Jared & Ramee Kirkland Family

I'm on vacation this week with a moderate list of things that I want to get done. The list includes some landscaping projects, some house keeping items, and some personal indulgences (like brushing up on my Lao). Of course, it would be wonderful to have everything on the list complete, and I actually enjoy the project doing, but things seem to always come up. Adelyn, for example, needs someone to hold, feed, and clean her. Amelia is an attention vacuum. She's not satisfied with just being a princess. She wants someone to watch her be a princess. Last night, Ansleigh needed Daddy to lay with her after having a nightmare about spiders. And Dalton is, well, a force of nature. By the end of some days, mine and Ramee's nerves are the mental equivalent of Katrina leftovers.

As I was closing in on the end of my day, around 3:30, I was feeling a little frustrated and thinking that my list of projects would just become a list for another time. I couldn't think of how to get things done with the many interruptions that surface so often. But then I thought a little further and realized that these "interruptions" were actually the only things that brought me real happiness during the day. I thought about how Adelyn smiles at me everytime we make eye contact. I thought about all the kisses that Amelia gave me throughout the day. I thought about Ansleigh's great sense of humor (she is really funny!) and how she came to me for reassurance and safety. Dalton and I worked on his multiplication homework together, which became a rare moment where he and I were on the same page.

(Ramee, in case you're feeling left out, I didn't include you here because you're never an interruption!)

So this bout of introspection helped to ease my despairing. Although I didn't get anything done that was on the list, I did work on what matters most: relationships with my family. And doing this brought more happiness than having an empty list ever will.