Before I became a mom I had this idea in my head of what my life would look like...it was very much like a Norman Rockwell painting- if I were honest. I imagined a beautiful family, with smiling children with clean little faces, laughing parents who always looked perfectly put together. Happy meals with us all sitting around the table and quietly sharing about our day- possibly even reading some great and spiritual devotional as we ate our very organic and healthy dinner. Isn't that what we all dream of?? I mean...really, none of us wants to be that dysfunctional family that has food fights and milk spills instead of quiet family meals; who has mac 'n cheese and peanut butter and jelly on white bread more often than any pinterest worthy meal. I have pretty much come to grips with the fact that the only thing even remotely resembling Norman Rockwell type life is our fireplace. There are beautiful moments- sometimes beautiful days. Mostly, though, our family is a bit broken, a bit dysfunctional and a whole lot more like a Picasso painting than anything else, but I have been learning that there is beauty in brokenness and beauty in the crazy and wild. When my perfectly planned days don't end up exactly how I imagined- I'm finding that there can be beauty in the mess that we've all turned in to. When I think my kids are going outside playing in the flowers and they end up in a giant bag of flour in the basement I can be thankful that life around here is never boring. When our cute picture on the giant chair goes wrong at least we have a memory of our monkey like little daughter who can't stop having fun. When a fun day at the beach turns sour, at least the naughty kids I share it with are pretty cute. When you're shoe shopping at Gander Mountain and your very loud kids decide to deck themselves out in the little stretchy sock nylons you can at least content yourself with the fact that you gave every person in the store something to laugh at.
Even though we haven't had a picture perfect summer. I am sad to see it end. Even though our life isn't what I imagined or what I'd always viewed as "perfect", I'm so thankful that it's mine. I'm so glad that I have this beautiful, crazy, perfectly broken family. I'm glad that we are a family of good forgivers, I'm glad that we are a family that laughs together and cries together. That we can snuggle up and watch movies together and jump on the trampoline together. Mostly, I'm glad that we are a bit messy and that our life isn't perfect, because if it were too perfect I just might not fit in as well :)
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