Live in the Moment

  • by Trish Berg
  • January 28, 2014
  • 404
                        
Struggling with loads of laundry, clutter in the kitchen and chaos in your life? Stress can easily steal our joy. Trish Berg reminds us to simplify the small stuff and find Joy in the Journey. We have spent the last month watching home movies, and I have truly enjoyed seeing my children as they once were, all toddling around and giggling. The best home movies were not the staged ones where we filmed Hannah singing in the 3rd grade Christmas concert, nor Sydney tap dancing dressed like a black kitty-cat. Though those are adorable to watch, the best home movies were the ones taken at home living a very mundane life doing very mundane things at home. On Sunday nights, we had a long running family tradition of making homemade pizza and watching episodes of Little House on the Prairie. No matter what else was going on that day, when evening hit, the flour and yeast came out and the pizza sauce was spreading. We used to let the kids help make the pizza and we have some adorable home movies of them standing in their footed PJs on top of chairs at the kitchen counter getting ready to spread the pizza sauce on the raw crust. I always used to teach them how to use a spatula to spread the marinara sauce, but Mike, he was the fun dad and he used to have them spread the sauce with their bare hands. “Ooooo, it’s gooey,” said six year old Hannah as four year old Sydney asked her dad, “Is this yucky?” Two year old Colin was jumping up and down with the excitement of getting his hands all gooped up and covered in pizza sauce. Our homemade pizza was never gourmet. Our Sunday evenings were never glamorous. But they were memorable, and maybe that’s what matter most. As I watch those wonderful moments I am reminded that it is the little, mundane moments in life that we remember the most. It is the mundane moments who make us who we are today. And it is the mundane moments we hold onto twenty years later. From kids splashing in the bathtub to toddlers running around singing songs from the movie Annie, those little, mundane, at home moments are the ones I cherish the most. So what does that mean for me today? Well, I think watching these adorable home movies are a needed reminder that I need to live in the moment, as mundane as it may seem. I need to enjoy my children exactly where they are today. I need to spend time talking with them, listening to them, and hanging out with them. Though they may seem very grown up today, in twenty years it is exactly these little moments that I will cherish the most. The other night we sat around the old kitchen table and played Five Second Rule, a fun little board game for all ages. Hannah and Sydney love playing Euchre with Mike and I. Colin enjoys playing ping pong and Riley loves playing Disney Trivial Pursuit. Tomorrow will come, like it or not. The kids will leave for college, marriage and their own lives, and Mike and I will be left here to figure out where they all went. Don’t get me wrong, part of me is looking forward to those empty nest years. But for now, for today, I need to remember to live life in the moment, and my moments involve four children who love and adore spending time with our family. Our life may be mundane, but it is filled with ordinary moments. And it is in those ordinary moments that we actually live. I am thankful for the reminders. And I might even make some homemade pizza tonight.


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