There are so many different types of days, hours, and moments you can have as a parent. Sometimes bouncing around like a pin ball from the fun, exciting and new moments to the mundane, frustrating, and long moments. The fighting. The whining. The lost toys. The broken toys. These are the days that feel more like they lasted a week, with the disastrous looking house to support the feeling. And then you trip over the dumbest toy, yeah, that one, as you head up to bed. The toy that you never liked anyway. Who even plays with it? No one. That one.

Other times, we have these rare, soul-refilling beautiful moments. Rainbow moments. The pause time, hand over your chest, heart pounding, nearly exploding moments where you could just die of pure unprecedented happiness. The moments when you’re sitting there watching your children play, paint, dance, build, laugh, or just get along with each other and you feel like you’re watching the most genuine, perfect, and beautiful actors play in this movie happening right before your eyes. You think, “what did I do? These are my kids? This is my life?” Your eyes fill up, you could cry because you’re so overwhelmed and hyper aware of the rare beauty right there in front of your face. These fragile yet powerful little lives. Close enough for you to touch, so delicate yet so impressionable that you know you will remember these moments forever. And you have to imagine that these are the exact rainbow moments that you will crave someday when you’re older.

When I walked my kids home from school, I told them it was such a gorgeous day that we all had to play outside. I desperately needed to change the guinea pigs’ cage. I put the guinea pigs in a playhouse in the yard and the boys crowded in there with them until that got boring. They asked to build a fort with blankets in their tree house. “Yes, as long as you bring the blankets back inside,” I said. Then, my youngest began to cry and cry over wanting to play with a Spider-Man Lego guy of his brother’s. I lost all sense of patience and smart parenting skills. I kept telling him the same thing that didn’t seem to phase his frustrated tears. His brother came in to ask for a snack and made things better, thankfully.

We played outside as the sun began to set, which is the time of day that I have a love-hate relationship with. One of my boys begged me to get out the paints. I begrudgingly complied. I set up the canvas and the boys began painting. And then it happened. I exhaled and relaxed and watched them. One of my boys said, “The good thing about painting is you can cweate whatever you want when you’re painting.” So true. And despite my hesitancy in getting out the paints, the joy in his paint strokes in his rainbow painting made it all worthwhile. My husband brought Ben Rector music out and everybody started dancing. I sat watching for a few moments. I smiled at their enthusiasm and joy as they all tried new dance moves. Their energy. Their giggles. Their smiles. I had to join them. Afterall, they most likely inherited their goofy dance moves from me.

The crazy thing happened when time seems to pause and stand still, a rainbow moment, after the chaos, the rain, then came the beauty. The promise. The love overflowing. They’re my rainbow boys, constantly paving the way for these moments birthed out of their love and joy for life and the simple things, like dancing on the back porch. Thank God for these beautiful moments. Thank God for the honor, the responsibility and the privilege of being their mother.