Making It Work

You may have heard of the game "Words With Friends." Well here at the Turrill house, we like  to play a little game called, "Working Out With Kids."


It goes something like this:

Ben and I have been trying to start doing P90x, a workout program/DVDs for the past week. We've fit in a few after the kids went to bed, but on a couple of occasions, we tried to do it when they were awake. You can see how that went. Not a lot of working out going on. 


I think we will stick to the "working out after bedtime" routine.




(although I'm sure that there's an added cardiovascular benefit to trying to workout AND explain to your three year old why the resistance bands aren't jump ropes, at the same time as holding a baby...:)


We're calling this stage of life "Just Making It Work." Yes, it's not as simple as it once was before kiddos and then with just one, but we can just accept the reality that is, and do what we can (with VERY reduced expectations). 


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Along those lines...


This is what our church day looked like today:

We watched the whole service from Calvary's "Cry Room." We had it all to ourselves!!!

We did get out the door with everyone ready (that's already doing better than we do most Sundays), and we did speed into the church parking lot only 10 minutes late (which we like to consider "on time"). But once we got there, we looked back to see not one, but TWO sleeping children (getting up at 5 am..or ahem..BEFORE ...is tiring!). When sometimes all we crave is just a teeny, tiny reprieve from the requests and demands and just a little teeny tiny break, it was hard to think of waking them both up. We contemplated taking a small nap ourselves in the car (if people walked by us, we may not even look weird. Maybe it'd look like we were deep in prayer!?) but then opted to get our booties into church. I mean, we made it there. Better not to waste that big accomplishment.

But, seeing as by that time we were officially "late," we had the idea to just park it in the Cry Room. It was wonderful. Armed with some coffee and a whole play room to ourselves, we watched the service together on a couch, while Bode and Mimi played. It was AWESOME. I didn't feel bad at all. It feels nice to give ourselves grace, and again, accept the reality that we're living in instead of striving for something different. This is SUCH a short stage, and just rolling with it feels so much better that fighting it and "swimming upstream."

Afterwards we went on our 8th Anniversary lunch date as a family to Ragazzi's in Longmont. A cute, keeper of a place for sure!

Someday there may be romantic dinners out again with wine and roses and just the two of us. But today there really was a sweetness in the spaghetti sauce-smeared faces and  floor covered in cheerios. As we reflected on our eight years of marriage, these two little munchkins are a very sweet part of this life that God has blessed us with. It was nice to take a moment to be grateful.

(p.s. Bode's sweatshirt says, "Boys Rule.")

Gotta love "Making It Work."
xxox