8am in the emerson house: a chorus of mommy-mommy-mommy and waaaaaah from our two girls. bryan was on the couch with a headache again (needs new glasses–they should be here within the week), but was able to watch them for a second while i ran to the bathroom to put in my contacts. when i got back zu was crying because she couldn’t have animal crackers for breakfast, bryan was feeling sick, the baby was screaming. i fixed zu and bryan some peanut butter toast and tried to get june to nurse herself to sleep.
oh the past couple weeks have just been this way. zu threw up overnight one night. june got some sort of snotty cold thing. our car-port got infested with fleas (which resulted in our living room getting infested with fleas and having to set off a bugbomb and leave the house for five hours with both girls). i drowned in a flood of online class papers. a pilates class started this week that i really wanted to go to but each time i have had to miss it because my family needed me. last friday night i woke up vomiting which continued the entire weekend.
the only time i’m not with the girls is at work, frantically trying to fit all my prep work for the week into the one-hour sliver of quiet office time i have before trekking across campus to teach my (admittedly wonderful this semester–such bright students!) creative writing class. before i head to work, i fix zu lunch, nurse june, pull my hair up in a ponytail and grab my lunch (typically a fresca and a granola bar, popcorn if we’re out of granola bars).
i’m always running, i’m always needed, and sometimes i feel like i’m smothered by so many hands grasping at me, looking to me for this or that or everything.
i know this is just a time in my life and things will slow down. i can’t change what’s needed of me right now–they all really do need as much as they’re asking for–i can control my attitude about it though.
i’m going to admit that my attitude about it is sometimes not so good. sometimes i feel frustrated, overwhelmed, angry. sometimes i just want to take a plate and smash it. sometimes i just want to go hide in the bathroom and cry. but i know breaking a plate would mean slivers that could hurt little feet. and on the other side of the door would be zu crying with her hurt little heart.
a good day starts with a good attitude. i’ve been thinking still on the fruits of the spirit–self-control, kindness, peace, patience–and how much i want more of those things in me. my pastor says that if you are a christian, the fruit of the spirit is available for you to indulge in, to take and eat. i picture it as the gnarled old peach trees growing on my parent’s land when i was a kid, how they’d grow the biggest brightest peaches that burst with juice everytime you bit into one. i want peace like that–peace dripping down my chin.
i can understand why people would go after things like meditation and buddhism and those eastern religions–looking for a peace that passes understanding. i think that type of peace is impossible without christ. and christians are offered it in abundance, to indulge in, to eat our fill of! i want my fill of it.
The LORD gives strength to his people; the LORD blesses his people with peace.Psalm 29:11
Renee Emerson 
thoughts?