To my good kids.

Dear JOTSC,
We left the house this morning to meet friends at a park about 35 minutes from home and as you know, I got a tad bit cranky. I was serving and cleaning up breakfast and getting myself ready, and feeding and dressing Clover, and trying to figure out what kind of meat I should take out of the freezer for dinner, and getting some laundry started, and preparing and packing lunches for the park, and making sure everyone had appropriate shoes and socks on and that you used the restroom before we left and that your faces had ample amounts of sunscreen smeared on them and that I had spare clothes and diapers for the little ones, and I was tired by 8:00 am and I doubted my own sanity for having such lofty ambitions for the day: leaving the house.
I had to apologize to you in the car for my, ahem, crankiness. You quickly and lovingly forgave me, telling me "it's ok mom, it's over. Just move on. We forgive you." Which of course, made me feel all kinds of conflicting emotions at the same time.

We arrived at the park and played and ate lunch and something happened.
JOTSC, you were complimented, by more than one person you were complimented.

And, oh. My heart.

Someone mentioned specifically how sweet and smiley Stryder is. Another mom pointed how happy you kids are and how good you are to one another.
When we were leaving a woman came all the way over to our van in the parking lot to tell me that she was pushing you on the tire swing along with her kids while I was nursing Clover and that you spoke kindly of your siblings and you were telling her good things about your parents and she wanted me to know I was doing a good job.

A couple of days ago, your grandma told me about something you were doing together when you were at her house and how you have a "one for all and all for one" attitude.
Your babysitter, Gabrielle, sent me an e mail to tell me how impressed she was with your behavior when she was here.

In my sometimes frenzied state of life I may misrepresent you JOTSC. I may make you sound like you are overly challenging or mischievous or like you fight all the time, and that just isn't true. You do act up. You do require correction. I do repeat myself a lot. But you are children. There are just several of you and only one of me, therefore my job is rather labor intensive.

You are good kids.

Thank God for those women who took the time to speak words of encouragement into my heart. They didn't even know about our morning or how much I needed to hear what they had to say. They had no idea their words were as sweet as honeycomb to me, and that they helped me look at you, my children, with a fresh perspective.

My babies, I am so pleased with the people you are becoming. Thank you for loving each other the way you do and for treating me with such kindness and mercy. You are a beautiful example to me in many ways.
I love you.