
After many hours, two trips to the hardware store, and one nap (for baby, of course), we finished the yard. And, just as we had finished, a gentle rain began to fall. We were glad for that as the rain would gently water our new plantings.
The next morning, after mass, Marcel was in the front yard. You see, he climbed out of his busted screen in his bedroom window (see #1) and proceeded to take my two ornate flowers to task with a small rake. I witnessed this event while painting an interior wall (see #2) over and over again with primer.
And while my first reaction wasn't, "Thank you Jesus, for the gift of Marcel to our family," I soon realized that those ornate flowers were not the most important thing in the world. Sure the flowers didn't last in our possession for longer than 18 hours. Sure we had paid money for those darn things. Sure I wanted our yard to look nice. Sure that boy had been like the
Tasmanian Devil to our house, yard, existence this past year and a half.
After calming down and gaining perspective I recalled that we're not raising flowers in this family, we're raising children. And, that is a dangerous proposition. When doing so, one often loses oneself and the "important" things in the process. But the perspective that we gain is difficult to find outside of family life. Through it all I realize that our greatest treasures are the four souls entrusted to us for a time.
So, if you come by, our yard will look a little "off", the screens may or may not be broken, and the inside walls may have toddler-inspired frescos about. One thing is for sure, we take our job of raising these boys seriously. The rest, is only temporary anyway.
