365 days, a journey to find joy in every day!

Socrates once said "Beware the bareness of a busy life."  I may fall into that category today, of too busy to do anything important.  Perhaps I need to put on the brakes for the day, and take stock of what my life is about today.  Perhaps I just need to take a nap.  Or go to bed and wake up and start all over again.

Today I was in "Martha Mode".  Shopping, baking pies and more pies, making cranberry chutney. It's 10:00 P.M.and I just put the turkey in the oven.  Somewhere in the midst of the hubbub of cleaning, cooking, shopping, I was taken by surprise right out of my mode.

My 2 year old grandson, Josiah, came over to visit with his parents.  The older boys were running up and down the hall.  Josiah ran head on into the door frame and started crying.  They were jumping and running and it never even phased me out of my Martha Mode.  I just kept on cooking, etc.  Until they came to ask for a snack.

Now how can a grandmother deny a hungry boy a snack?  The answer is they can't.  So I asked them if they wanted some cheese snack, and they were ecstatic over it.  I took it to the dining room to open it for them, and handed them out, one by one.  I was thinking that once I got this done, the apple pies had to come out of the oven, and then the sugar-free pumpkin had to go in, on and on, mind running.  And up steps little Josiah. to get his cheese snack.

Now this boy is just learning to talk, and most of the time I have to have a translator to understand him, but tonight when I asked him if he wanted a cheese snack, out of the blue, clear as a bell, he said, "Actually, no."
I almost fainted, took a deep breath and said, "What did you say?"  And he said it again.

This will be a memory that I will never forget, like remembering when Baby Nate, my first grandson, crawled up behind the steering wheel of the car and when we tried to extricate him, he started screaming "Drive! Drive!"   Or when Noah, my second grandson, and I watched a movie, and I listened intently as this 4 year old explained the movie to me, blow by blow, and quoted line for line.

Tomorrow is our family Thanksgiving Feast.  I will be off to bed soon, but I am sitting here thinking about those memories that we will be making tomorrow, to go along with the ones we have from before.  And how they will all be retold at the dinner table tomorrow, amidst laughter and maybe even a little short sighted jabs at ego's.  I am grateful that I get to spend this time with all of them.  They are the reason that I have kept on going, through good times and bad.

And now I have a memory to keep forever of Josiah.  When someone asks me if I will ever forget it, I can tell them, "Actually, no. "  Tonight that little cherub brought me joy in the middle of my Martha Mode and the chaos of my kitchen. He kept me from the bareness of my busy life.