Grandpa Witt taught me an essential
lesson during his busy season: when
it is harvest time, you focus on the
harvest, not on the barn.
He was not in the barn organizing
shelves. He wasn’t sweeping the stable
floor eight times a day and rearranging
the hay in the loft. And he wasn’t
polishing the tractor’s attachments,
despite his love of his John Deeres.
He was putting his energy where he
needed to expend it: on the harvest.
He may have been busy, but his busy
was focused, rightly ordered.
His busy was for a set time and a
specific result.
My grandfather would not have said
yes to the kids if they wanted to go
to Disneyland during the harvest. He
would have told them no sleepovers,
no Chuck E. Cheese’s parties, no karate
lessons if he had to be the one to
shuttle them. Sometimes taking care of
the harvest means all the distractions
must be put on hold because that one
thing is more important.
24 • Solutions
I will never ever say that motherhood
lacks an element of busy, because I’ve
been constantly busy being a mom for
the past twenty-two years. We moms
are always busy doing, managing,
working, negotiating, cleaning, dealing,
and mothering. Whether we are toting
around multiple kids to numerous
events or handling the mess in the
garage or in the yard or in the laundry
room or picking up toys or washing
d i s h e s o r re a r r a n g i n g b o o k s o r
volunteering or cleaning or re-sorting
toys or using Solomon’s wisdom to
break up today’s important battle of
who gets the computer first, we are
there, creating order, making meals,
answering emails, trying to remember
to breathe, being told we should rest, all
while trying to exist on scant amounts
of sleep until busy starts again.
Out of breath? Yes, me too.
Motherhood is without question one of
the busiest times of life. We will always
have one more thing to do, one more
load to wash, one more closet to clean,
one more mirror to shine, one more
homework sheet to check. But there
are times when we need to remember
that we should be harvesting, not
maintaining.
Here is how busy is an excuse: it gives