My Most Recent Triumph

Do your kids ever find themselves at some function or event at which they end up with a name tag sticker on the back of their shirt (thankyouverymuch, highsecuritychildrenswing@mychurch)?  And then you thoughtlessly toss the shirt or super cute dress into the washing machine?  Suddenly, the tiny homemaker joy of a clean load of laundry – fresh from the dryer – is turned into a petite homemaker panic attack because the laundry has reproduced in a span of one load.  Now you’ll have to take care of it, and it’s not going to be any easy task because the gooey sticky stuff is almost impossible to remove.

This happened to me just last week.  It was on a piece of nice Sunday finery and I only noticed it after I had taken the item from the laundry room and was about to hang it in the kids’ closet.  Deciding that I’d remember to tend to it, I hung it up any way.  And left it.  It nagged me anytime I looked in the direction of the closet door, because even I know that I’ll never get to it.

But last week was different.  Last week I took that cute little vest out of the closet and actually got the mess cleaned off with almost no real effort.  I stood there in the laundry room and had a real moment of joy, pride, and sincere elation.  My deep sigh of satisfaction was met with the hum of the dryer and the kids fighting in the next room.

It made me think of all those moments of honest to goodness triumph that us homemakers have in a day and I wanted to take a minute to give you all a shout out for the stuff that goes unnoticed and unappreciated.  Hat’s off to you girls who clean that area behind the toilet, who gather all the unused hangers from the closet, who keep a running list of socks without mates,  who know the trick to using hand dish soap in the dishwasher, who have an inner clock that alerts you to the rinse cycle.   It is a tough job and our biggest triumphs are often tiny.  Cheers to you and I hope you have a FANTASTIC day at work!