My life is filled with ordinary life stuff. Like many people, I work full time, I have children full time, I do more in a week than I generally want to, and sleep way too little. I’m not proud of this, I just haven’t mastered the art of doing it differently. Maybe someday.

We are tired this week – things have been I suppose a bit busier than usual, and there’s this last (I hope) big wave of winter before spring arrives finally. We’re all cranky. The cats are underfoot and snarling at each other (mostly the big one at the baby one) because who wants to be inside anymore, and outside is still cold, damp, icy and unappealing.

And my teen, who is largely pretty solid these days, has  been melting a bit.  My ability to cope well with this at the end of the day varies widely depending on how rested and solid I’m feeling – not much these days.

But somehow, in that tired, too late and we should all be in bed already mid-week moment, I was able to pull it out. And we all ended up in her room, me telling stories of my youth (she knows most of them already, the little one hasn’t heard them all yet), and in particular, the one where my cousins and my brother and I were playing funeral, because we had a record of dreary ballet music that worked so well for this. And my brother, the “deceased” fell asleep face down on the bed (why was he face down?) and we thought he really died and scared the daylights out of my mom and aunt, innocent to our antics and having coffee in the kitchen.

And the little one laughed so hard that she shook, and the big one smiled and asked for stories about the things that sucked for me when I was her age. Because puberty and being a teenager really sucks sometimes, when everything is changing, and you begin to lose the stuff of childhood, but haven’t gained adulthood yet. I remember this so well. She is so much braver, tougher, and more confident than I was at that age, that I can easily forget that this time can be hard on her. That was a very lost and lonely time for me, and I can’t think of much of anything from then I’d repeat. So it’s good to remember where she is now, even when she seems strong.

And last night, she voluntarily came into the kitchen and we made dinner together, something she hasn’t done without serious prodding in ages.  And we laughed and talked about what is important in her world these days.

My life is ordinary, but filled with these beautiful rich, ordinary moments. Moments I’m likely to forget, as time goes by.  But moments I know are absolutely precious and to me, extraordinary.