Sweatin' to the Oldies!

I try to avoid the word busy because I think it's overused.  I often feel like people make themselves busy to feel more important...as if having more to do = a greater self-worth.  I know my life as a stay-at-home-mom is probably less busy by nature than most people who work outside the home; however, I think of busy-ness as more of a mentality.  That being said I'm going to negate everything previously written and say:  today was busy!

I found myself flustered when I realized I was trying to fit too much in to one 12 hour period:  grocery shopping, laundry, Zumba, dog-walking, cleaning, making dinner for a friend, taking Stella to play, making dinner for us, bath and bedtime routine for Stella, then taking care of bills/finances.  Tim works Wednesday nights, so there's no extra set of hands to help like normal.  By the time I got to the place of making dinner for us I could feel myself getting more and more frazzled by the second.  I was a little too short with Stella, a little too annoyed by the fact that I burned the leeks for our chowder, a little too flustered by the mounting dishes in the sink.  

It wasn't until we sat down to eat that I took a breath from the day's activity and took a real look at my little girl.  She'll turn two in a couple of weeks.  Her hair is growing out and she seems like a toddler now.  She had no socks on her feet because she was sucking on her socks in the car (I know, GROSS!  I stopped it as soon as I realized what she was doing...), she was wearing half her dinner on her dirty shirt and she had blue, fuzzy bunny ears on her head.  And, she was smiling ear to ear and talking non-stop about the fish chowder on her plate.  To top it all off she looked at me when her dinner was done and asked, "Dancin?"

I ignored the dishes and instead turned on the Oldies mix-tape that has become a staple in our house these past few weeks.  We spun around the kitchen together.  She held on to me like I was her best friend and the best dance partner in the world.  I took it all in, for the first time all day.  I told my daughter I love her and how much I love spending time with her.   I hope I'm never too busy for these moments.

P.S.  Per Stella's request, I wore the bunny ears through bathtime.