Yesterday my house was full. Today every dish and utensil in my kitchen is dirty. And it makes me happy.

Yesterday morning everything was clean and in its place, but then my niece was hungry. I handed her a muffin mix and showed her where the measuring cups were. We dirtied up another pot making jigglers. The kids decided we’d need dessert later, so we made a cake, which we wound up eating as an appetizer before dinner because I couldn’t think of a single reason why that was a bad idea. Later my husband prepared meat for smoking, I chopped veggies to roast, and my sister-in-law mixed up some cornbread. And we ate. And we were together.

The guys watched football, the kids were in and out of the pool well past dark, and the moms left the dishes in favor of sitting on the back porch where we said all the words we’d saved for each other all week. And we were together.

I went to bed last night with pool hair and a happy heart. This morning I sat in church with my husband and a wiggly preschooler who put her dollar bill for the offering plate in her mouth and then blamed it on her allergies. (Eww) And we were together.

When we came home we were greeted by mounds of dirty dishes and instead of tackling them, I served sandwiches on napkins and we ate potato chips straight from the bag. And we were together.

And now I’ll leave those dishes a bit longer so I can nap with my tired kiddo while my husband mans the fantasy football command center that is our living room on Sunday afternoons. And I wouldn’t have it any other way, because we are together.

For more stories about standing happily in the awkward middle of life, love, and parenting, follow Happy Like This by Mandy McCarty Harris.