I had a meltdown the other day.  It was my fault.  I had accidentally knocked the lid of Matthew’s new smoker on the ground and knicked the dang thing up.  He was frustrated but I felt AWFUL.  It was one of those days when everything seemed to go wrong.  Forgotten golf clothes for after school practice, dumped out baby food pouch in the car, a teething screaming morning in Target, followed by a huge potty accident, and then this.  I yelled that I gave up and laid on my bedroom floor.  As I stared out in front of me I thought about what it was to be small again and hide under the bed or a table when things got really tough.  To just be able to give yourself time and hide until the feeling of awfulness passed.  I thought to myself how I wished my children could feed themselves lunch and then take care of themselves in a non-violent Lord of the Flies type way.  And that my oldest could apparate Harry Potter style so I didn’t have to leave my house to get him from school.  Suddenly words from my most recent MOPS meeting came into my head, the Rule of St. Benedict, “Always we begin again.”  I fully admit that when I first heard this quote I wasn’t the biggest fan of it.  Begin again?  Chores of motherhood don’t always sound appealing the first time around and now you’re saying the begin again?  Yet here it was.  Guidance from other mothers telling me that’s the road I need to travel.  And suddenly it hit me.  WHAT IS GOING ON HERE? WHAT AM I DOING HERE?  I wander back from my alternate reality time hop from childhood with the remembrance that it is my son’s 7th birthday and need to get it together.  Life bites.  Sometimes you break fancy things and have to clean up after your kids all day while the baby cries.  But I’ll try my best to put on some semblance of normal because you only get one 7 year old birthday. It was time to bust my rear to take care of the crap Mom chores.  And when that happy 7 year old comes home the day will be his.  Always, we begin again.