lazy Sunday mornings

I really do like going to Church. However, we haven't quite made it there much lately. We used to take turns getting up at six with the kids. Back then I had been up for hours before Church came into the picture. This a..m. I slept til seven! We had several waves of kids coming in for snuggles, elbows in the ribs, boys wrestling with each other til we threatened to kick them out... My daughter is now old enough to bring me coffee, and so there's another half hour of sipping and admonishing rambunctious boys who get too close to knocking it over. I may have even read a few pages of my book while the kids were downstairs spilling cereal on the kitchen table. You could say that we're lazy, especially since we do this on the weekdays, too, only because my husband is lucky enough to go to his office across the hall at 8:30. The house is a mess. I sent my youngest to pick something out of his hamper to wear today. I had the couch cushions back on the couch yesterday, but they were on the floor again before I could vacuum. We're surrounded by chaos, if you take a quick look at our house. But the heart of our home is our big bed, full of children and warm embraces. My four year old announces “if I am going to have hydrochloric acid in my lab... then I'm going to have to cut one of you up...” as he wiggles his fingers over my belly like a mad scientist. A sociopath? No, just someone who is fascinated by science and likes to talk about stomach acid as he chomps on a bagel. Often I wish I would spend more time attending to housework, but I like to think that I spend valuable time instead nurturing the hearts, minds and spirits of our children. We laugh, talk about the world and its wonders, answer some questions and pose others. I learn more than I teach, as the kids one-up each other with information about dinosaurs, volcanoes or black holes in space. I learn several reasons why the chicken crossed the road. Eventually we all get up and start the laundry, go for a walk and rush to public skating. The groceries get bought and dinner gets cooked. The rest of the day rushes by, but my favorite part is always waking up in anticipation of snuggles in the not-so-early morning. Maybe we'll make it to Church next week.