I woke up this morning to the sounds of my eight year old going through his morning routine. He lets out the dog, gets her breakfast and water, lets her back in, feeds her, crates her again or sends her back outside. He pulls down the cereal and milk and pours himself his own bowlful. He puts it in the sink when he is finished. Evie wakes up, he sets her up with some breakfast too.

I laid in bed, impressed, thankful, proud. And I wondered, how can I condense this moment, this feeling of pride, this helpful, wonderful boy that is my son, into a status update.

And then, the hush of the morning fell around the house and I remembered that it had snowed the night before. Through curtains, I could see the soft gray morning’s light. A peaceful, calm moment. A slow morning that now even included a 90-minute delay for the bus – and I was mentally checking out, before I had even pulled back the comforter.

It was a beautiful winter’s morning. My house was quietly stirring with children slowly coming around from sleepiness. And I was composing status updates.

Didn’t I once write poems?

And this is not a dig at facebook or sharing too little or too much. Not at all. I don’t know how parents stayed sane in the world before facebook and blogs and the interaction that is so readily available to us, just at the click of a button. Social media = fantasticwonderfulamazingness to me.

I just know that, perhaps, something is awry when I haven’t even climbed out of bed and I find myself trying to word a status update about my son feeding the puppy and eating breakfast. Marvelous as he is or not, and whether the status would have been witty or touching or not, the fact is, I was in bed. And I think that just maybe, once upon a time, I used to daydream about other things on beautiful snowy mornings before I had to get up.

Didn’t I once find it possible to sit quietly and let life happen? (because it’s going to happen, whether I am updating my status about my dinner plans or not.)

So, the task for the day has to be more present, more mindful.

For the simple joy of experimenting in the kitchen, we tried a new recipe.
For the simple joy of comfort, we stayed in pajamas.

For the simple joy of creating, we colored.

And somehow, paying attention to life more closely as I moved through the day, I found myself seeing art everywhere.

Even in the mess that we made, just living together through the day.

So, it’s not poetry and it’s nothing really relating to Alex and his super-helpfulness, but it’s a slice of my life in this moment.  And no amount of “likes” on a status of my child’s antics can quite touch the joy (and the messy) experience of living it.