Signs and Blessings
Posted by Danielle Bean in Family on Tuesday, July 06, 2010 10:00 AM
One of the happiest consequences of our relaxed summer schedule is that we’ve had more time for visiting friends and family.
We’ve seen cousins in Connecticut, we’ve met up with friends at conferences, and the boys had a week of day camp with friends. Over the holiday weekend, we were blessed with the company of my sister, her husband, and (the Bean kids’ favorite part):
COUSINS!!!
It’s easy to take family visits for granted, but family changes and movings-away in recent years and months have taught me that having family live near enough to visit regularly is a privilege.
Small things like this sign drive that point home for me. The sign is Juliette’s daily project—she likes to come up with a one-word theme for each day. I saw this one—leaving—soon after our weekend guests left yesterday morning and was reminded of the importance of family time.
We moms can make an awful fuss over holiday plans and celebrations. We prepare meals and clean house. But the most important part of the visiting is the visiting. The sitting in lawn chairs, swapping stories, sharing popsicles and glasses of wine.
It’s just easy to forget that when you’re in a frenzy to grocery shop, marinate the chicken, and scrub down the bathroom.
In my maturing motherhood, I am beginning to put those kinds of things in perspective, I hope.
Yesterday, though I was sorry to see our visit come to an end, my word of the day wasn’t leaving. It was Grateful.
Print Blog
Email a FriendPost a Comment
By submitting this form, you give Faith And Family Magazine permission to publish this comment. Comments will be published at our discretion, and may be edited for clarity and length. For best formatting, please limit your response to one paragraph and don't hit "enter" to force line breaks.
