ABBA's Waterloo

I grew up listening to ABBA, so when I discovered that the London Philharmonic Orchestra put together a symphonic version of some of ABBA's better known songs, I had to have it. Buddy has discovered this CD and it's his current favorite. He's never heard the original songs. He just likes to karate dance to the beat. Anyway, we've been listening to it a lot lately. One of ABBA's songs, Waterloo, compares a romantic relationship to Napoleon's surrender at Waterloo:

Waterloo
Couldn't escape if I wanted to
Waterloo
Knowing my fate is to be with you
Waterloo
Finally facing my Waterloo

I feel now, more than ever, that this mom thing for me is about surrender. It's about finding joy/peace/good in the things that I can't change...things that would normally drive me batty. There will never be a perfect day, so I can't make that my measure of happiness. There are, however, perfect moments. Perfect snippets embedded in the chaos and difficulty of regular life. When I'm fighting the difficulty of regular life, wishing life were somehow different, I miss those snippets of perfection.

For example, there's our car ride home from the airport yesterday. Alice was sobbing, Robert was grouching a bit, Matthew was noisily fighting sleep, and James was singing a rejoicing song about the last of his chocolate milk. Like it says in the ABBA song, I couldn't escape that car if I wanted to, but I knew my fate was to be with these people indefinitely, warts and all. I consciously stopped fighting the situation. My mounting irritation/impatience dissolved and James' chocolate milk joy was suddenly infectious. Bobby and I laughed out loud. We appreciated this funny little kid celebrating happiness in his own way.

There was peace in the surrender.