sweet redemption

All the pent up productivity of yesterday spilled over into today and I did something I'm ashamed to admit I haven't done in a long while.  I got out of bed before any of my boys woke up.  I was blessed with energy, aided by the fact that Adam slept well last night.  No doubt this was because he hardly slept a wink during the day.  So all things worked together for my good.  As I cleaned my kitchen I kept sending up prayers of thanks, especially valuing the uninterrupted time after yesterday. 

As the 3 older boys woke up , I made french toast and filled them til they could eat no more.  Adam woke up, ate, then fell right back to sleep.  I recruited the boys to be on my clean team.  They earned points (the store is still going strong, a happy surprise) and were all determined to get the biggest prize which cost 25 points.  It went like this:

dressed and combed - 3 points
family room - 3 points
jungle (living room) - 4 points
dining room - 3 points
kitchen -3 points
playroom - 5 points
behavior - 4 points

giving us a grand total of 25, just what they needed.  I made a big deal about each completed task and they kept going for almost 3 hours.  Adam slept on and on, then woke up, ate, and then sat contentedly in whatever room I was working on until we were all done.

And now here I am, where I wanted to be yesterday.  We still have some work to do, but we'll see how the rest of the day goes.  I've been thinking about this post from Christina yesterday and I relate.  My example is micro while hers is macro.  There is certainly a "give over" (as my mom calls it) that makes motherhood both challenging and awesome.  Our well-laid plans are given up, or put on hold, and our lives are not just our own.  In the process, we become better and our lives are made much more meaningful.  It's a great plan, isn't it?

unrelated funny things:

Taylor was wearing sweat pants, attempting to get them off and said to me:
"Mom, I can't take off my pants!  Always when they're made out of fluff, I can't take them off when they're made out of fluff."

We were driving in the rain and Noah wanted the window open.  We opened it for a minute and Jack said he wanted it shut.  When Noah protested, Jack tried reasoning with him.  He said:
"But Noah, the rain is so cold.  Rain is made out of space, and space is so so cold."