Another day at the office.

I could say it's been one of those mornings, but honestly, it's usually one of those mornings. Mine are boisterous, lively children; they wake as though they've been wound up all night and at the first sign of dawn they need to just GO. As soon as our feet hit the floor, the surround sound of our life zooms to a roar: they are instantly running, yelling, throwing, laughing, hugging, hitting. Moments of solitude -for one or all of us- are rare, and when I remember that, I flash back to a conversation had when I was still pregnant with son #3. After learning that I was carrying another boy, the woman asked, "How will you survive?"

Self-pity is easily summoned around here. The little ones seemingly bathe themselves in it when they are forced to do such impossible things as share or take a nap. And I, I could wallow in it for much deeper, uglier reasons. I could press my eyes closed and daydream about a world where at 8 in the morning I'd be sitting in a nice quiet office with only the hum of my computer to distract me. I'd be walking briskly to a copier rather than chasing a toddler who keeps wrenching his band-aid off and bleeding all over the couch.

My office, for now, is this one. I chose it, and choose it again and again. There is the fish tank in the entry way which houses a SpongeBob Squarepants figurine. If I round that corner, I'll step on a toy that will loudly sing four nursery rhymes whether I want it to or not. And right here in my arms, a few feet from me, across the room, are my co-workers.

It's not so simple to gloriously yell "Carpe Diem!" and aim to live in the moment and savor the small details. Sometimes the small details are covered in puke and wailing uncontrollably and it is the farthest thing from beautiful that I can think of. While I am sopping up the mess and murmuring comfort, I have to remember why I wake up every morning making this same choice yet another time.

I was once bitterly promised that no matter which road I took, it would all be for naught: one or two or all my kids would forsake the goodness my husband and I tried to instill in them and eventually loathe us. This is an extreme opinion, but it chirps wildly from my memory when the chaos peaks.

So how do I survive?

I think of them as young men, strolling through the doorway on a break from college and enveloping me in their arms. Of smelling cologne on them and laughing to myself when I remember the sweet lotion I use to rub on their dimpled elbows when they were in diapers.

I think of them as imperfect adults who will make mistakes like I do but will hopefully handle those divots in their path with more grace and more faith than their mother. I pray, and I pray again and again.

And I think of them as the sweet boys that they truly are, because they are little and they are learning and the outcome of all this is highly dependent on the measures of patience, appropriate discipline, and love I administer in relation to those facts. I choose to be with them and He is always with us... and I think that's a promise of survival.