Multitude Monday

After spending an entire week focused on infertility, my brain has been having trouble grinding into gear, casting about for topics for the coming week—and in particular, a topic to anchor my Monday morning gratitude post. Do I focus on the conference we attended this weekend? On visits with friends and family? On the bizarre waking nightmare I experienced crossing the Missouri River, and can’t seem to shake off? On the choir that has become so central to our faith journey?

Late on a Sunday night, on the verge of sleep, I remember the afternoon I spent skipping through photo files to choose pictures to print and scrapbook. It was a job I hadn’t done in months, and the number of folders full of pictures was a little overwhelming. About halfway through the task, I overloaded with the sweetness, the simple, ordinary beauty of the moments captured—but most of all, the sheer volume of them. Wow, I thought. I really do have an amazing life!

The memory of that moment came flooding back to me, and I realized that it’s not about an eloquent monologue tying it all together. It’s about the moments themselves:

A bounty of adorable little girl clothes, given to us by a good friend

Alex to Julianna, as she comes upstairs for bath, still dressed in her pretty new clothes: “Hi, Miss Pretty!”

Alex’s adorable, infectious giggle, which soon spreads to all three children

Gradually building connections with other area DS families

A great conference weekend, full of ideas and networking to help us get Julianna talking and get a support group up and running in our own town

A chance for the kids to play with cousin, aunt and friends while we were concentrating on Down syndrome issues

The fact that the coats we left at my sister’s house can migrate home with my parents in only a week

Dinner at Denny’s, which inspires its own moments of cuteness

  

My sister’s suggestion for Julianna’s schooling, which cleared a long-standing haze of confusion

Fog-frosted trees in the darkness

Sunshine and melting snow before the next round moves in

A big home project to structure the time we expect to spend snowed in this week

And yes, the contemporary group, full of devout, devoted people called to share their gifts in the service of God and their fellow worshipers:

  

My husband’s hands on the piano

The opportunity and the responsibility of leadership, challenging me not to stagnate in my faith

Reconnection with a past choir member, who gets to join us for Julianna’s family birthday dinner–who can resist this kind of adorability? (Yes, she’s fascinated by facial hair)

Unposed, unplanned Kodak moments