Mummy Interrupted )

Sometimes it's good to be interrupted...

Yes it's easy to get frustrated when things don't go to plan, or time wriggles out of your control.

Yet time, graciously, cannot be micro managed with 3 little ones under four and a nearly ten year old however hard you try, so I have given up. Completely.

Okay the baby just woke up... Perfect timing;0P

...Okay all is quiet once more so I'm back...

Though right before that the other baby woke up too. The big baby. She'll be two in February and still likes her Mummies arms to rock her back to sleep after she wakes.

And so it is.

My days are not mine, my hours, my minutes.

My moments of peace. My joy, sorrow, frustration, impatience, fear, wonder and grace. They are not my own, I don't own them, they do not belong to me. And I am glad.

The way things are with a young family as a Mother surely makes this realisation evident. And while I struggled against this fact with babies number one and two, three and four most definitely called for a complete resignation of control. There was no other way!

My time was not my own even BB (before babies or before bedlam) insert that which applies best:0) I just didn't grasp the concept in practice so clearly before:0)

As I rocked my little/ big baby in my arms trying not to disturb her elder sister who sleeps beside her, a soft, quiet joy, pure and blissful , undetectably seemed to find its way into my heart. My thoughts must have stilled and cleared a space for it to pass.

As I became more aware, a gentle wave of calm washed through my tired arms, and refreshed my eyes, which had been aching for sleep.

When my eldest girl awoke, (it was bound to happen) she began to sing in a quiet voice; "Hush little baby, Hush don't you cry, the angels are watching and I am here close by."

The song from her nativity play barely weeks before. The peace that nothing else mattered but this moment left me suspended.

Yet the feeling of my little ones body, heavy with sleep in my arms, couldn't be captured or held down like an image imprinted on paper or a static photograph placed in a frame.

The most beautiful things in life can't else they lose all their meaning.

Like a poem, brief and essential, one breath of truth. Over too soon.

So my focus found the details that mattered in the dark, letting everything else fade away into the background.

The words I had began to write, the book I was reading, the laundry still tangled in a untidy pile downstairs, the cups on the draining board, the toys on the floor, the early night I had promised myself faded away while the details of the moment grew more vivid and defined.

My little girls soft hair, smooth and shiny, the soft down of babyhood almost grown out completely. The way her small hand clings as I rock her, head nuzzled under my chin, the sweet scent of milk still warm on her breath.

Before long she'll be grown. Full of self conscious words and long limbs just like her eldest sister.

But now, for this moment, time pauses in the darkness of this room. I'm glad I paid attention.

I'm glad these seconds were stalled for me tonight.

I'm glad I was interrupted:0)