One quote from Joan Didion’s “Blue Nights,” from a passage recounting her daughter’s illness and passing, has stayed with me ever since:

“We wished them happiness, we wished them health, we wished them love and luck and beautiful children. On that wedding day, July 26, 2003, we could see no reason to think that such ordinary blessings would not come their way. Do notice: We still counted happiness and health and love and luck and beautiful children as “ordinary blessings.”

Motherhood can feel like one long procession of the ordinary: waking night after night to help a little child, lulling, assuaging, making spaghetti, helping wash their hands, combing hair, reading book after book, standing by playground structures, reminding kids to use good manners, answering endless questions, driving them places, brushing teeth, sitting together in awed contemplation of life’s mysteries, and folding laundry.

Then I became a homeschooling mom: reading several books at once, teaching long division, reading book lists at 2 am next to my sleeping husband, listening to podcasts about education, supervising science experiments, teaching my littlest letters and numbers, gathering art supplies, cleaning up after art has been made, driving to extracurriculars and park days and field trips, poems over breakfast, discussions over lunch, leaving the library with giant bags full of books.

Didion reminds me that my ordinary blessings are tremendous gifts. As the end of another homeschool year approaches, I am so grateful. A mama with a few decades of homeschooling experience told me that I might expect one or two perfect days in a homeschool year. Some good days. Many ordinary days. Some bad days. God blessed me with many good days and many ordinary days. What more can I ask?