Stairs

My son's current 'thing' is stairs.  Loves them.  If a room contains something even remotely resembling a step he's able to gravitate towards it with alarming speed and persistence.

Yesterday I was preparing his lunch in the kitchen.  Despite being left in a room full of toys, he gripped the stair gate for 10 minutes and screamed.  And screamed.  I think he may have even hit the gate at one point - it was certainly Tested.  As was I.

'Why,' I thought as I waited for the microwave to ping (because I am a domestic goddess), 'on earth isn't he enjoying all the things he has got instead of the one thing he hasn't?  He has toys beyond number.  Crayons, chairs, a bookcase that he usually loves to empty and access to the garden.  There's a whole world out there! He's missing out and wasting a huge amount of energy.  All because he wants the one thing he can't have.'

I ridicule but so often I act in the same way.  I so often focus on what I haven't got that I fail to enjoy all I have got.  At various points in my life I've wanted the following: to be married; to be married to that boy (and then that one, and then that one....); to be thinner; a job; a better job; more money; for the baby to just arrive because I'm tired of pregnancy and feeling tired all the time... for the baby to be somewhere else because I'm tired of being tired all the time; for the baby to sleep through the night; for the baby to eat solid food...  Some of these things became real obsessions for me and I missed out on so much!

Psalm 118:24 says, 'This is the day the LORD has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.'  Today - with all it contains - has been given me by God.  Some things are not as I would wish.  Others are beyond anything I could have imagined.  But instead of focusing on what I don't have I need to focus on and enjoy all I do have.

Getting my son to sleep through the night was a really big deal.  I'm basically not a nice person when sleep-deprived.  I remember one night when he woke up yet again and I remember the horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach.  'Grief.  Why can't he just sleep?  WHY???!!!'  I pulled on my dressing gown, staggered into his room and picked him up.  And then suddenly - and I'm still not really sure why - the thought popped into my head, 'This phase won't last.  He'll grow up.  And then you won't get the chance for these night-time cuddles.  So why not enjoy them?'  So instead of pacing round his room rocking him I just took him back into our bed.  We sat with him and played together for half an hour.  I stopped worrying about his not sleeping and just enjoyed the moment.

And now looking back that is one of my favourite memories.  A tiny bundle of awake-ness and his two doting parents, all huddled together in the pitch-dark of 1am giggling away while the rest of the world slept.  For the briefest of moments I was able to turn my mind from what I didn't have to what I did.  And it was awesome.