I pulled in the driveway this morning from taking the girls to school. I spotted a bird at the tip-top of the neighbor’s oak, perched and ready to fly away.  I couldn’t move to go inside and yet didn’t have a reason to stay either.  I waited until he swooped into our yard, his movement sparking my own.

As I sat, I thought of the week, ready to call it a terrible one, and yet couldn’t.  It’s been a week of highs—friends visiting from out of town last-minute, sharing a table of new recipes and family gathering around to celebrate births.  But it’s been a hard one too—unexpected ER visits, stomach viruses, tears of fear and longing for friends.  It hasn’t been terrible, but it has been terribly high and low—a week of through sickness and health, till death do us part and stripes of motherhood sewn on.

I sit at the top like the neighbor’s bird–waiting, perched and ready to fly.

I zipped my jacket over my sleeveless, fluttering top and headed down the stairs to the swings.  “Come swing me, come swing me,” they said. It’s work but it’s work that has an end date and I want to soak it all in and do it well until then.

The little one barks as Scott emerges from the screen door with a bag of seed in his hands.  “It’s just Daddy, Bella,” I say.  The girls are loading their legs on top of one another across the swings and they tell me it’s called banana and I should push them like that so I do.  I watch as Scott fills the bird feeders he’s hung from the swing set.  The birds will empty them in a few days and we have no reason to feed them except it brings us joy to see them.

Lexi hops off her swing and runs to Bella, leaning down to talk to her like a  baby, “You’re so cute, yes you are, Bella,” she says as she ruffles her behind the ears.

I hear Emma starting to complain because no one is paying attention to her.  “Mommy, Daddy, let me swing you guys!”  I think of the squeezing plastic against my hips and insist that I don’t want pushed.

Scott and I sit in the glider around the fire pit where he’s just started the flames and we tell her to push us here.  She doesn’t think it’s a great idea so the girls climb in the trampoline and jump and jump and yell, “Daddy, look! Daddy, look!”

I watch Tucker follow Scott like a shadow across the lawn and see my ordinary evening.  Against the tide of the world’s cries, I long for the ordinary.  What did you do this evening, they’ll ask, and I’ll say nothing, but really mean everything.

Work is just that–work–and it’s to be expected.  But this week, the whole summer even, has provided one of the most challenging of my career.  Between a high visibility, high pressure project and managing an intern–or any person–for the first time, my brain has been in overdrive leaving little for any creative, thoughtful adventures.

The girls’ sitter is on vacation and instead of finding backup, I decided to have them home with me while Scott worked. Cue the boredom and consequential fighting.

And how about we had Emma’s new expander mid-week which is causing more difficulty in eating and just being.  Yes, a child in pain is just what this week needed.

Finishing projects from the water leak remodels have been all but stopped but hang heavy on my to-do list.

And how about we throw in some sleepless nights with a few night terrors from a child and all night play sessions by a certain puppy.

I don’t mean to complain.  It’s all just life and all blessings but I do feel a bit broken this week.  I know enough to know I’m not alone.  This summer has thrown many of us curve balls and tight schedules, leaving us all a bit broken inside.

This too shall pass, I remind myself.

There’s nothing to be done but leaving the to-do lists and taking extra naps and giving extra hugs and letting in help.  Broken, yes, but left stronger.