I had a moment.

I had a moment this morning.

It's no secret that things around our house have been moving awfully fast lately. You know you're in for it when your list of things to do BEFORE leaving the house for the office is numbered into the double digits, not to mention what you have waiting for you when you arrive at work. I find myself in go-go-go mode most of the time, rushing from thing to thing, feeling frustrated that nothing is moving quite as quickly as I need it to. If only I had the ability to zip through the "have to's" and the ability to slow down the "want to's". But I guess that's not how it works or else another mother far more intelligent than I would have that one figured out, patented and trademarked by now.

This morning, Joshua was in no particular hurry to do anything. In fact, upon hearing me accost Joshua a couple of times to "stick a nickel in it", Jason came over to his room and said, "You know, he's got all day. He's not in a rush." Obviously not. But I was. A couple of other things happened that I felt like I was racing through until Lauren woke up.

I was sitting with her at the kitchen table just talking to her, catching up on all we'd missed of each other's lives since we met at 2:50 am and 5:44 am. She smiled this super grin and giggled at me. Joshua came running over, wearing his construction gloves and hard hat, carrying his Lorax stuffed animal that I got for him at Kohls the other day. And he smiled his super grin and giggled at his baby sister. And then he said, "Mommy, I love you" and then went about his business building something or deconstructing something or pretending to go camping (all of which were in progress by 7 am). And that was my moment. Nothing I had gotten accomplished or had left unaccomplished paled in comparison to the joy in that tiny little interaction with my kids.

If only I was smart enough to slow down and appreciate those moments that are all around me all the time, instead of being so focused on racing from unimportant thing to unimportant thing.

The really ironic part about it is that later this morning when I was eating my breakfast (and yes, I have to actually put that on a list of things to do or else it gets missed in the morning shuffle) and checking blogs, I saw that MckMama was pondering the same thoughts and wrote about it more eloquently than I could. But it just goes to show that every single mom deals with that feeling and the struggle to put on the brakes and focus on what really matters, especially when the to-do list is longer than the time you have to cross things off of it.

I had a moment this morning and I'm so thankful for it.