Beautiful Sleeping Children....

Here is a universal truth about Fall Festival.....after all of the days of preparation leading up to the 31st, and clean-up on the 1st, it is usually somewhere around the 3rd or 4th of November before I come back to my senses, and can find my way out of the fog of exhaustion. This is my excuse for waiting until the 3rd day of November to start my "Gratitude Month" blogging. On FaceBook, there has been a tradition among my friends to post a Thankful Thing a day during this month as we head towards Thanksgiving, so I thought I would expand on that, and extend it to my blog. I lay in bed this morning, not wanting to leave the warm nest of blankets, even after John had gotten up and left his side of the blankets ajar (letting cold air in....). I burrowed down deeper, and thought about gratitude...about the act of giving Thanks. What is the thing I am MOST thankful for? Can I narrow it down to one thing? At that particular moment, I was grateful for many things...The extra blanket I put on the bed night before last (we keep the house a tad bit chilly), the smell of coffee coming up from the kitchen, the knowledge that I had 2 loaves of freshly baked Pumkin Bread with streusel topping waiting to be eaten for breakfast - made in honor of the College Boys arrival home for the weekend. Ahhh...there's a thankful thing - I could get up and open each door, and find a sleeping child behind every one. How beautiful it is to watch your children sleeping - even if they are growndy up, or nearly so....and that is how I found my happy thought this morning.....the thing for which I am most Thankful today. I am  Profoundly and forever beholding to the One who granted the desire of my heart....the desire to have Children....the desire to become a Mother. As a young Actress/singer, fully invested in furthering my career, I had developed a finely tuned sense of self....self absorption, that is....Me, Me, Me....how was MY audition, MY performance, MY voice......After I married, my career path changed, but I still wore that sense of self....I am sad, I am worried, I don't feel well....Although I have always prided myself on being a pretty low maintenance kind of gal, there was still that constant personal focus on self. In my first pregnancy, the trend continued....I am so sick, I am scared of labor, MY feet are so swollen, did MY heart just skip a beat....Determined to experience the "joys" of a natural birth, I labored in great agony to bring my first born into the world - the labor was short but grueling (although not nearly as bad as the second time.....), and I pushed FOREVER...College Boys elbow was stuck, and he eventually tore me from stem to stern internally, as he made his way into the world. As he took his first breath, the nurse wiped his face with a receiving blanket, and handed him to me....this moment is captured both on film, and in my sense memory - it is the moment my world turned on it's axis, and righted itself. College Boy looked into my eyes as if to say, "oh, There you are", and the searing intensity of that instant recognition, soul to soul, changed me in a profound and permanent way. In that moment, I was made anew, and I became.....a Mother. It has been, and continues to be, the single most rewarding thing I have ever done - the thing that brings me the greatest joy, the deepest sense of purpose, the thing that defines me.....the thing that makes every struggle, every setback, every bit of humdrum dailyness worthwhile. Several months ago, my Aunt told me that I had wasted my life, with my "little job", and my barely existent bank account...with my days that are more struggle than ease....It made me cry then - it makes me cry now, but through the sting of those harsh words - the humiliation and pain, I can see that she was wrong....I have only to look at the faces of my beautiful sleeping children to know....because I am a Mother, and for that, I give thanks.