One of those moments

Today I experienced one of those moments where for just a split second, I couldn't believe where life has taken us. It was short, lasting less than a full minute, but oh-so-sweet. 

I was prepping for Chad and my pasta dinner by chopping up the goods, Carter was eating his little tot-sized dinner and Kota was satisfied in her exersaucer. As I was cutting the onions, my eyes started to water so I backed off from the counter for a second, shutting them to try to stop the burn. After a few seconds of me standing there in all my shut-eyed glory, I realized that we were all three existing in complete, sweet, happy silence, each of us inundated with the separate things that we were doing. 

I was chopping. Carter was examining his food with great intensity. Kota was calmly going for a world record in teething-toy-brutalization with those uncomfortable gums of hers.

I took a look around at the madness that had become the kitchen and had this thought exactly:

I love the chaos that is raising these two babies. I LOVE IT. Carter ramming the back of the couch with his push-along choo-choo from his early walking days, Kota clawing the left side of my face off with her perpetually overgrown fingernails, the two of them laughing it up like hyenas simply because Boomer walked by. It's wonderful. Unbelievably wonderful. 

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Completely unrelated, another kind of profound thing happened today, also. 

We have this little Bible book for Carter, and when we were at Target the other day he asked if he could get the "brother" book, which is a sort of how-to on praying for babes. I read it to him for the first time today right before his nap, and came across a prayer for patience and compassion. I realized that in that exact moment, I needed to pray for more patience. 

The half hour before nap time is by no means my favorite time of day. I genuinely get angry at how long it takes to settle Carter in for his daily snooze, sometimes resorting to yelling like someone who has a teenager instead of a two-and-a-half-year-old. The way I rationalize the rise in octaves is by thinking, It's okay, I never yell, so this will really sink in this time. 

Anyway, it got me thinking. God puts things like pre-nap time book reading sessions revolving around prayer in your life for a reason, and today the message couldn't have been more clear. So cheers to a calm day thanks to none other than the Big Man upstairs!