Calm before the Storm

I would imagine there are different times of the day that have moments of peace for each family. For my little family of four kids and a wife that time is now. Dinner has been feed and Jurien and Genna are watching Wonder Pets in a living room that has all the couch cushions in all the wrong places. Both are only in underwear or a diaper, depending on which one you are talking about. My wife is just finishing up the dishes. The baby, Emmery, is walking every where with what ever she can carry in her hands. Tonight it is a rattle which gives mommy a warning when she is on her way down our hall. She has a habit of messing with the dishes mommy puts in the dishwasher thus making a simple chore a race to see who can move faster. :) Meghan is in her bedroom just being there. She prefers the quite to the hussle and bussle so common in the other part of the house. In about another 10 minutes Wonder Pets will be "proclaimed" over and we will begin tubing the kids and getting them preped for bed. Stories and scriptures will be read, songs will be sung and a prayer said. Why do kids not want to go to bed. I remember my parents always saying they would have loved someone to get them into bed and now I understand why at least a bit more.
What a great privlage it is to have a family and to be apart of one. Sure, if my wife and I did not have children our house would be cleaner, not so noisy, and our financial concerns might not be as demanding. I remember a quote from a poem that I do not remember off hand but one of the lines is... "Ships are safe in the harbor, but that is not what ships were built for". Those who are married could stay perpetually in the honeymoon stage of married life, only having to worry about each other life would seem a dream. On the other hand I know that much of the love I have for my wife has come from the joint struggles we both have gone through together that have come only because we have had children.