Sweaters and Rabbits

Today was a beautiful spring day. The sky was bright blue and cloudless, and the temperature was perfect. The kids had their good and bad moments today, but the time we spent outside playing baseball while admiring the flowers and little buds appearing in our vegetable garden helped those bad moments to fade…

…until bedtime. As the day came to a close, my level of fatigue rose, and my patience level dropped dramatically. Knowing that Matt wouldn’t be home to help with the bedtime routine made the day seem that much longer, added to the fact that the kids seem to unravel after 5:00 p.m. No one was listening, and I was tired of going up and down the stairs, corralling the kids back into their rooms. How I miss the safety gates that were screwed into the walls prior to putting the house on the market!

I felt helpless as I was nursing Chloe in her room, trying to settle her into bed. I knew every minute I spent in her room was one more minute that a sly child could sneak downstairs for Easter candy. There was one of me, and three of them–what could I do?

As I prayed with Caleb and Hannah Grace in their respective rooms tonight, I felt burdened and fought back tears. Why couldn’t I make my children obey? Why did I struggle–even my ‘fun’ clean-up games failed–repeatedly when others seemed to triumph?

Caleb finally calmed down and was reading on the floor in his room, so I propped myself against the wall across from Hannah Grace’s room. I knew she would try to escape many times. As she took a nap this afternoon, I didn’t expect her to actually fall asleep before 10:00. True to form, she made her appearance in the hallway a half-dozen times or so, and I, as patiently as I could, redirected her to bed.

The last few times she came out of her room, she requested that I go rest in my own bedroom. I assured her I would as soon as she stayed in her room. That answer did not satisfy her.

A few minutes later, this little two-year-old appeared in the door frame with a heavy, crocheted sweater buttoned up to her neck, her strawberry-blonde hair falling in her face.

“Mommy, you make my feelings,” she stated matter-of-factly.

I had no idea what she meant. Many times she had told me that I hurt her feelings, typically when she was in trouble, but she had never said this particular phrase before.

“Hannah Grace, I don’t know what that means,” I answered.

With a straight face, and without missing a beat, she replied, “I don’t like rabbits. Because you make my feelings; that’s why you need to go in your room.”

I immediately started to giggle. What in the world was she saying?! And at that moment, I realized she didn’t have a clue. Her brother and she were little and probably had as much an idea of why they did the things they did as I.

In that moment, through her cryptic message, I had a moment of clarity. The good of the day, the accomplishment of beds (finally) being made by all, sweet moments when the kids all played nicely together, baseball outside in the warm sun, was still there. And tomorrow would be another day full of more good, and probably a little bad, too, because, after all, there are three of them and one of me.

I pulled Hannah Grace to me, and we snuggled together down on the floor in the hallway. And as we lay quiet, together we drifted off to sleep.

Ten Indications that Your Husband is Away on Business for the Week

10. 15 minutes after stumbling out of bed, you catch your son sucking down Infant Tylenol–you know, the one with the child-proof cap.

9. You run down the stairs dressed but in bedroom slippers with your make-up half done in order to take out the trash, hoping to catch the garbage truck as it loops back around–a job your husband normally does when he is in town.

8. When you come back inside, you find that your daughter has the other half of your make-up on her face…and the new carpet.

7. Before the day is half over, you already are searching for the Superglue to fix the first broken object of the day.

6. None of the three children takes a nap today.

5. You get to clean pee off the kitchen counter (yes, you just read ‘pee’ and ‘kitchen counter’ in the same sentence).

4. You discover you CAN remove red permanent marker from the inside of a white cabinet if you scrub with all the fury you can muster from inside your worn-down soul.

3. You utter a prayer to God asking Him to help you find patience and be a better mother at least two times more than you do on a typical day.

2. Your baby runs a fever and clings to your legs all day, as you are pretty sure she picked this particular week to start teething again on purpose.

1. At the end of the night, your blood pressure is 2138/2078.

1 day down, 4 more to go….

For more top ten lists, visit oh amanda and her weekly top ten lists where I have ‘linked up’ this week! Thanks to thegypsymama for letting me in on the fun!

The Written Word

As I was signing my sister’s birthday card today, I couldn’t help but notice how sloppy my handwriting looked. “What happened?” I thought. My papers in school used to cover the classroom as examples of exemplary writing. Now, I wasn’t impressed.

I have never been one to get excited about computers. Technology scares me–the moment I try to do something by using the device that is supposed to make my life easier, I end up taking four days longer than I should’ve. And crying is normally involved. Therefore, I have no problem blaming my reliance on computers for the deterioration of my handwriting.

On any given day, I can count on the fact that I will type away on the computer, but I don’t always write. What saddens me most about this fact is that I feel like I am slowly losing a part of myself as the control of my handwriting slips away. Actually writing with a pen to the paper doesn’t seem as natural as it once did. The thought of writing this blog post instead of typing it causes my hand to hurt, yet, until my sophomore year in college when this method was no longer practical, I used to write all of my term papers, edit them, and then type as a final step–my papers were better that way. There was some sort of connection from my brain through the pen to the paper; that thinking connection helped me write. And now I’m losing that part of me from lack of use.

While I’m not normally a pack-rat, I have trouble throwing away cards from relatives. When I stare at their cards, I am looking at a part of them. Each person’s unique handwriting identifies him or her right away, and I instantly feel a warmth knowing I’m reading a card from my Nana who had a stroke, each round letter betraying this dignified woman, shouting that her hand was shaking the whole time she wrote. Yet she filled the bottom half of the card for me, anyway.

Or my mother. Neat and tidy, and full of thought, every letter exudes the care she takes in everything she does. Her family is never far from her thoughts, and the pen never far from the paper. Equally distinct is my father’s handwriting, a little messy, but definitely not careless. While most words will end in a joke, my father is not void of true emotion that he is willing to share, his words on the page not small and insecure but plain to see (albeit not always clear to see).

And then there are the small letters that cause my heart to flutter every time I rediscover them. Quiet and controlled, they represent the solid man that has blessed my life for almost ten years. The handwriting doesn’t shout at me, yet I’d recognize those words from a mile away.

Whether the card be from the slightly scattered-brained aunt with good intentions or my mother-in-law with a joyful heart, I can identify the author right away by the pattern of ink on the paper. I find comfort knowing that only a pen separated them from me, that I always have a part of them that is tangible, in front of me.

Many times I think of my children looking back on the writings from my blog. I hope they’ll see my heart and know that my life was for them and any frustrations were that I couldn’t be more. I want them to laugh and cry and experience a little of me through my writing, letting them in on any part of me they didn’t already know. Yet sometimes I feel like they won’t see all of me.

Looking at a sterile piece of typed paper, they won’t see the emotion in my letters or know that my hand directly crafted the words in front of them. They won’t see all of me, the scribbles and corrections, the quick-edits and new ideas that would be visible in a handwritten piece.

And so, as I type, I yearn a little to feel the pen in my hand, to get reacquainted. Call me old-fashioned, but I’m not ready to lose that part of me, yet.

What You See is What You Get

Women have told me that they enjoy my blog because they feel better after reading one of my posts. At first, I felt flattered by the compliments; perhaps I offered a perspective that helped women get through their day. Then the realization hit me: I make people feel better because when they read about me, they see they aren’t doing so bad!

I started blogging last May, shortly after the birth of my daughter. She was my third child in three years. I wish I could say that I’ve handled motherhood with grace, but I’ve had more than a few stumbles along the way.

I know it’s hard to believe those sweet faces could ever make me lose my mind, but keep reading my blog, and I’ll make you a believer!

My blog has been my place where I can think. I think through my writing, and typically, I leave each post with a clear head. When I doubt my abilities as a mother, a wife, or a child of God, I work through my insecurities here. Some of my posts are serious; some are downright silly. Sometimes I let my mind wander to a future place, and the result has been short stories about “The Crazy Old Bat.” Whatever I write is absent of any pretense–I started this blog for me and see no point in writing lies to make myself feel better. My hope is that my journey can help you in yours, as well.

If you are visiting from Ultimate Blog Party 2010, I’m glad you’re here! I hope you stick around and peruse some of my previous posts. For those who currently read my blog, if you are interested in finding other wonderful blogs to follow, check out the Ultimate Blog Party at 5MinutesforMom.

Reasons You Will Not Win Mother-of-the-Year

10. For the second year in a row, you promised to dye Easter eggs with your kids and didn’t get to it. In order to make up for this failing, you sat your two oldest kids in front of The Ten Commandments at 9:00 P.M. while you boiled some eggs. Your kids are 4 and 2 -1/2.

9. Your daughter actually DID throw up from eating too much candy on Easter.

8. After throwing up, she then drove her brother’s Power Wheel into his groin.

7. Forgetting that your children didn’t actually eat their Easter lunch, you did not make dinner. After all, you weren’t hungry, but you hadn’t thrown up Easter candy, either.

6. You were awoken at 6:00 A.M. by your husband who wanted to show you that a food thief had left the refrigerator open and ham, asparagus, a gallon of milk, and a block of cheese on the floor. Also at the scene of the crime–the identical pink snuggly with which your daughter sleeps. Maybe if you made dinner the night before, your two-year-old wouldn’t have raided the refrigerator in the middle of the night.

5. You didn’t serve your children breakfast until 10:45 A.M.

4. At some point in the morning, your daughter calls, “Mommy, can you help me get off the table?” At that moment, you realize that your two-year-old has been sitting on the table for a majority of ‘brunch.’

3. Your attempts to get your son to put down the lid to the toilet and flush have failed.

2. Your baby was playing with toilet paper in the toilet. See previous statement.

1. Your daughter, who has been potty-trained for months but strong-willed for longer peed on you as you pick her up to take her to the potty. She then exclaimed, “Peeing is fun!!!”

Alternate titles for this post:

“Reasons You Should Not Host Large Gatherings at Your Home”

“Reasons You Should Take Your Weekend Away from the Family Soon”

Admiring the Weeds

The other day as I was driving along in my minivan, I passed a hillside covered in dainty purple flowers. I thought to myself how beautiful they looked and smiled as I welcomed the warm spring weather that had recently made an appearance. As I continued to drive by the hill, I realized my mistake; these pretty splashes of purple on the hill were not flowers but weeds.

I have been attracted to weeds before. I loved dandelions as a child. In one of my favorite pictures of myself, I am playing in a field of dandelions, bending down trying to smell one. I used to love when they were no longer bright yellow globes but instead puffy, white cotton balls that I could blow all over the yard. Little did I know at the time, but I was spreading weeds all over the grass, weeds that would cover the lawn if left unattended.

All I knew was that they looked pretty. I was attracted and, yet, deceived by the dandelion, believing I was enjoying a beautiful flower when in fact I was playing with nothing more than a damaging weed.

When I drove by the purple weeds the other day, I couldn’t help but think how sin is very much like those weeds–seemingly beautiful, yet deceitful. How often have I chosen to do something because it seemed right, harmless, even beautiful to find out later that I was allowing the seeds of sin to spread within me! Just as I was attracted to the dandelions as a child, there are certain sins that are able to draw me in, and left unchecked, they could overtake me.

As Good Friday comes to a close, I think of my Savior who hung on a cross on a hill, possibly covered with weeds of its own. I thank Him for His sacrifice, a sacrifice that allows me to see the dandelions for what they really are. I thank Him for His sacrifice, a sacrifice that plucks the weeds from my heart and draws me to His.

The Sabbath Surprise

I don’t know why, but I’m often surprised when my parents are right. If I’m in a cranky mood and complaining about a problem, I hate it when my mom tells me the remedy–my problem is too complicated, and she can’t possibly know how to fix it. But sure enough, she DOES know how to fix it! Whether the problem be sickness, stains, or food, Mom seems to know the answer. My dad doesn’t offer advice quite as much as my mom, but when asked, he always has a suggestion for whatever financial difficulty I bring to him. Between the two of them, they are a wealth of knowledge and experience, and the advice they offer is offered clearly to benefit me and for no other reason.

Likewise, my heavenly Father has given me tons of advice, and for some strange reason, I’m always a little surprised when He is right. Now since He is God, I don’t doubt that He knows the answer; I just haven’t taken some pieces of advice as seriously as others.

For years, I have grown up knowing that God commanded we keep the Sabbath holy. He rested after six days of creation, and likewise, we are supposed to take one day a week to rest. However, I never really understood this command. I thought keeping the Sabbath day holy merely meant going to church, and my family always fulfilled this command. Whether we were at home or on vacation, we didn’t miss Mass.

As I grew in my faith and knowledge of the Bible, I began to understand that those I read about in the Old Testament followed burdensome, strict laws concerning what they could and couldn’t do during the Sabbath, one reason Jesus rocked the boat so often when He came on the scene. Therefore, my view of the Sabbath changed; I realized that back then people weren’t supposed to work, but they were legalistic. I could do homework or chores or whatever I needed to do, as long as I went to church.

Within the last year, I revisited this idea of the Sabbath. A friend had mentioned to me that her pastor gave a sermon explaining the importance for everyone to take a true day of rest, no matter what day of the week that day may occur. After talking to her, I decided that I, too, would take a true Sabbath. The problem was that I could never decide on the day–sometimes it was Saturday, sometimes it was Sunday, and the day seemed to be dependent on everyone else’s plans. The truth of the matter is that I didn’t do the preparation necessary to have my Sabbath day of rest.

A few Sundays ago, my pastor gave a sermon on the Sabbath, and I knew I needed finally to obey God. God didn’t give me this command so that I would have one more rule to follow; He gave this command as a blessing to me. I work hard all day long, all week, and normally, by the end of the week, I’m ready to hurt someone. By resting, giving up laundry and other housework for a day, I’m enjoying my family. I’m remembering why I cherish my husband and adore my children. I’m approaching God with a renewed state of mind, ready to worship, when I go to church. And I approach Monday, fresh, ready to begin again.

Matt and I agreed that we would take our Sunday Sabbaths seriously, and we’ve had to prepare in order to do so. Sometimes I’m up late Friday night cleaning bathrooms, and on Saturday Matt and I work hard, but when we go to bed Saturday night, we can smile. We know we are waking up for church and then a true day of rest with the family. We make pancakes for brunch, and we do whatever is pleasing to us that day. I’ve made bread the last three weeks, something that under a legalistic understanding of the Sabbath wouldn’t be allowed, but a task I allow myself to do because I enjoy it.

Sundays had never excited me before because it had always been a day just like the other six. Now, I yearn for my Sundays. And at 30 years old, I find that I’m slightly surprised at how right my heavenly parent is.

Enjoying the New Carpet

4 spit-up spots

3 pee-pee accidents

2 poop stains

1 pink silver polish incident

10 reasons why we should not have gotten new carpet!

Of course, Matt and I knew what we were getting into, and in fact, always said that we would NOT get new carpet until all of our children were housebroken. However, when we decided to put our house on the market during this terrible housing crisis, we knew our only chance to sell without giving our house away would require our house to look as close to perfect as possible.

And our old carpet was anything but close to perfect. We can’t take sole responsibility for it’s condition–the carpet was original to the home, and the home is 13 years old. I will say that we did more than our fair share to speed up it’s deterioration in the last three-and-a-half years that we have lived here!

When I was scrubbing out the pink stain from the silver polish that my two-year-old so lovingly spread onto the carpet (this polish only appeared after getting the new carpet, of course), I began to cry. That evening, I had a nightmare that I was having a party with a group of women that I didn’t know, and someone spilled salsa on the new carpet. One of the ladies curtly spoke, “We couldn’t get the stain out.” A huge pinkish red circle tarnished the beautiful carpet. A few nights later, I had another bad dream, and one more involving marker all over the walls and furniture followed.

So a couple days ago, when I was cleaning spit-up out of the carpet, I thought to myself, “I wish I had my nasty carpet back. This stress is not worth it! This house better sell fast!”

A few minutes later, there was no evidence of the spit-up, just as the previous poop, pee, and silver polish stains vanished before it, and I scolded myself. How could I even think that I wanted my old carpet back? It was disgusting, and I had always looked forward to the day when my children would choose the commode over the carpet to relieve themselves so that we could live in a house that didn’t look yucky.

I realized that I did a lot of looking forward and not enough looking around.

When I was younger, I couldn’t wait to get out of college and get a job. Then I couldn’t wait to get married. Once married, I would wonder how life would change with children. When I had my two-year-old, I looked forward to retirement, and then when he hit three, I changed my mind and looked forward to him starting school so I could have a little break during the day. Then his sister turned two, and his other sister was born, and I looked forward to Matt’s retirement again. How fun to enjoy marriage without kids and travel the world!

Right now I look forward to moving to Alpharetta and lessening Matt’s commute so that we can enjoy more time as a family. A husband home earlier in the evenings to help with the children means a wife with fewer gray hairs! And, of course, to make all of this happen, I have to keep the carpet spotless!

Except I don’t know that we’re moving to Alpharetta. God never promised me that everything I plan will happen as I hope. In fact, He hasn’t promised me tomorrow: “Now listen, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.’ Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes” (James 4:13-14).

If it is God’s will, we will move to Alpharetta, but if it’s not, we better figure out fast how to make more family time with the time we have. I better smother my two-year-old every day with hugs and kisses because when she’s 22, I might not see very much of her when she starts her first career. I better find a way to treasure the stains on the carpet because they are a reminder that I’m blessed with healthy, rambunctious little children.

I better enjoy my new carpet. If we don’t move, I know very well that the carpet won’t look this pretty in a year, and it will be a looooong time before we buy any more. And I better not lose any more sleep over it; there are far more important things in life than stainless floor coverings.

Cleaning House

My struggle to get the house ready to put on the market illuminated a fact already well-known to me: I’m not a good homemaker. I want to be and know what I would need to do in order to win the approval of Martha Stewart, but it’s not going to happen. As much as I’d love to make scrubbing the baseboards in my home a regular chore, doing the dishes, throwing in a load of laundry, and taking a shower at night (if I don’t take it at night, there is no guarantee I’ll get one at all) is normally all I can accomplish before I go to bed.

My failings as a domestic goddess were already known to me before this process began. The depth of my failing, however, was quite the surprise. The more I cleaned, the more I discovered needed to be cleaned, and the absolute grotesque nature of some of these areas needing a good cleaning completely overwhelmed me.

I started to doubt my ability as a mother. What was I doing when my children splattered some kind of sauce all over the blinds? And more importantly, why had I never noticed this sauce that was splattered all over the blinds?! I did notice that it was not fun to try to remove….

Into the playroom for even more surprises! Crayon all over one wall, crayon on another, did my children ever use paper? And, again, how did I not notice this crayon?! Our walls are a dark color (thank goodness) camouflaging some of my kids’ most brilliant work, so I probably didn’t pause long enough to see what was really on the surface….

Maybe the gazillion toys before they were neatly organized in matching bins distracted me from the horrific gunk that I found on the blinds in this room, as well. What is it with my kids and the blinds? And what was that gunk?! Seriously, I do not know. It was gross and gooey, and I have no idea what it was. Although this post might lead you to believe otherwise, I am not a total slob. My kids are supposed to eat at the kitchen table, and I do not allow food fights, so how this sticky resin-looking substance ended up on my blinds, I do not know. All I know is that I had planned to smooth away some dust with a rag and instead had to scrub with all my might.

Even the den, an area of the house that saw regular attention, was a disappointment. Marks on the wall that I hadn’t noticed, dusty blinds (no gunk, amazingly), scuffed baseboards–no room passed the inspection.

When it was all over, it hit me: I will never be finished. The baseboards I cleaned a week ago looked dingy again. My heart sank a little.

And then another realization hit me: If I clean it now before the other areas of the house start to go, I won’t have to do them all at once again. And so I have tried to stay up on these tasks that I neglected previously.

I won’t say it’s easy–I still have three kids, and they still consume almost all of my waking moments–but starting fresh and maintaining rather than doing a major cleaning overhaul is a lot easier.

One final thought, more important than all those related to my home, hit me: “Your house looks great, but what about inside you? How are you doing?” For the next few days, I began to ponder this thought, and I realized I wasn’t the best housekeeper inside, either. I had neglected some areas of my spiritual life, and the fine layer of dust had become a little thicker, requiring more attention to wipe clean. Then there was one area of which I was so proud; I knew I had done so well in the past, and I rested on my laurels over time. It wasn’t until I gave myself a good look that I discovered the nasty gunk marring this area of my life, as well.

Perhaps all the distractions in my day had kept me from noticing what I was really like, much like the distractions in the playroom kept me from noticing the writing on the wall. Maybe I was so focused on eventually getting to the dusting that never got done in my struggling areas, that I didn’t keep up the one area that started out looking pretty good. It, too, began to look dingy from neglect.

So, in the spirit of spring cleaning, I gave myself a good inspection, going from room to room, dusting where I needed to dust, removing cobwebs, and hosing down with soap and water, when needed. And if I learned my lesson well, I will spend more time maintaining day-by-day, which is much easier in the long-run than cleaning gooey crap off the blinds.

How Am I Going to Pull This Off?

I purposely haven’t written a blog in quite a while. For the last few weeks, we have been furiously packing, cleaning, organizing–you name it–in order to get our house ready to put on the market. Every spare minute I had I devoted to this house, and I’m exhausted. I have a blog brewing in my mind to share at another time uncovering all that I discovered during this process, but for now, I’m going to write a short blog about why I had doubts this week about my ability to keep up the appearance of a neat and tidy home. For the past week, every day displayed one of my shortcomings. If I struggle in normal life, what will the next few months look like while our house is up for sale?! I shudder to imagine!

When I grabbed Caleb’s laundry hamper to wash his clothes, he asked, “Why are you taking my basket now? It’s not full to the top!” DOMESTIC FAILURE!

While helping Matt sort through papers in the garage, I noticed a stack of papers from my second period Language Arts class that I still hadn’t graded. The last time I taught a class of students was two years ago. TEACHING FAILURE/ORGANIZATIONAL FAILURE!

The other night, I began making dinner as I do every night. Matt and I had chosen a recipe from a magazine earlier in the week. As I was rolling up these fancy flatbread sandwiches, I kept thinking to myself that they seemed different than I imagined. After dinner, Matt pointed out that I made a completely different dish than the one we picked out–somehow I didn’t notice that roll-up sandwiches and quesadillas are not the same thing. MENTAL FAILURE!

While making dinner another night than the above mentioned dinner, I heard my two-year-old encouraging my nine-month-old, “You can do it, Chloe! Keep climbing up the stairs!” She was one step from the top when I got her. PARENTING FAILURE!

While making this same dinner, I discovered my two-year-old sneaking into the refrigerator and downing a bottle of raspberry pecan salad dressing. PARENTING FAILURE/DIETARY FAILURE!

This darned dinner that I was making had a total preparation and cooking time of about thirty minutes. I finished in two hours. TIME MANAGEMENT FAILURE!

Oh, well. If I were perfect, I wouldn’t have any topics for my blog, I guess….