Pictures are deceiving

     I have a love/hate relationship with social media. I enjoy keeping up with my friends on the other side of the world. I like seeing pictures of my cousin and her kids who are too far to visit more than once a year. My heart is warmed every time I see a need shared and a community overwhelmingly respond.

         See, those are all great things, and I try to remember those when I’m so mad I could spit.   Do you remember in “Meet the Mitchell’s” where I said I have a low tolerance for insincerity and dishonesty? Well, I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not, but a lot of the content people post or share can easily fall into one of those two categories.   

         For example, the mom who posts a picture looking into the back yard as she watches her kids play, while casually displaying both her lemonade and her perfectly pedicured toes. Whereas, I am sure the picture is accurate from one perspective, but what is not seen are last night’s dinner dishes on the table behind her, or the t-shirt she has on is covered in spit up, crackers, and someone else’s snot, or her unwashed hair, in a messy bun, and dark circles under her eyes. But, if you were just innocently flipping through pictures on your news feed, you would assume that her life is so much more put together than your own.

 

           I try very hard to ignore such things and just move on with my life, however sometimes, it cannot be overlooked. You see, a few weeks ago was Easter, and all of my social media outlets were brimming with images of cross buns for breakfast, coordinated outfits, perfect smiles, and big ham dinners.  

        Ya, you may fool some of your digital friends, but I’m not one of them. I am willing to bet money that many of the mornings behind those pictures were similar to my own. Do you want to know what our Easter looked like?

Well I’ll tell you, but first, let me be clear: Easter is not about bunnies, eggs, new dresses, or ham dinners, and I am not trying to make light of how critical this celebration is. It is the celebration of the resurrection of our King, our Lord, and our Savior. The rest is just a bunch of things that our culture has put with it, and really, none of those things I mentioned are detrimental as long as we remember the true reason for our celebration (I may or may not be eating one of my kids’ Easter candies as I type).    

That being said, this is what our Easter looked like. It started like any other day around here does: everyone gets up and gets dressed. Sundays are a little different because I try to be a little more picky about church attire. By “picky” I mean I want the boys to wear something with a collar and “Duchess” to wear a dress without a grass stains on it. Then, it’s on to breakfast. “Thor” has hit the stage where he wants to feed himself, but he’s not real good at it yet. So, I spend a lot of time washing banana out of his hair and trying to figure out how he got Cheerios down the back of his shirt. Kid’s got talent.

         For the rest of the family, there were not hot rolls at our house, it was milk, cereal, and a little drama. “Batman” was upset because he only likes to eat out of the blue bowl and “Edison” had already claimed it. “Duchess” and “The General” had started fighting over who got to look at the back of the Raisin Bran box, knocking it over and spilling it all over the table. As it went down, it hit the box of Cheerios, spilling them all over the floor.  

 

Awesome.  

 

Now, I’m not going to spend time today explaining the chaos that is getting seven people from the door of our house into the waiting Yukon in the driveway. But, let’s just say it is noteworthy, and will probably be a post all in itself some day.

 

The ride to church was the normal mixture of:

 

“Mom, I’m hot.”

“Mom, can you turn up the music?”

“Mom, I’m cold.”

“Mom, how does sunlight make trees grow?”

“Can you turn the music down?”

“Mom do you have a drink? I’m thirsty.”

“Is today a Church Day?”

     We arrived at the church several minutes after our target time. Before the service started, I let “My Man” out at the front door so he can go join the rest of the deacons with their responsibilities. I then drove around the building, unloaded all five kids, and headed across the wet parking lot. At the door, we were greeted with a smile and goodie bags for my kids to enjoy during the service. Today was a “worship as a family” Sunday, so kids age three and up sit with their parents instead of having Children’s Church. I considered keeping all five with me, until I remembered that the deacon responsibilities were going to last the whole service which meant I was on my own. The next five minutes were spent checking the baby into the nursery, letting everyone get a drink from the water fountain, and then finding five seats together.   

      As the lights dim and the music starts, I internally congratulated myself that everyone was dressed, fed, generally happy, and we didn’t miss the start of the service,at this point, I was tempted to sit back and relax. But, while that was true, that we had gotten this far without major incident, and that in itself is impressive, it was, by far not the finish line of the day.   

 

     The first challenge came with the realization that the goodie bags everyone was given contained glow sticks and everyone had a different color glow stick. “The General” was not happy with his pretty purple one, but could not convince any of his siblings to switch with him.

     The second came when a child tugged on my sleeve and then showed me a handful of chewed up candy, also from the goodie bag, and asked if it was the kind of candy he could eat or he should just chew (there have been big discussions in our home over the last week about the difference between gum and candy). After affirming that, yes, he could eat that, and choosing to ignore the stickiness that was now all over him, he went happily back to his coloring, and I to listening to the sermon. “Duchess” laid on the floor and colored and did her word searches, and only had to be reminded to use her “whisper like a kitten” voice about a thousand times. “Batman” wanted to sit next to me or be held most of the service, and I was happy to comply, until he discovered that the most fun place, for him, to keep his glow stick was in my cleavage.   

Not cool, son. Not cool.

     I am confident we were both distracting and entertaining to everyone around us. But, soon enough the service ended, “My Man” showed back up, and soon we were loaded up and headed home. Somewhere between the parking lot and my driveway, I remember that I had not put our ham and sweet potatoes in the oven before we left, so there was no warm lunch waiting for us.  

Dang it.

     Hmm, well I guess we’ll have leftovers. As I looked around the table that day, at the warmed up hot dogs, and leftover baked beans I had feed my family for lunch, I felt a twinge of guilt and shame. I could have done better. I could have done more to provide my family with an Instagram-worthy lunch. I don’t think my mother would have ever served leftovers for Easter lunch.

       As the shame of it all started to weigh heavier on me, I caught myself. Yes, it’s true I could have done better, but the real goals of the day were met. I, together with my family, laughed around the dinner table; we spent time with those we love, we worshiped corporately with our church, and most importantly, we celebrated our risen Lord.

That’s all that matters.

Besides, Boston Baked Beans are better the second day anyway.