Joy, redefined

I just finished the most wonderful book. There was nothing sensational about it, just a genuine, good, literary piece of storytelling. The craftmanship of the writing was soothing to my soul, as it has been a month or two since I read anything truly well-written (I have high standards; blame it on my literature professors).  For the first time ever, I appreciated the slow pace of the novel. I needed something to calm me down, draw me in sentence by sentence, and take more than a day and a half to read.

Towards the end of the novel, there was a phrase that caught my attention.

...a child's joy is doubled for the mother...

"That's true," I thought to myself. Whenever Kevin laughs or smiles, my heart sings. We had a moment like this last night. Wednesdays are long days. Scott works eight or nine hours, is home long enough to eat and finish up homework, and then leaves again for class for the rest of the night. To make things worse, Kevin had been up at 2:00 am, then again at 6:00 am, and then refused to nap for more than 40 minutes throughout the day. She was cranky and clingy, and I'd spent the day trying to get shutterfly projects done in between entertaining her. She finally went to bed about half an hour after Scott left for class, only to wake up and go back down two more times. Around 9:30 we both got tired of the trying to get her to sleep routine, so I brought her out to the living room, set her on the floor, and we started playing with the big orange ball I'd bought at Walmart for $1.50 a few days before.

We rolled it back and forth and she giggled. I started bouncing it and throwing it gently in the air and she laughed. When I lightly bopped her face with it, and then mine, and then hers again, she roared with laughter. By the time Scott got home, we were both close to tears from having laughed so hard.

Such a simple, simple thing.

An orange ball.

A silly game.

A little voice, giggling.

Doubled joy.

On Tuesday my institute teacher posed a question to our room full of young mothers: "What makes an ideal day for you?"

Yesterday was an ideal day for me. It wasn't because Kevin refused to sleep, had two poopy diapers (one of which was a blow out), went through two sets of clothes, undid most of the laundry I folded, and peed all over her changing pad. It sure wasn't because I didn't get a shower and was stressed about getting Christmas  put together. It definitely wasn't because Scott was gone all day, neither of us felt well, and the cupboards are pretty bare since I haven't gone grocery shopping in three weeks.

It was because, at two a.m., I got to cuddle my daughter, the two of us bathed in the glow from the little white lights on our Christmas tree. It was because I spent the day putting together projects for my family and exercising my creativity. It was because I made my baby girl laugh. It was because I didn't have to leave the house all day. It was because I miraculously got a second wind about 5:00 and actually cleaned up the house for once.  It was because, for a short hour while Kevin slept and Scott was at school, I read my book in complete silence. It was because, when my head hit the pillow, I knew I'd had a productive day and filled every minute with something or someone I loved.

This is joy.

PS: What was the book, you ask? "The Shoemaker's Wife" by Adriana Trigiani. Amazing. Read it.