Snowstorm in August

Last night I was standing at the kitchen sink, feeling defeated as I looked out at the yard. It was after 8 o’clock, the kids were finally in bed, not all were asleep yet, but they were in bed and that was half the battle. I was doing dinner dishes from 2 hours earlier and thinking of all of the things I had wanted to get done throughout the day and hadn’t yet done, but also feeling the sense of exhaustion that somehow always finds me and diffuses my plans of anything productive after bedtime. I scanned the yard while telling myself to remember the details of what I saw today because someday I just might miss what I was looking at...

To say that the flowerbeds are overgrown with weeds is an extreme understatement; in fact the weeds are taller and thicker than every other plant. The grass is anything but ideal, it's patchy, with brownish dry sections and it seems that the green areas are at least fifty percent clover. It also is in need of mowing in a very bad and embarrassing way. And then there are the toys. Toys everywhere. Bikes, scooters and tricycles left wherever the driver decided to get off. Balls of varying sizes can be found under bushes and peaking through the towering grass along with the accompanying rackets and bats tossed randomly throughout the space. There is also evidence of the girls’ daily concoction; soup, stew or lemonade- wherever their imagination had taken them today it had obviously involved bowls, spoons, and cups that are now just deserted with the remnants of bark, leaves, flowers and such. And in case I needed a reminder that it was August in Redding there's the sprinkler toy sitting in the middle of the grassy section with the hose stretching out across the pathway, making tripping a high likelihood. And then there's the tiny plastic kiddie pool. There are leaves and pieces of bark floating in the small body of water that is somehow already starting to turn green- though I feel like I just cleaned it the other day. Next to the pool there are various masterpieces sketched onto the patio along with small fragments of the sidewalk chalk that landed wherever the artist had carelessly dropped them.

Why do they never clean up after themselves? Why did I even put the big plastic container out there if I never insisted that they put all of the toys back into it? Just another reminder of a brilliant idea I had for easing the constant battle of maintaining sanity in the midst of raising three small children, only to lack the follow through of actually making the idea a reality. I was once again reminded of a statement I once heard by a mother of teenagers (Bre) as she reminisced over the chore of cleaning her house with toddlers around, “it’s like shoveling snow when its still snowing.” Agreed. It almost seems futile to even attempt, but easy for her to say now I thought, it has stopped snowing in her world.

So as I stood there at the sink, lost in my own world of thoughts, I burned the image into my mind, knowing that someday the weather will change in my life as well. Soon I will be able to rely more upon assistant shovelers, and then in time the snow will inevitably stop. The thought was both simultaneously comforting and sobering. Because when the blizzard ends, I can guarantee that there will be times that I miss the disastrous sight I starred at last night. And so for today, I'm attempting to enjoy my snowstorm in August!