The Pause Button

I still can't find it.

Me to Addy: Come here little lady.
Addy: I'm not a little lady. I'm a big girl.

Me to Addy: You're doing a great job coloring, Addy.
Addy: Good job encouraging me, mom.

She wants to have tea in the afternoons together after her nap and says things like "oh, mama are you ok?" when I stub a toe, or "are you alright, mama? Do you need help?" when I drop something or make a loud noise.

And then there's Anna who loves to unload the dishwasher and helps me with laundry by putting wet clothes into the dryer from the washing machine all while wearing my red shoes.

When younger siblings have older ones to model, they grow up even more quickly. Anna wants to pray anytime we pray now too. She tightly folds her hands, scrunches up her eyes and says things like "um, uh, um, foo. 'men." Which interpreted means "some incomprehensible murmurings, food, Amen."

They want to do everything I do, all together, the three of us. When there is food to be made or even tea to be poured, I quickly find two little girls, pushing our dining room chairs into the kitchen so they can help too. They mimic everything, watch everything, soak in everything. I'm trying to soak it in too.

The routines of housework and mothering may be seen as a kind of death, and it is appropriate that they should be, for they offer the chance, day after day, to lay down one's life for others. Then they are no longer routines. By being done with love and offered up to God with praise, they are thereby hallowed as the vessels of the tabernacle were hallowed-not because they were different from other vessels in quality or function, but because they were offered to God. A mother's part in sustaining the life of her children and making it pleasant and comfortable is no triviality. It calls for self-sacrifice and humility, but it is the route, as was the humiliation of Jesus, to glory.

-Elisabeth Elliot