Afternoon Tea

As mother's we get the sweetest reminders from our children of what life should be. It seems that most of the time, our children have GREAT timing too. I have a perfect example to share...

This week was a very busy week. I have taken on watching a three month old baby girl (hooray for pink in the Gray household!) three days a week. She is a very sweet baby and the boys are LOVING having her around. As mentioned before, Lucas is playing in the all-stars again this year, so that means DAILY practices. Colby is having to be at gymnastics three days a week. All of this in addition to regular meal planning, laundry, and other house maintenance. So... I was relishing the moment of having a sleeping baby one afternoon while the boys were all downstairs watching a movie while trying to keep cool on a summer day. I decided to bake some zucchini bread with some fresh zucchini that I got from a garden up here. I prepared it and put it in the oven to bake while I went on folding laundry. I'm pretty sure the smell of the bread travelled downstairs, because just as it was coming out, Caleb came into the kitchen. He saw the bread and asked if he could have some. I told him it needed to cool first, and so he stood there blowing on it for a good 10 minutes.

As I went ahead and cut into the bread (knowing that it wasn't cool, but I had a VERY anxious 6 year old waiting for a piece), Caleb ran to get two plates. He then looked up at me and asked if we could have tea with our bread. He had remembered a time when we had done this about a year or so ago. I told him "Yes, that's a great idea!"

We were sitting at the dining room table sipping our tea and snacking on our zucchini bread while talking about all kinds of stuff. We talked about the baby, we talked about soccer starting soon, and we talked about how great it will be when we wake up with no smoke in the air (we have had some TERRIBLE fires in California). Caleb took my hand and said...

"Mama, remember this forever. Don't ever put it in the garbage."

Can you imagine the tears I'm choking back at this moment???? Wow... I love being a mom so much! I assured him that I would NEVER forget and then I went on to ask him if he would still come have afternoon tea with his mom when he was grown up. He promised me he would.

I needed this afternoon tea with Caleb more than I even knew I did. God knew though. I'm so grateful that He knows my heart. The rewards of motherhood come in all different forms. My favorite ones though are the simple kind. Those are the ones that aren't forgotten or discarded into "the garbage".

Spend a quiet moment with your kids. You will be glad that you did and YOU WILL BE BLESSED BY IT!