A few weeks ago we were sitting at the dinner table and our children were melting down... I mean MELTING. Nothing was going right. Our son refused to eat a bite of chicken and rudely repeated the "I don't like chicken" mantra over and over, our baby saw a cookie and officially declared "dessert time" before we ever even sat down to eat and then cried the entire way thorough dinner, and our oldest... our sweet determined oldest. She, with tears in her eyes, said "I don't want this family anymore!! I want a new one!"
I am going to tell you my honest reaction. I laughed. I really did. Because at that precise moment, I kind of wanted a new family too.
Isn't life funny sometimes? It takes the really harsh times for us to be grateful for the sweet. It makes us want to pull our hair out when our child is throwing yet another tantrum over something small and insignificant, but a couple hours later a loving cuddle will thaw our tired, frigid heart in an instant.
The last time my husband deployed it was ROUGH. He left when our baby was just 6 weeks old and I spent an entire year in a blur of sweat, tears, hard backbreaking work, and broken sleep. For lack of a better explanation, it was utterly exhausting.
But what I remember from the end of the deployment, as many spouses do, is the overwhelming, heart squeezing love and appreciation for the little things they do when they return... He emptied the dishwasher- I seriously think I teared up a little. He took the trash out- Oh thank God I don't have to remember it is trash day by hearing the truck outside my window and running it out like a mad woman to haul the cans to the curb ( I swear the trash men to this day think I am a bum off the street that doesn't own a bra, let alone real clothes).
When he is holding a child while I cook dinner... you never think it is that big of a deal, but I wanted to just relish in the weight lifted off my shoulders (or rather my hip!) the first time I cooked without 3 children under my feet crying for one thing or another.
I could probably make a ten page list, no joke... but that isn't my point.
You see, I don't know how much I would appreciate it if we didn't go through the rough times... The deployment made me recognize the sweet in the simple things, just as the cuddle makes me hug a little tighter and a little longer after the tantrum.
After our oldest had her breakdown we kind of all calmed down... when we asked what kind of family she wanted instead of us she said, " A mom and dad, a little brother who is 4 and a little sister who is 1... oh and a black dog named Bear" She brought our rough, back to the sweet. She wanted us.
The rough will always be there. There is no getting around the pain, heartache, hair pulling moments of life. But if you pay attention after the storm... there is a sweet that is absolutely worth it all.
Find your sweet and soak it up.
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