Perspective

Please excuse the carpet fuzz in my hair,
She needed me on her level.

Please excuse the “so last year” jeans,
Big pockets produce pacifier comforts.

Please excuse my best sweater’s spaghetti stains,
Biting a tongue is cured by hugs.

Please excuse my lingering outside the nursery door,
When I’m not there she fears I don’t exist.

Please excuse my un-kept hair,
She just had to run to see Daddy.

Please excuse these tears in my eyes,
Today they’re small, tomorrow is near.

-written 12/15/2010

We finished our journey through the Anne of Green Gables series. It took us ten months. And as I looked backward I realised how much had changed in those ten months. I stared out reading the series with a just-barely one year old in my hands and ended the series with an almost 5 month old and a toddler in bed nearby. Wild to think of the amount of change that happened in our world between chapters. Heck, if we went back today and met those people ten months ago we would find ourselves strangers.

I began thinking today as I listened to Tarzan in the background of Matt and my lunch date in the dining room once the kids were all in their rest places. I wondered how culture shocked adventurers, missionaries and explorers must feel in “visiting” the States, or even just cities. So often we city/suburb folks think of vacationing out to somewhere quiet and how de-stressing that thought would be – a place to avoid all the noise of being home. And yet between expeditions, adventures, or missions trips there must be the opposite affect. How some days I long for the quiet and then on those days I get the quiet I suddenly have no idea what to do. Funny how one can find themselves in both places and be such strangers.

My sister wrote a blog entry on her birthday about enjoying the thought of becoming older. I think she and I share the desire to have a greater usefulness of our lives for Jesus. And I think we also share the same “disillusions” that coming in age is not a bad thing. Apparently our culture feels hat wrinkles and gray hairs need to be masked – as if youth somehow holds the key to all understanding and knowledge. And I was wondering after reading Jes‘ post if when we are old we will be respected, or if our culture will have successfully written off the possibility that wisdom can indeed come from experience, even experience that shows itself in gray hairs. Nice to now that after 20-some-odd years Jes and I still think quite similarly and have not found ourselves to be strangers.

Rachael’s been sick for about a week. We missed church Sunday and were unable to attend again on Wednesday night. While I’m sure people are appreciate Rachael’s ability to be selfish with her cold when it comes to their toddlers sharing far too much, there is an odd sense of isolation in he quiet of this un-interrupted week. We usually find ourselves visiting with cousins, planning play dates with friends, and playing in the mall during any given week. But Rachael’s nasty coughing and fire-hydrant nose screams “run for your life” to all mothers and their children. And it’s funny how one week of shut-in can make me feel like we’re strangers.

In less strange news =) :

– Abi’s rolling over (occasionally)
– Abi’s trying new baby foods
– Abi’s enjoying being put down more = YAY!!!
– Rachael’s quite creative – sometimes to her detriment
– Rachael still says the funnies things with such sincerity of heart
– Rachael’s now sleeping in a toddler bed – the rail is officially gone off her crib.
– Matt’s busy with school but is looking forward to the last 2 weeks of school ahead
– Matt and I are going away for a night after Thanksgiving to just be the two of us w/o kids and we’re SO EXCITED.
– And well me… um…. yeah, I’m good. Really am. Just humming along here.

Oh and we’re starting reading the Chronicles of Narnia now before nap time. Yay fun!

– hope you’re doing well!

“It’s been a long time since you’ve last posted,” my husband says as we watch Sunday night football and he picks at a paper/plays on the computer.

Hold on, let me adjust this baby in my arms in order to stop typing with one finger.

When people say that no two children are the same, I couldn’t agree more.

So here’s my life lately, thus my reasons behind non-posts… day by day. Some days are crazy – like CRAZY – and some days are rest from crazy. And some days and moments are a good mix. But thus is the life of a mom of 2.5 kids (I have an honorary member for 6.5hrs/workday). Please, let me explain a minute…

Rachael is almost 2. No more explanation needed. And Abi wants held – 24/7. And at any given moment in time someone is either fussing or crying or making a nasty diaper or needing something of me. So when do I find my free time? (Oh wait, what’s free time?) Nap time. Sometimes, nap time.

And I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

You know, I’d like to share a piece of my heart for a moment – and please take this all in context. I love my children – even through their flaws. And that love comes at great cost. Please hear me out, I am not complaining, this motherhood is a choice, but it really is a hard one. I could spend my time working to put my kids in daycare and I’m sure they would turn out to be fairly decent kids. But coming home and being with them 24/7 was a sacrifice, but the right sacrifice.

I feel like all I ever talk about is my kids sometimes. But you must understand, that’s what I do right now in my life. I try hard not to dominate conversations and speak about stuff other than funny sayings, booger noses, and explosive diapers – but that is my world. You see, the most advanced conversation I get during the day is a quiet 5.5 y/o. Again, this is not complaining, I chose this and I am grateful for this – but this is just where I’m at.

And I’m not going to lie, there are moments and days in which I want to just put my kds ito someone’s arms and get away from the crying and the neediness. There are times that I don’t want to be a mom and if one more person asks me for one more thing I’m going to explode. And in those times I find myself on the porch swing, with an Anne of Green Gables book, and usually an Abi in my lap (because the kid won’t let me put her down despite my trying).

Matt and I have been going through much comfort-zone pushing. So many times I feel like we’re standing on the edge of life, about to fall into a huge adventure. And there are so many days that I feel like Matt is experiencing the adventure of the real world, and I am watching our kids.

There is so much that I want to do and be a part of and see and experience – and then two little ones look at me and have their list of requirements. And some things go back on the shelf for a later in life yet to come.

Do not pity me, please, I am not asking for your pity. I just invite you friends into my life.

Matt is a fantastic husband. Hear that loud and clear. Our church blesses us beyond measure. And I wouldn’t trade our little family for the world. But with the place that we’re at in life comes much sacrifice. I wonder how my mother felt raising Jes and I while Daddy was at work. She talks of having very few friends – if even any at all – and the financial restraints that they overcame. We were her world, I know it because I was there – and yet I wonder if there were times that she just wanted to be “out there” in the world.

It’s funny but staying at home with our kids makes you feel like you’re running your life in a different world than most. A 9-5 exists for everyone but you. And when Matt comes home and everyone is off from work, I want so much to spend family time together and raise our kids together that most days friendships occur at scheduled times maybe once/week.

Maybe I am just being welcomed to adulthood – maybe it’s more.

I don’t regret leaving work – like really how could I? I don’t miss the chaos of all the work and the feeling of swimming in created stress imposed upon me by unrealistic requirements (since my employments end my boss has resigned and no one has taken her place and according to past work friends – work is a TOTALLY different place and has changed for the better).
But what I do miss is the adult conversation. I miss feeling like I know anything about what’s going on outside of this house. I usually get relayed information, if it gets to me at all, and it’s funny how isolating a few kids can be to a 25y/o when most of her friends have either just gotten married or are engaged.

It’s odd to be the first to enter into their mid-thirties lifestyle while still 25. It’s so weird to be stranded in an age gap at our church – where my closest church friends have kids that are stock-piling our youth group. I am grateful for a friend in Ellen – and I’ve come to realise how i need her. Somehow being a mom of 2 kids at 25 isn’t as ridiculous and isolating with a 26y/o sister in law who’s mom of 3.

I wouldn’t trade these babies for the world – as little Abi coos at me from my lap. And while the pendulum can feel like it swings to great isolation some days, I find my peace in the other side’s company. I just want to be real in admitting where I am. Sometimes my greatest company is a fictional world in Anne of Green Gables, where the storyline can wait through my chaos for another porch swing moment to come – and then it picks up where it left off.

I need to get off of here, Abi’s announcing her urgent needs.

Just wanted to post something real – not that my other posts are not real.

Thanks for reading this, those of you that still are.

We’ve all experienced it… after a long and wonderful time you hit it…

The Wall.

Over the past month: Matt has started back at seminary, Summer has ended and school has started for Lexi (the child I watch), our Pastor has been out of the office due to a shoulder surgery so Matt has been “on call”, Matt has started and finished preaching his first sermon series, Rachael has started making a pattern of waking in the middle of the night and refusing to nap interspersedly, Abi has had many “grumpy” days where little satisfies her, I have been having headaches, our 3 year anniversary and 3 days of festivities ensued (including 2 late nights after Dave/Busters and King’s Island), and we stayed the weekend at my parent’s house with just me, the kids, and a favorite helper so Jes, Mom and I could sing a trio in church.

Yes, world, now that all this has happened we find ourselves at the foot of the wall…. in pieces….

So for the next few days I have vowed to just run the normal routine, normal nap/bedtimes, normal schedules. And I’m hoping by us getting back to normal Rachael will begin to sleep better, Abi will be less grumpy (and in turn all of us will be less grumpy), we’ll all sleep a bit better and my headaches may subside. With a few lock-down, nearly pajama days I feel the hope that normalcy will again find itself in our desiring company.

We have had our peaks and our valleys in this past month, but I wouldn’t trade it for the world… just happy to feel the embrace of a quiet house again. (Cue the breathing.)

Hope things are going well with you all…

– just another picture of the joy of Rachael’s world. –

It’s funny how much joy it brought to me to see Rachael running to me with an old favorite toy. She came to me to show me one of her favorite toys from when she was learning to crawl until walking. And for a 17 month old, any toy that makes the favorite list for a good 5 months is a big deal – that’s a good part of her life. This little toy sings a rhyming song about the animal that is face-up on the cube. It’s a completely fabric cube toy so it’s little baby-teething safe. Rachael loved it so much that Matt and I have the rhyming songs for each of the 6 sides memorized. We could practically sing them in our sleep.

But what means more to me than the cube is the memory of the smiles and animation that toy brought out of little Rachael. It was that same animation and excitement the small toddler had as she ran to me with the toy.

I remember that specific cube toy going on a trip with me to Dallas. I was nannying for a three year old and a 9 month old on their vacation. I had those same songs memorized since the cube was one of a handful of toys we had with us for a week. And when the news spread of my pregnancy with Rachael, the hand-me-down cube toy found it’s way to our home. How funny to think of the now 8 or so year old (once 3 y/o) and her younger brother who is 5 (once 9 months) – and since then there’s been another brother added to the family. It was just funny how Rachael running across the room to me with utter joy flashed all the memories through my mind at once. And now our little Abi will get the blessing of playing with the same cube of memories.