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Yesterday I had an idea for a fun hand print craft for Halloween. In my mind the cute little hand print ghosts would form the “o’s” in BOO and my boys would happily cooperate to bring my vision to life.
That’s NOT what happened.
My older son’s hands are inexplicably larger than I anticipated and took up more room than planned. The baby does not share his brother’s enthusiasm for art projects and freaked out when I coated his hand in paint. He refused to hold still and smeared his hand print on the canvas several inches below where I wanted it.
My vision of happy memory making was crushed. I had one kid crying and the other telling me just how bad the little one messed up the picture.
After cleaning the boys’ hands I stared at our awkward, smeared project. I thought about just painting over it and trying again.
Then a thought hit me. LIFE is NOT Pinterest perfect. Life with my two small boys is often messy. There’s a lot of smeared hand prints to clean up. Toys are dumped. Laundry piles up in a seemingly endless attempt to surpass Everest. Toilets cry out to be bleached.
And yet…
There is so much BEAUTY in this life we live:
- The giggles of the baby as big brother chases him
- The joy on my 3 year old’s face as he paints a picture for a friend
- The sweet snuggles of an *almost* asleep baby tucked perfectly under my chin
- The heavenly smell of freshly bathed baby head
I am surrounded by beauty in this life that is so perfectly imperfect. Our craft will not go viral on Pinterest for it’s incredible execution. But when I pull it out each fall I will be brought back to a time when little hands made big messes and left even bigger prints on my heart.
