cheers to an ordinary motherhood

I have a closet full of clothes.

I’ll stand in it, look at the options, turn to the right and grab my black yoga pants. The ones I wore yesterday and probably several times last week. I’ll mull over a different shirt, but grab the black teeshirt that I love that I paid $12 for at Old Navy this summer.

Someday I’ll wear those clothes.

That’s what I tell myself. But, not today, today I choose what I love.

It’s kind of ordinary.

It’s the same with dinners. On my shelf in my room are five cookbooks that I carried with me from Minnesota to Nashville. I couldn’t bear to get rid of them because I just might decide to actually go through Rachael Ray’s 365 No Repeats. Not today though. Today I chose gluten free chicken nuggets and fries because I had to take my daughter to work right in the middle of dinner time and was racing back to help with a stack of homework that makes me want to put my head down and cry surrender.

Ordinary.

As I was driving there, after eating my ordinary chicken nuggets and wearing my ordinary yoga pants uniform I started to think about how ordinary my life was. Minivan and school lines and juice boxes left out and endless piles of laundry and kids that don’t want to do homework and late homework mornings and days where I just want to pull my hair out and days where I wish there was a bottle of wine so I could have a glass and just so so so so so much ordinary.

And then I turn on the news.

And it breaks my heart.

Kids and families torn apart. Death and trials and crazy.

And then, then it washes over me.

Ordinary is good.

Wait. Stop.

Ordinary is beautiful.

Not having to think about what to wear or cook or going through the normal routine is a blessing. It means there are clothes to wear and food to eat and kids to drive to work and kids to do homework with.

Ordinary.

Sometimes I think us moms look at the highlight reel of the world and grade ourselves on a scale that forgets that ordinary is perfection and all the rest is simply a bonus. Every day that we get to spend with our kids – those ordinary days we make memes about and the messes we get to clean – those are all days that we so easily could take for granted.

Those are the days of ordinary.

Ordinary doesn’t mean easy. It doesn’t mean there won’t be slammed doors or late bills or yoga pants that no longer fit or kids that sass back or issues with exes or friends or sickness or really really being tired. There is so much tired in ordinary. But even tired is good.

But, in the scheme of the world, ordinary is perhaps the greatest gift of all.

So tonight, today, tomorrow, I celebrate our ordinary.

Celebrate your ordinary you.

Ordinary motherhood and days and a life.

Sweet mom, sweet sister, our ordinary is profoundly beautiful.

~Rachel