Gratitude

My heart has been bursting with thankfulness and gratitude lately.  I have been so richly blessed, especially in this season of my life.  


We closed on our very first house last Monday!  God made it all possible, truly.  The whole situation is threaded with His divinity, His plan for us.  We have been facing some big questions this year: where do our life, where to plant our roots-deeply, what jobs we are supposed to be doing, how we are to be serving and glorifying Him? You name the question and I swear we have asked it.  We asked for light to be shined on our path, for flashing neon lights to show us His plans, well He put a spotlight on this house.  There would have been no other time, no other place than this one right, right now, for all these details to fall into place and have this house become our home.  4-walls to call our own.  We are planting our roots deep down and can't wait to see the fruit that blossoms!


Our best friends finally brought there son home from Ethiopia, almost two weeks ago.  Their family is finally complete!  After traveling this long, hard road with them for what seems like a 100 years, the waiting is over and their son is home where he belongs.  We have been praying for this little boy since before he was born, asking God to set apart their son, to prepare his heart for his family and boy-oh-boy did He answer all prayers.  This little boy is amazing and precious and has the most wonderful giggles! He is faithful and miraculous! 


My sister and her husband moved over here to Illinois in February.  What a blessing, even though they live in the city! :)  Emily has been riding the train out every Wednesday, while Joe is at grad school, to hang out with the kiddos while I go to work.  I don't like to call it babysitting because it is more than that.  All 4 of them are getting to know each other in an awesome way and Emily is still the only one in the room when she is here, forget about me!  Not that, that is a bad thing but I want to talk with her too!  We are all fighting for her attention! Em and Joe came out this past Sunday to help us paint, if you need anyone to do detail work, those two are the ones to do it!  Emily and I are learning new things about each other and are navigating a new stage in our relationship, one that started out by blood and is now moving to friendship.  As Em told me, "there is something about knowing someone from birth," and there is, it is a building block for us as sisters and now friends.  I am enjoying getting to know her as who she is, instead of what she is.  


I am learning that I can't do it all by myself.  I try to, boy do I try.  I feel like we have been on our own for so long here, 8 years, since we have been in Illinois, that I am used to only relying on me, not letting other people help.  It is hard for me to let go, to let others help, without feeling like a burden.  My friend Kara, who has 2 kids of her own and another on the way, took our kids after church Sunday so that we (I should say Tim, since I was at work for the afternoon) could paint and work uninterrupted at the house.  When she brought them home, she also brought us a meal.  I can't tell you how thankful I was or how much that meal meant.  I love serving and helping others.  But when somebody just takes charge and says I am taking your kids and then brings you meal when they drop them off...WOW.  It was something so simple but left me feeling so loved and important.  Obviously I have a few self-worth issues, feeling like a good friend, a good person, someone that others can count on but this one act of grace, left me feeling like I must be some what of good person for someone to want to do that for me.  I am learning to let people in, to make new friendships, to take chances on others and I am finding out that I have something to offer others.  


My husband has been a rock star lately.  Working and then coming home and going to work at the new house, staying late to try and get lots done.  I know that he is exhausted but he just keeps plugging along.  The other night he asked me how I was doing with all of the house stuff because he knew it has been a dream of mine for a long time, to be able to paint my kids rooms, to have a home that is ours and only ours.  I know that a home is where your family is and that it doesn't matter if you own it or rent it or borrow it, that the feeling of home isn't dependent on 4 walls, like the fact that a church isn't a building but a people, home isn't a building, it is a family but I gotta tell you that there is something so wonderful of being able to call 4 walls a home instead of a house.  Thank you honey, for working so hard to help make one of my dreams come true.  Thank you for letting God be your God and for following Him and His path for us.  Thank you for being my home, my soft place to land.  Thank you for always putting our family ahead of your job, your dreams.  Thank you for being my partner and for always taking care of me.  


There is so much to be thankful for in our lives and right now, in this place, in this moment, I can't say thank you enough.  I am lifting up my heart, my gratitude, my thankfulness to my Lord and Savior.  Thank you for your blessings, no matter what form they come in, thank you for loving us so much that you sent your Son to die for us.  

Rain rain go away...come again another day...

  The last few weeks have past in multiple whirlwinds.  Each week seems to pack more into it then the week before.  I am left feeling like an empty shell.  My insides are empty and my outsides are starting to crack.  The funny thing is, I keep looking forward to the weekends, which seem busier than I ever remember them, and when Sunday night rolls around I am back wishing for the next weekend, anticipating a slowdown, which never materializes.  I am weary and bone-tired but somehow I can't seem to sleep or find the rest I need.

  Spring is supposed to bring renewal, refreshment but this year I don't feel the "rebirth".  Oh, I can see it in the rain, the boy's birthdays, the daffodils and the fatty robins that have taken up worm hunting in the backyard, but I am lost.  The rain continues, day after day.  The birthday's brought us the snotty 6 year old and the 2 year old who is putting the terrible into that old saying "the terrible two's".  The daffodils are weighed down by the rain, bent over so that their beauty is hard to see and the robins well, their chirping isn't so awesome around 5:30am.  I feel like I am moving through each day with the energy of a snail, wishing for someone else, my fairy godmother, to do all of my chores and errands.  To make an incredible dinner, something that makes me want to savor every bite.  To do all my laundry, wash, dry, fold and put it away.  To dust, vacuum and clean the toilets.

  I've felt lost for a long time.  Trying to figure out my purpose, my gifts, God's dreams for my life.  If feel like a compass missing the arrows, the part that is actually important and vital to making it do it's job, showing me the way.  And as I feel lost, I am afraid of actually knowing what my purpose is, what my gifts are and what God's dreams for my life are.  I  haven't asked God what his will, his dreams, for my life are.  Maybe I should do that, but I am scared, afraid of the answer.  Obviously one glaring purpose would be mom, mother, but I still fight against it.  I am good at fighting against it.  I am phenomenal at picking a fight with it, at lashing out at it.  Motherhood is the bane of my existence.  No one told me how hard, how trying, how frustrating it would be.  How on most days I will just want to throw in the towel.  Some months I embrace it, loving it and pouring my heart and soul into be a "great" mom but most of the time I don't.  Pretty stupid for someone who has 3 kids.  The funny thing is when I am lost in this motherhood journey, when I strongly dislike being a mom, I want to have more kids.  How rational is that?  Like if I have more it will somehow get easier or the next child will reveal to me the wonders of motherhood and I will somehow have a greater understanding and it will make me over into the best mom I can be.  I will tell you what more kids will get me...a long vacation in the loony bin!

I am restless and empty, not a good combination (my new haircut is proof of that).  So, I will plaster on a smile and ask you how you are doing because it is easier.  Because I am good at avoidance.  Because I am afraid of the answers.  Yup, plainly said, I am a chicken and it is easier to look at the glass as half empty and not half full.

What was I thinking?????

  So spring always brings about an itchiness in me to do something daring, different, out of the box.  I don't always do something crazy but this year I decided I would just go for it!  And now I have what must be those "one-night" stand what was I thinking after thoughts.  I have been drooling and dying to try Halle Berry's pixie/uber-short haircut and yesterday I went for it.  That's right...I cut of all of my hair!  Now I am super nervous to go anywhere that people will know me...i.e. church this morning.  I mean when I picked my kids up from Oxford yesterday after their classes I saw my bestest and she about pooped her pants when she saw me.  I know that short hair isn't her thing, she has the most beautiful long red hair but I shocked her more than I thought I would.  My husband likes it.  He learned a long time ago that I will do whatever I want with my hair whether or not he grants his approval.  After all it is just hair and it will grow.  I know though that my husband would like me anyway my hair is cut and that even includes if I would decide to shave it off.  Thank goodness for that!

  Now I will be going into my 30th birthday with short hair and I am not sure how I am feeling about that.  I went into my 18th birthday and college with short hair.  Big changes in my life apparently call for big changes to my hair.  I try to be secure about who I am and the way I look, but really deep down I am not secure, in fact I am more insecure than I would ever let on.  Now that I have lost the locks I have nothing to hide behind.  The people who have known me the longest here in Illinois have never seen me with short hair and I am so nervous to show them.  But if they don't like it well Reese keeps telling me over and over again how much she loves my haircut and loves me.  Thank the Lord for her!

  In parting, when you see me even if you don't like it please pretend you do!

Dear Dad

Dear Dad,
I have a problem...I don't like one of the genes that you passed on to me.  I know that it is too late to ask for a refund or for you to switch this particular gene out and exchange it with Mom's, but if you would like to donate to my "No grey hair" fund I would take that instead.  It was very scary (and disheartening) to look in the mirror last night and notice that there are more grey hairs on my head now then there were when I refreshed the color in February!  There are now some grey "patches" that include some really wiry, wild pieces.  This is not the kind of gene that I wanted, nor signed up for from you.  I am not quite 30 yet and while I do have 3 children I wasn't wanting to start going grey until, well, at least 80!  I guess I can only hope that they (those pesky grey hairs) look as distinguished on me as they do on you.  


Don't worry I won't hold this against you, I love you anyway!


Love your most favorite oldest daughter, 
Shannon

Today....where to start?

I am not even sure where to start today.  I know that I have been absent in a huge way this month and I could say that I have just been too busy to blog but the fact of the matter is that I chose not to blog.  We have had a lot of stuff going on as a family.  Stuff that I haven't necessarily wanted to put out there for everyone to read, well at least not just yet.  I think I am superstitious that way.  You know like, if you talk about it, it won't happen or it was all just a dream and not real. (And no, I am not pregnant, for anyone's minds who have gone there.)  So I have abstained from my normal public writing about it, instead choosing to use our personal sounding boards to talk it and walk through it with. The last few months have been spent in lots of prayer and asking for prayer.  Looking for guidance and searching for landing lights, flashing neon lights to tell us where and what God wants our family doing.  Learning to wait for Him and not rush ahead of His plans for us and then turning around to convince Him to bless the plans we made instead of waiting for His.  I have a sneaking suspicion that all of you who read this know what it is like to wait, and wait and wait some more.  In fact I have come to the brilliant conclusion that we spend most of our life waiting, waiting for the next chapter, big adventure of our lives.  The big question is what we do or what will we do with all that time that we spend waiting, all that time that we spend in our "wilderness years".  I hate waiting.  Our culture defies the entire notion of waiting.  We don't have to wait for anything so the thought and actual action of waiting is mind-blowing.  I have repeatedly said over the past few months that I didn't want to be like Abraham and Sarah.  I didn't (and still don't) want to have to wait 25 years for the answer, for God to answer my prayers or maybe I should say to give me the answer I want.  The funny thing is when He did answer our prayers and it was the answer I wanted-the one I had dreamed about and hoped for, I was blown away.  And instead of offering up a prayer of deep gratitude and thankfulness, one of profound sincerity I questioned His motives, His plan for us, His directions.  I was overcome by worry and insecurity when instead I should have been on my knees thanking Him for being my God, my Creator, my Provider, my Counselor, my Father, my Constant, the King of Kings, for being interested in my insignificant life on a hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly basis.  My friend Kara offered up some needed perspective:

"Maybe if I can thank God for who He is it will help me keep perspective through hard times. There is not one time in my life that I can say God has let me down. NOT ONCE. There is not one time in my life that I can say He hasn't provided. It may not always be in the way I anticipated, but it’s not about me.  Let’s not be surprised when great things happen but fall on our face and praise.  I need to worship my King for who He is and not according to my situation. "  

 She is right.  We have a tendency to place God in the boxes of our daily lives, on our terms and conditions, and that severely limits who God is.  It essentially ties His hands behind his back and doesn't allow Him to be who and what He is, which is something that words can never contain or express, something that we can never fully comprehend.  I struggle daily not to put God in a box and tie it up with a big bow.  I struggle daily to keep my eyes up and see all He is doing and how He is working in my life.  Like Kara reminded me, it might not be the way I think it should be, but these are the things, the small insignificant, menial daily things that He uses to work on us and refine us into the people we were made to be.  With all this being said, I will let you all in on the big way He has moved in our life as soon as I can!   


Last night Tim (the hubby) and I got into a huge fight.  The funny thing is the fight was ridiculously stupid and about really dumb things.  The really dumb things that seem important and keep creeping up.  My husband is incredibly loyal and has such a strong sense of family, he puts us first.  We always come above his job and for that I am thankful.  I am incredibly blessed.  But sometimes I get so frustrated and angry that my job is to always put our family first, to set aside myself, to serve selflessly and never expect as much as a thank you in return.  I don't get a paycheck for my full-time job, though one would say that I get more blessings than can ever be equaled or rivaled in monetary reimbursement and I know that those that would tell me that are right, but it isn't want I want to hear. I want genuine gratitude and appreciation for what I have to do on a daily basis.  I want unsolicited thank yous.  I want to feel like I am doing it right, that what I am doing is making a difference and isn't for naught. I feel like I spend more of my time parenting, giving discipline and direction than I do on the sweet stuff, the stuff that everyone tells you to enjoy and cherish because it goes by so fast.  I am so sick of hearing that phase, "enjoy it know because it goes by so fast and you can never get it back."  Here is my sarcastic remark, "Did you enjoy it because hindsight is 20/20."  How can you enjoy never getting a full night's sleep, feeling like you yell more than you love and not even going to the bathroom by yourself?  How does one enjoy being frustrated 24/7?  


We just recently got back from a quick 4 days in Michigan, visiting family, which has both its positives and negatives, but picking up the proverbial pieces of 3 extremely overtired and extra needy children, a huge mountain of laundry, dirty house and one cranky mom is almost more than I can continually bear. Add to that, that the only quality time that I got to spend with my husband was the 9 hours we spent in the car, 4.5 hours there and 4.5 hours back and that leaves me feeling angry, resentful and worn-out.  I feel like am always playing 2nd or 3rd fiddle to someone or something.  The silver lining of being able to stay home and raise our children is non-existent right now.  It feels more like a chore than a gift. Connecting with Tim is reduced to something purely physical and not something verbal (this isn't the word i was looking for but it works), emotional and this ends up causing a huge rift because all my needs are not being met.  


I know that I don't thank him enough for providing for our family, for giving me the opportunity to full-fill my dream of being a mom, for putting us first.  Instead, I use my words to cause deep wounds and hurt, that leave scars.  Marriage is really, really hard.  It is hard to find the "perfect" balance.  How do you balance a relationship, children, jobs and everything else that vies for you and your energy?  Am I supposed to use a calendar to allot specific percentages of time for each thing?  I refuse to believe that I have to divide myself into little pieces in order to give it to each individual thing as if it was some sort of gift.  What am I supposed to do when I feel like nothing I do is good enough?  Sometimes I want to be put up on a pedestal and given the illusion that I can be "perfect".  That other people have to measure up to me.  That I can do no wrong and everything I do, do is right.  Wishful thinking, I know.  I also know that I really don't want to be put up on a pedestal, that, that is too much of a responsibility and too hard of a "life" and illusion to live up to.  I don't want to live an illusion.  I want to live a real life, even though it is sometimes so incredibly hard and trying to make it through a minute, an hour, a day, a week, a month, a year.  I don't want others to measure themselves against me or use me as a model...I am not a good one, trust me! What I wouldn't mind though is some acknowledgement, a feeling of sincere gratitude, one that isn't in exchange for something else I have.  I just want to be appreciated just as much as I appreciate my husband for his role in our family. I know I will never measure up to my own expectations of myself, but maybe if I measure up to someone else's just once, I will cut myself a break and will be able to pay it forward.  Maybe I won't doubt the sincerity of the thank you that is given and instead be able to say, "You are welcome." with a smile on my face and a quickening in my heart.

Things I wish I had known before I had kids, Part 2: Sleep and Sex

Sleep is so overrated! Who needs it?  I haven't had a "full" nights sleep since I had Owen almost 6 years ago.  Full would be 12 hours of sleep straight.  Gone were the days of going to be whenever I wanted, sleeping until whatever time I wanted and napping for however long I wanted.  Owen introduced us to a whole new world when he came home from the hospital.  He screamed/cried the entire first night home from the hospital as he "slept" in his 110 year old cradle.  The next night he slept in-between Tim and I, in our queen size bed and didn't scream all night, in fact all he did was nurse, all night long and so our adventure with co-sleeping and attachment style parenting began.

Owen ate every hour on the hour for the first 8 weeks and then every 2 hours until he was 10 months old.  Having him in our bed worked for us.  All I had to do was role over, lift up my shirt, unhook my bra and feed him.  Once he was done he would go back to sleep, no fussing, no crying, usually.  Co-sleeping with him worked because we were all able to get rest, even if it wasn't straight through the night.  He slept with us until he was just shy of four.  I know that some of you who are reading this are shaking your head with disbelief and utter confusion.  I should say that we got a king size bed when I was pregnant with Reese, we obviously need more room!  Co-sleeping isn't for everyone and to be honest I envy, really envy, just short of huge jealousy, those friends of mine whose kids have slept through the night since birth or 3 months, in their own beds.  But I am resigned to the fact that neither Owen or Finn are hard-wired that way.

I know that you are noticing that I didn't say Reese!  She "co-slept" with us in a co-sleeper, not our bed.  She required her own space and she slept 6 hours straight when we brought her home from the hospital.  Not to say that her sleep was always great because it wasn't, but boy was it a great change from Owen. She has always been our good sleeper and went straight from the co-sleeper (ours can be used as one to 30lbs) to a crib for about 4 weeks and then straight to a big girl bed!  Of course when she isn't feeling 100% she might come into our room and sleep on the floor.  In fact, she spent a good 8 weeks on our floor earlier the winter, after I had re-arranged her room.  Needless to say, once I moved it back to the way it was before the re-arranging she was back in her room, in her own bed instead of sleeping on my floor (it took me that long to figure out that was why she wasn't sleeping in her bed).

Finn, what can I say about him?  He is a TERRIBLE sleeper!  He has been since he came home.  He needed to be swaddled to almost complete immobility and then wrapped in another blanket and then held in one of our arm's in order to sleep.  He slept like that for about 8 to 10 months.  Now at almost 2, he falls asleep with one of us holding him and then is put in his "pack-n-play" until he wakes up a few hours later screaming because he is thirsty, wants a drink and wants to "cuddle his daddy" or "cuddle his mommy" and into our bed he comes.  He is a sweet, loving, well adjusted kid but let me tell you, I will be throwing a huge "Sleeping through the Night" party when Finn finally sleeps through the night!  I will break out the Champagne!  Soon he will get a big boy bed, a bunk bed to share with his older brother, his partner in crime.  Maybe then, maybe then, one can only hope, wish and pray!

If we have another one, well the whole thing I pray, will be different because I won't be nursing, because there will be more of a schedule, a more measurable amount of food that they would be being fed.  Who knows, I am probably just grasping at straws, trying to convince myself that bottle-feeding equals good sleepers.  I can probably say for sure though that we will still co-sleep, in one form or another because it is what works for us, for our kids, for our family and for that I am not sorry nor do I feel embarrassed.  We are so quick to judge other people's parenting styles, especially if they don't make sense to us or fit our own preconceived molds.  I would have never in a million years guessed that I would have ended up co-sleeping or having our kids sleep our bed.  I assumed, I think like every first-time expectant mom, that my child would sleep just like me, through the night, waking up after the sun had made its appearance for the day, refreshed and ready to go.  As I look back now, WOW, how naive was I and what in the world was I thinking?  My life was radically changed after I had Owen, it blew me away and rocked my world.  I had to wipe out every thing that I thought I knew and basically learn his play-book and how to be his mom, not the mom that I created in my head, the one that I was prepared to be, not the one I needed to be.

Sleep is still something that I long for, something that I wake up every morning wishing I had, had more of from the night before, but I figure like all things in life, it will change, it will pass and when this phase is through, I will be a more rested person.  Like I said before, I can only hope, wish and pray!

Okay to to the topic that probably really brought you all to this post: Sex!  Oh my poor husband and what that man has endured, I love you honey.  I have definitely be the ice queen at times and the sex godess at others.  How does or would he know what one to expect on any given day?  When I got pregnant with Reese, my Aunt Kay asked me how it had happened since Owen slept with us!  I laughed so hard!  I told her it was when we were trying to have him sleep in his crib.  I think that we must have had an hour by ourselves, in our own bed for that.  (We did try to get him to sleep in his crib, his own space, but he would have none of it and would scream and scream until he puked everywhere, over everything and to me it just wasn't worth it.)  Post-kids husband usually get the short end of the proverbial stick.  They are ready to go by that 6 week post-child birth check-up, but we are usually just plain too exhausted by all the demands that are being constantly placed on us to be that little itty-bitty child's everything, by that same 6 week check-up.  And half the time at 6 weeks we just want to do it so they stop asking and giving us those ridiculous googly eyes, not to say that it isn't enjoyable but boy does it seem like a chore, one more thing to check off the daily "to-do"!  Any time after those 6 weeks, by the time any alone time with them comes around, we are too tired, sick of being constantly touched and just want to lay down in our own beds, in our own space, by ourselves, without anyone demanding anything from us.  It is hard to separate ourselves from our different roles-mom and wife, care-taker and partner.  Sometimes telling them "no, not now" is our only saving grace, the only way that we can regroup, but what if sex and the time that we focus on only one other person is the time for us to regroup, to restart ourselves?  I think that it is so easy to forget that sex is what brought us to this point and created our children.  At some point we were actually eager and raring to go.  Practice makes perfect.  And at some point we lost the point that sex isn't only for procreation but for enjoyment with that one person, that we are spending our lives with, a way to show them, physically/demonstratively, our love for them.  I am not the best person at doing that.  Sometimes I just want to say have your way with me because I am too tired to have my way with you.  I gripe and joke with my friends about it and what a pain in the butt it is, but you know what, at the end of the day, at the end of a discussion, I love it and love that it is a way to passionately enjoy my husband, because it is only shared between us and doesn't involve anybody else.

I think that what I am saying though all of this is that don't forget yourself or your husband after 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 kids.  You are more than just a mom, more than that one role you are always playing.  So abandon yourself and enjoy.  I guess I should take my own "advise"!  

Random.....

I wasn't going to post today...I kept going back and forth, but I feel like I must.  Like I have something to purge. Something that needs to be let go.  I will probably be random and all over the place, like a pin ball whipping back and forth from one-side to another.  I apologize....okay maybe not.

I guess I will start with yesterday.  2 visits to the doctor's office, 3 kids, 3 ear infections, 3 antibiotics.  I have been going stir-crazy in my house since last Friday, since the virus descended on our house.  I didn't get to go to bible study yesterday-and of course we were covering the chapter that I felt God had Anne Graham Lotz write just for me-because Finn still had a fever, Reese was coughing and running a low grade fever and Owen sounded like junk with his cough.  I have no patience left, no sympathy/empathy for my sick children.  Reese keeps telling me that all I am is "mad at her".  Finn won't stop crying during the day for "my daddy, I want my daddy." And Owen, well he needs to feel better so that he can get back into the normal routine of life, he struggles without the structure.  I am short and cranky with my husband because I feel empty, like I have nothing left to give by the time he makes it home from work.  He sooooo gets the short end of the stick.  And throughout all of this I keep thinking that I should never be empty (thank you, wmns retreat) because God gives us all the power, strength and love that we need to make it through everything but right now my leaks are no longer fissures, but big gapping holes.  The bright spot yesterday was the fact that my "bff" got home, safely, from Ethiopia.

Today was a new day, thank you for that!  Unfortunately, everyone woke up still sick.  Okay, I knew that they wouldn't be well yet, but one can only wish, hope and pray.  I got to talk to M (the bff) this morning!  Thank goodness we are back to daily routine!  I have been dying to hear all the details of their trip and now that we have talked some, I feel guilty.  She is raw right now, from her experience there and the fact that a huge part of her is still there.  As I have prayed for her over these past 10 days I have asked God to use all that she experienced for His will, His living testament.  I don't think that I can even begin to comprehend the emotional toll that this has taken on her.  She saw people with leprosy, missing digits and feet, begging for money, food, anything they could live on.  She saw women, our parents age, carrying 140 pound bags of eucalyptus leaves down to the markets to sell for 2 dollars.  2 dollars, that is what they live on. She saw houses made of sheets of metal from her balcony outside her room.  One room homes with dirt floors.  She saw animals being kicked and abused.  She saw birth parents giving up the rights to their children that other people were adopting.  My list could go on and on.  Now that she is home she is stuck, looking back at where she just was and the juxtaposition of our country, our homes, our morals, our culture.  She told me that even once they bring their son home, a part of her heart will still be there, in Ethiopia. And I understand that.  God is using her for something big, something incredible, even if she hasn't quite figured it all out.  I can complain all I want about not owning my own home, not ever having enough money, being tired, having sick kids but none of that matters.  I have access to the most modern medical care.  I have a comfortable bed to lay my body in at night.  I have enough money to pay our bills, put a roof over our family's heads, to buy food and fill our bellies.  I have never known hunger the way most of the world does.  And I might not own my own home but I have the resources to rent one, a nice one.  We are so pathetic living here in our "clamshells" as Max Lucado says. We are comfortable inside ourselves.  We are comfortable with the status quo of our lives, not having to reach outside ourselves.  And this infuriates me because I am one of those "we" people I am talking about.  I think that my problems are sooooo important, that they trump the rest of the worlds, that world peace, world hunger, orphans, access to modern medicine, clean water aren't my problem, but someone else's.  Sure I sponsor a Compassion kid, but is that enough? Is that the best I can do?  What has God called me do? How can I do it? We are so blessed even if we can't see it because we are looking though the microscope at our own lives and not the telescope that shows us the rest of the world around us. (m-for you :))

I know that my problems are important, that they are unique to me and my family and I shouldn't minimize what we go through, but that doesn't mean that I should go through life in a "clamshell" not being conscious of the rest of the world's burdens, burdens that are God's.  Burdens that He calls us to share and help to solve-take care off.

Somebody asked my friend today how coming back to the States made her feel and I as I sat there and watched her try and answer the question in a polite way, she was struggling not to lay into the woman that asked it.    How did it make her feel?  How does it make anybody feel?  How about like we are the most selfish, self-absorbed, materialistic, ridiculous culture?  That we live in our "cozy little houses" and are always wishing for more. We don't know what "real living" is and I am not sure that I would ever want to go without but what I do want is what those Ethiopian people have and that is a true sense of being, of living in community with others and realizing that we are all in this life together, for better or worse.

Our stories are God's stories (I feel like I need to qualify what I mean by saying that God comes before us, He uses us and our lives to tell His of work, i.e. His stories), both the happy ones and the sad, heartbreaking ones.  They are the work that is being done in our lives on a daily basis and all of those days make us who we are. They are what the very core of our being is made of.  At that core, the very fibers of our being, is love, God's love for all of us, all mankind.  Love, the greatest gift that we can give, shown in millions of ways, serving our God and therefore serving those around us.  That is what we have been called to do, love.

I feel like I have been all over the place on this post and I do apologize.  I hope that I made some sense and pricked something inside of you to reach out and serve.

These 4 Walls

Today is one of those days when all 4 walls around me feel like they are slowly closing in and any sound one of my children make just grate my already shredded nerves even more.  All 3 of them are sick, it is snowing outside, again, and I just wish I could get some uninterrupted sleep at night.  I want a VACATION!  


I strongly detest this time of year.  We are always sick and in the middle of February all I can think of is warmer weather and a chance to escape the inside of what feels like a teeny tiny house.  My temper is short and there aren't many second, let alone third chances without me blowing my top.  Ever since Owen was 6 months old I feel like we, at least one of us, are sick about every 6 weeks.  I don't even want to think of the amount of money we have spent on co-pays or deductibles or our 20% of the total bill over the past 5.5 years.  All I want is to skip this time of year and fast-forward about 8 weeks until we have passed the grayness of this season. That grayness drains every fiber of my entire being until they are all brittle and starving for renewal. 


I asked the pediatrician once, when Owen was in the hospital for ROTA virus, just 6 weeks after Reese had been in the hospital with RSV, why my kids were always getting sick and what I was doing wrong.  He told me that it wasn't me, our kids immune systems weren't compromised but that it was the transient nature of our society and the rudeness of other people who bring their kids or themselves out and about when they are sick.  It is true, how many of us want to stop our lives, to put them on hold, to wait until our kids or ourselves are better to do whatever it is we need to do?  Really, how important are those errands that you need to run when your kid is home from school with a fever?  Do we even realize that we are making the conscience choice to spread germs to those around us?  


I might be considered a bit of a germaphobe, I choose to stay home when my kids immune systems are recovering from illness or when the are not quite 100% because I don't want to share my germs with other people but also because I don't want other people's germs.  I don't want another strain of whatever virus or bacteria is going around.  I want the ability to be able to leave my house when I want, to do whatever it is I need to do.  I don't want to clean or sanitize my home one more time.  I want the windows open with the breeze renewing the air we breathe and moving the germs out.  


When these 4 walls are closing in I find myself retreating from my kids, looking at them as though they are some kind of 3 headed monster that won't leave me alone for any period of time. All I want to do is escape! I don't know if I think that is necessarily healthy but it is understandable.  I get through the day(s) knowing that my husband will be "home soon" to help me, to take over the childcare duties because I can't do it for one more second.  I get through the days by looking ahead and praying for quick recoveries.  I get through the days by dreaming of what might be ahead for us in this life we have.  I get through the days by reading until my eyes burn and need rest.  But what I really want to get through these days is to know-for sure that when we all wake up tomorrow we will all be well and no longer sick.  

Miss me?

I haven't blogged at all in what seems like forever!  These past days, since the 14th, I have spent all of my computer time emailing or checking updates of my dearest, closest and bestest friend's time with her soon to be officially adopted son in Ethiopia. I have been writing apparel orders for fall, taking the boys for "real" haircuts at the barber shop, getting ready for the women's retreat that happened this past weekend at church, and of course attending to all 3 of my now sick kids.  Sometimes it feels as though all I do is attend to sick kids, especially this time of year.  I wish that we could just skip the in between grey time of winter/spring and just head to the technicolor life of spring/summer!  I need life in full color, bursting with life around me. At least the first wave of strawberries are at the grocery stores. Strawberries equal summer days, not too hot, with the windows open, the breeze wafting through the house, my gardens bursting with growth and flowers, longer days and dinner on the grill.  Again, like so much of lives, we wait.

My friends have been waiting to bring their son home from Ethiopia since this whole adoption process started with their homestudy, 1 year, 9 months, 2 weeks and 2 days ago.  It hasn't been the smoothest, easiest, journey. There have been many bump and bruises along the way.  There have been many tears of joy and sadness shed.  It has been bittersweet.  Right now they are getting ready for the most bittersweet part, saying goodbye to their son, before they come home to the States, while they wait for the red tape to broken and the Embassy to process the rest of the adoption paperwork, so that they can go back and bring him home, where he belongs. I can't even begin to imagine what both of them are feeling.  

I feel like so much of this adoption process has been hard for me to relate to.  I have never had trouble getting pregnant or dealt with a miscarriage.  I have never had to wait as long as them for their child to come into their world. All I have been able to do is listen, hand out kleenex when it is needed, give help when it asked for and pray.  I feel like nothing I have done is tangible, something that can be hung onto, used to help make this road easier.  My emotions have been kept in check, most of the time.  I haven't been where she is, felt what she is feeling and it is hard not to be able to say, "I've been there and it does get easier."  She has friends who fill that role, who have been where she is and have done what she is doing and that is hard.  It is hard to have to share her with others.  I have learned that I am stingy with my friendships, who I call my friends, who I let into the deepest recesses of my heart, mind and soul.  She is the first, true-real best friend I have ever really had.  I had some good friends come and go through out my life but for the same number of so called "good" friends I have had just as many have hurt me and left scars that are still broken wide open from time to time.  Our friendship started when we were both broken and coming apart at the seams.  I like to think that we helped heal each other and that is what bonded us but no, I really think it was the fact that my son had "red" hair.  From that day and the days to come I spent more time at her house than I did my own.  I ate and prepared more meals in her kitchen than I did my own.  For the first time in my life, I think, I had found a friend (besides my husband) that accepted me as I was, not for what I had been or would be, just as me, faults and all.   I don't know where I would be without her, probably checked in at some place for "crazy" people.  We walked through a hard year when I was pregnant with my youngest, because he was supposed to be her baby and not mine, I wasn't supposed to be pregnant, she was.  But we came through it and as cliche as it is to say, with a stronger friendship.  Our lives are intertwined in ways that might seem weird and odd but isn't that is what friendship is? She and her family-her husband and girls and soon to be son, are our soft place to land, our family.  They have helped us grow our roots, become the people we are and now as I live five houses down the street from her, I never want to move.  I have dreamed about living on the same street as my best friend since I was a little girl living on a dirt road where neighborhoods looked like wide open spaces between houses.  She is the one who has been with me at the hospital when my kids are really sick and someone needs to be at home with the other one(s).  She is the one who I give my credit card to when I need it to disappear.  She is the one I call when I'm in crisis and need a clear head, she has talked me off my ledge a million times.   My mother-in-law has this saying that people come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime.  There is nothing sweeter than when those reasons turn into a season and then turns into a lifetime.  She will be in my life for a lifetime, that I know.  So now as we navigate this latest experience in our friendship, her adoption, I want to offer her something tangible, something that weaves our lives together more.  I don't know what that is but I am willing to wait, watch and learn.  For now all I can offer you my words, my prayers and my love.  Come home, friend, we can't wait to have you here but even more, we can't wait until you go again and come home with God's promise to you, your son.  You have taught me so much about patience, strength and perseverance through this adoption and I hope that it has taught you things that you didn't know about yourself but are finding out.  I hope that you let these things transform you into a woman that inspires those around you to reach outside of themselves and dive into the life around them to experience the richness that it has to offer.  As I told you this week, "Save one life. Save the world." and that is what you are doing. I thank God for you everyday. All my love!

In the Middle

I am not really sure where to start my post today.  I feel like so much of my life right now is up in the air.  From our housing situation to the hubby's employment (he still has a job-that isn't the problem) to finances and where our life is going, where God is leading us.  At almost 30 years of age I feel like I am just now learning how to move forward and live life.  


We (the husband and I) have been spent a lot of the past month on our knees, praying for God's direction in our lives, asking Him to open up windows and close doors, so that we can have a purpose in the way we live our lives.  The spring bible study that I am doing is Anne Graham Lotz's new book, "The Magnificent Obsession" based on Abraham's life in the book of Genesis.  Great study, challenging questions that make me think and evaluate how I am living and how to live life better.  Anyway, yesterday I started reading chapter 4, entitled: Pursue Everything Patiently and came across a section that I swear God had Anne put in there just for me.  Here is the passage that I want to share with you (so bear with me):
 
  "...sometimes it can be very hard for us to wait on God to do things in His time and in His way.  It doesn't occur to us that He has intentionally delayed answering our prayer or fulfilling His promise because He has a higher, greater purpose in mind than just giving us what we want, when we want it, the way we want it.  Delay doesn't mean necessarily mean denial.  It's just that God often uses the delay to develop our faith in Him as we struggle to patiently pursue everything He has for us.
     God sometimes seems to be soooooo slow! and we can become so impatient that we run ahead of Him, thinking we can either help Him answer our prayer or force Him to act on our timetable.  If we don't learn to walk alongside Him at His pace, we end up making a mess."


I will admit that I hate waiting!  I am not patient and I want answers NOW! I want God to give me a map that says, "You will be here tomorrow and over here next year.  You will stay here and put roots in and grow in the fertile soil that I have given you in order to bear fruit."  I want it all spelled out so that I don't keep trying to rush ahead of what God has in-store for our family.  I know that life isn't supposed to be easy, that we should just be praying that God gives us the strength to make it through it but sometimes I just want one thing, one stinking thing to fall together seamlessly and be wrapped up with a fancy bow as a gift just for me.  When I look at other people's lives I think how easy they have it.  It looks to me like everything is effortless and perfect and I get trapped in our culture's smoke and mirror show of having everything=happiness.  I get trapped in the "poor pitiful me"  mind frame that just erodes my soul.  My soul does not need any eroding.  


I keep asking God to lean out of heaven and whisper the magic words of my plan-not necessarily His into my ear.  I want to make Him into the God of my wishes and desires not the God of who He really is, which is something that I can't even begin to fathom or understand.  He is a God who was, who is and who will always be-He transcends ALL, all while I get lost in the smallness of my world, when I should be getting lost in the unfathomable greatness of His world and His word and the promises that it gives me. 


I don't do well when so much of my life is up for the taking.  I thrive on and long for the stability, for the assurance that everything will turn out the way it should-the way I want it to because I think that I know how it should go, how it should be.  I don't like being stuck in the middle, where it seems like we will get stuck and stay in the state of questioning, with no direction.  How long will it take, how long will I wait? I am ready for the answers, even though I am scared and nervous, even if it doesn't meet my expectations or take me the route I have already planned for myself. 

Birthdays

So it has been about a week since I last posted! Unbelievable how fast the days go.  We had company last weekend, my brother came to visit and my sister and her husband moved to Chicago right before the big blizzard hit.  When I say right before I mean like they got in at 4:30pm the day the storm started.  Needless to say we had a busy weekend with visitors, RU's 12hour sale for me and a birthday party for Owen.  I am exhausted.  I am overwhelmed by the thought of having visitors come again tomorrow.  I was so excited 3 weeks ago to have visitors coming every weekend for 3 weeks but now, now I am just plain tuckered out-weary and want to spend the day-weekend reading and eating chocolate in my bed.  But the show must go on! Excuse my poor attitude today, I've just reached my breaking point.  Instead of complaining for an entire post I will spare you all my infectious bad attitude!  Let's start over!

This week is a week of birthdays!  Well, okay only 2 really important ones but it is a week of birthday's none the less! My baby brother turned 25 on the 8th, you are now officially closer to 30 then 20 Dom and my Grandfather Bert turned 85 on the 9th, if my Great-Grandpa Chiesa was still alive his birthday would have been the 10th.  We celebrated Dom's birthday this past weekend when he was here.  Okay, celebrated might be a little bit of an overstatement but we did get a cake and sing happy birthday to him.  We probably should have showered him with presents too especially since he cooked for all of us all weekend!  It was wonderful!  To have someone else prepare the food for you, to know that they are enjoying what they are doing.  The food was great not only because it tasted good but because he made it for us, with love.  He told me that I give him too much credit for his cooking but quite frankly little brother, you don't give yourself enough credit.  Just because a recipe doesn't turn out the way you think it should doesn't mean that it didn't turn out at all, you are just too hard on yourself.  I think the motto you should be looking at is as follows: Better NOT Perfect!  He introduced us to roasted broccoli, it was omg delicious!  I can't wait to make it this weekend!   I will mess with his recipe a little bit in the future to try new ways of making it but his way is so stinking simple (good for us pretend chefs) and that is what makes it so tasty! It is interesting learning about and getting to know your siblings in new ways.  We don't live together anymore and Dom and I haven't really lived together since he was a freshman in high school.  We are bound by blood and are just now becoming friends.  He and I are the bookends of the Chiesa kids, the oldest and the youngest and for a long, long time we were just family in passing.  I am thankful that we can learn things about each other that we never knew before, that we can explore our childhood and the things that made and make us who we are together.  You are Uncle Dommy the Tiger! The tiger rides that you give my kids, your nephews and niece, remind me of the bucking bronco rides with Dad and I know that they will always carry those memories with them and smile when they remember climbing on your back!  Come back soon!

I can't believe that my Grandpa is 85.  He doesn't really seem that old, but I know that every time I come back to visit him and Grandma they have aged a little bit more.  Grandparents aren't suppose to age, aren't supposed to die, they are supposed to be around forever!  Grandpa is so frank in talking about his mortality.  Every time I talk to him on the phone he sneaks in talking about his death and the fact that he is as old as dirt itself.  Oh Grandpa!  Trying to get a hold of him on his birthday is like trying to call the pope, you can't get through! Most of us grandkids are spread out all over the country, from California to New York and everywhere in between, so you have to time your call perfectly.  It took me around 45 minutes to get through to him and when he answered the phone I had called "Kelly's Pool Hall"! I love that, I love him and his quirks! I learned that my Great-Grandfather, Grandpa Bert's dad, lived with them for a little while before he died.  Great-Grandpa Hensick liked to go outside and pee in the bushes!  The neighbors would call and tell my grandparents that he was at it again and that they might want to bring him inside to pee.  I told Grandpa that every man/boy would rather pee outside on a tree or in a bush and that my husband had taught Owen to do it when he was 3 and if Owen (or any other man/boy for that matter) had his(their) choice it would be to pee outside.  I love learning things that I never knew before about my Grandpa and who he is and where he came from.  He has left me with many wonderful, cozy memories from my childhood that surround him and the house he and Grandma owned on North Michigan.  From the vegetable garden in the back by the garage that grew green beans every summer, beans that were best eaten when warmed by the sun, picked right off the bush to the perpetual smell of his pipe, the pea soup colored refrigerator that had the freezer on the bottom to the beautiful roses that surrounded the 3 season porch and the Christmas story from Luke 2 that he read every year from his favorite recliner,the same recliner that he watched MASH from every night, to the grilled chicken he always burned because that is just the way you make it; my Grandfather is an institution into himself.  If my sons and my daughter only have half of his compassion and generosity, I think that they will be on the right path.  I miss him.  By the way Grandpa, I forgot to thank you for the bean soup, Thank you! Thank you for all the memories and words to live by, thank you for taking care of Grandma and most of all thank you for being you, I love you!

Laundry: Wash, Dry, Fold, Put Away, REPEAT

My dad called the other day and asked me what I was up to.  I told him what I always tell him: laundry.  He said "that's what you told me yesterday and the day before and the day before that."  I told him that I do laundry everyday because I don't want to spend my whole weekend washing, drying, folding and putting away laundry.  He said something to me that resembled "you do too much laundry".  He's right I do, do too much laundry but what am I going to do about it?  

My mom did laundry all the time.  She had no choice, there are 5 of us in the family and that equals mountains and mountains of laundry, especially when all 3 of us kids were in one sport or another all year round.  It is part of what we do, being the "homemaker", its part of our job description.  I know someone who likes to do the laundry, fold the laundry, put away said laundry because it gives her a sense of accomplishment.  Accomplishment is good, checking something off your to-do list is good.  I know someone who does the laundry, folds the laundry but doesn't make it to the putting away part and she is totally fine with that-more power to her.  Laundry can take over our lives, the trick is not to let it.  I surely don't want laundry to become my hobby.

I wonder how much time we spend over our lifetime doing laundry and all the little tasks that go with it.  How many times do you rewash a shirt because the grease spot or stain was still on it?  I figure that if I can at least look presentable- i.e. my clothes are clean and I have showered and dried my hair, then the rest doesn't really matter.  It doesn't matter what I feel like on the inside or if my kids are driving me up the proverbial wall, if I look well put together nobody will know the difference, though my version of put together and someone else's are two totally different things.  If only washing machines washed our souls and scrubbed them squeaky clean, then we wouldn't have to put in too much work, only the occasional pretreatment of a stain.  

Wash on my friends, wash on! 

Things I wish I had known before I had kids Part 1: Lone Ranger

My husband has a co-worker whose wife just had their first baby together in October.  She stayed home for 6 weeks, went back to work only to be laid off the same week she was back.  So now, she is home with their son full-time.  My husband can't believe how many times a day she calls her husband while he is at work.  I can!  While my husband is sure that I never called him that much when we had our first child, I am sure that I did.  There is nothing like the feeling of being alone 90% of the day.  Before you say,"you aren't alone", let me say a newborn/infant does not equal "real" person!  They do not talk, wipe their own butts, wash their own hands, put away their own laundry, burp on their own, feed themselves-they do nothing but lay there, fart, poop, cry, eat, sleep, eat some more, sleep some more, eat some more, cry some more, eat some more, poop some more, eat some more, fart some more and lay there.  They rely on you for EVERYTHING!

I never knew how lonely it would be to be home with an infant.  Sure, my husband was home in the evenings and helped out at night when the baby was up but he wasn't with me and our infant 2/3rd's of the day. It is hard to be alone, to only hear your own voice, to never feel like you accomplished anything that day.  It is hard to be someone's everything.  Which is funny to say because isn't that what we expect from our spouse, for them to be our everything?

Even now with 3 kids, almost 6, 4 and almost 2, I am lonely for adult company during the day.  I crave the weekends when my husband is home to balance our family.  Everyday my husband comes home and asks me the same thing: "Did you talk to anyone today?" Sure honey, I talked to the kids today (I talked to myself too).  But what he is asking is if I talked to another adult, someone who can actually carry on  a conversation with 7-letter words, someone else who knows what multi-tasking means, a 3-letter word, MOM.  I talk to one other adult  everyday, at the same time, over coffee, each of us in our jammies and I thank God every chance I get for her, because if she wasn't there, oh boy oh boy, I would be locked up in the looney bin, in a white-padded cell.

Motherhood (especially when you have young kids) is one of the most isolating times in life.  Before I had my lovely, adorable, perfect little monsters (do you hear the sarcasm dripping from my voice?) I had plans on how it was going to be.  I was going to have playdates everyday, crafts waiting for us to do and five-star dining for every meal.  I would have taught my child to read by 2, be self-sufficient by 3 (read that as being able to wipe ones own butt and make their own lunch) and able to put themselves to bed every night by 7pm.   I was also going to work 22.5 hours a week all while my husband was home watching the kid(s), feeding them breast milk that I had pumped just for them.  In short, I was going to be the perfect mom, WHAT WAS I THINKING????  You can't have playdates everyday-kids need to nap-they need a schedule and your house needs to be relatively clean and picked up so that it is habitable, 6-month olds can't do crafts and by the time dinner roles around you are just hoping that whatever you make is edible and isn't mac and cheese again.  There is no such thing as the perfect mom and I am certainly not one, not even one little bit.

What I do know thought is that we were not made to live life isolated and alone.  We were made to live in community with one another, to lift each other up, to help each other through each day.  Not to judge another mom who might not be dressed to the nines that day because she is tired and not feeling well and might have been up all night with a sick kid yet again.  Not to judge another mom whose child is absolutely melting down in Target because you are sure that your kid would never do that and God help him if he did.  We are constantly comparing ourselves, our own mommyhoods against every other mom we come in contact with and that does not make a community, in fact it just tears it apart and quite frankly isn't going to help anyone from being alone.

Was it Hillary Clinton, who said it takes a village to raise a child?  Whoever it was, was right because we can't do it alone and because it takes other moms to help make you a mom.

Breastfeeding

I breastfed all 3 of my babies.  Owen and I lasted 13 months.  Reese and I went for 21 months.  Finn and I stopped just shy of 6 months.  I believe that breastfeeding your child is one of the bests gifts that you can give them.  However, I believe that being able to be a fully functioning healthy mom is a significantly better gift than nursing ever will be.  If Tim and I choose to have another baby, I will not be nursing him or her. That will be devastating for a few days or a couple of weeks until my milk dries up.  For me this is honestly one of the reasons we have waited on having another baby, well that and the fact that Finn, had he been the first child instead of the third might have very well been our last.  (Read that as saying he is a very challenging baby/toddler.  It is a good thing he is cute.)

Stopping nursing Finn was one of the hardest and saddest times of my life.  But if I wouldn't have stopped I would have crumbled, my children-all of them would have suffered from my brokenness and my husband would have been left picking up the all of our fractured pieces.  I stopped nursing Finley because he was having a reaction to the Zoloft that I was taking for my depression and anxiety and because the medicine wasn't helping me at all and I wouldn't subject Finley to more chemicals racing through his tiny body.  For those of you who don't know, I have suffered from depression and anxiety since the end of high school.  I don't advertise this fact because its not really anyones business unless I tell you.  Of course there were times that I probably could have gone off my medication, those were the sweet spots, but I never did go off and I don't know if I ever will and that is okay. The doctors tell you that Zoloft is the safest medication to be on while nursing and during pregnancy but I would beg to differ with them.  Zoloft and other medications are  passed through breast milk and my poor son suffered for 6 months because of it.  He was never comfortable, always crying and arching his back.  He required being held all the time, swaddled to sleep while sleeping in our arms for 6 plus months and his stomach was constantly bothering him. Yes, I know he was born in that grey area of being full-term at 37 weeks and weighing 8lbs but he had so many preemie characteristics.  But the medicine that was suppose to be helping me wasn't and it was hurting him.  The day I put him on formula and stopped nursing was mind-blowing.  He became a different baby.  He didn't arch anymore and stopped crying as much.  He was much more comfortable in his own skin.  He still needed to be held a lot but not nearly as much as before that day.  To this day he still doesn't sleep through the night and loves to cuddle with us all night but some day that will be someone else's problem and not mine.  The formula saved us.  It let me change meds without worrying about Finn's nutritional needs.  Yes, it broke my heart and hurt like the dickens and I shed a lot of tears.  I wouldn't have made it through that time in my life without my mom's help for 3 weeks, without my best friend to talk me through my decision and off of the narrow edge I was standing on, without my husband who picked up the slack and the pieces of our fragile life.

Like I said earlier, I won't be nursing any subsequent children of ours.  I told my best friend that she is going to have to bind my boobs to keep me from trying because I don't want to get lost in the hazy and painful months of postpartum depression that is made worse by constantly fluctuating hormones.  I will be a formula mom, a bottle-feeding pro but that doesn't make me a bad mom.  It makes me a great, no-an awesome mom because I am putting my family first by taking care of me.

Whatever decision you make about feeding your baby is the right one for you and your family.  I have learned not to judge someone because they don't nurse and formula feed their children.  I will always believe nursing is best, but when it is not an option, when it hurts you more than helps you to be a good mom, its not worth it.

Hibernation Day(s)

I can't contain my excitement!!! I am impatiently waiting for this blizzard to start!  I can't stop looking out the window.  I hope that this storm is everything they say it is going to be.  Well, minus the power outages.  I like electricity.  My husband is home early, my son was let out 25 minutes early and we are going to be having a hibernation day!

I have been doing laundry today (I do it everyday but I have been really doing it today), just in case the power goes out.  I am going to vacuum, just in case.  I actually love to vacuum and it makes me feel like my house is cleaner than it actually is.  We've already shoveled twice today so that the dig out tomorrow won't be as bad, but I am sure that the few inches that we have cleared won't really diminish the amount of time that it is going to take to dig out tomorrow.  I want to make banana bread and cookies, just in case.  I want to share a meal with our best friends and laugh at the outrageousness of  the meteorologists, just because we are all home with no other plans.  I love these hibernation days that God is forcing upon us.  It makes us slow down, for even just one day, and enjoy the world around us. It makes us spend the quality time with each other that we wouldn't normally take the time to do.  Our lives were not meant to be lived in at constant hyper-speed,  to watch life go by in a blur of images.  Maybe these couple of days will remind us of that, remind us what it is like to slow down.  Remind us what life was like before our calendars threw up all over us.

A Rant

I'm angry today.

I am angry that a friend of mine is crying out for help and the one person who should be the biggest supporter in her life, the one who should put their family above anything else, is ignoring her pleas for help.  I am angry that he thinks its about him and how it impacts him.  It's not.  I am angry that a friend feels its not okay to stop nursing her baby even though she is breaking inside.  I am angry that another friend feels helpless to do anything to help out those she loves the most.  I am angry that another friend feels so isolated.  I am angry that people are mean and hurtful, that they don't think about the consequences of their words or their actions.  I am angry that age 4 is harder than age 3.  I am angry that next year is 1st grade and my son will be gone 7 hours out of the day, away from me.  I am angry that Finn is sick yet again and his body isn't getting the rest it needs to heal itself.  I am angry that I have another headache.  There are so many things that make me angry and mad.

But in the midst of it I am thankful for a God who is merciful, omnipotent, loving and just, a God who gets jealous and angry for us, for a God who will hold and wrap me in his arms and say, "Let me carry you".  I am thankful for the time I spent with my parents this weekend (even though it is never enough) and the words that Finn kept saying to them.  I am thankful for Owen who can't stop hugging me, even though it drives me nuts.  I am thankful for Reese and her larger than life personality that causes me to laugh so hard I cry.  I am thankful for my husband who loves me even though I am broken and drive him nuts.  I am thankful that if I needed it he would drive me to the looney bin himself.  I am thankful that he is honest and wants to live a life that glorifies God and his creation.  I am thankful for my best friend who always, always holds me up even when she is the one who needs holding up.  I am thankful another friend who makes me laugh through the computer at her.  I am thankful that this same friend is so strong and courageous even though she has been handed a crappy deck of cards.  I am thankful for daffodils in the middle of winter and the promise of renewal that they bring.  I am thankful for this impending snow that is coming because of the majestic beauty it brings.  I am thankful that God answers prayers even though it isn't what you were expecting.  I am thankful for playdates that are really coffee dates for us moms.  I am thankful for the wisdom that my friends share with me. I am thankful for all the good and bad in my life because God is molding and refining me and making me into the person I was made to be.

A letter to My Hormones

My Dearest Hormones,
Thank you for my night sweats!  I currently enjoying waking up wet, soaked with sweat in the middle of the night, when I should be blissfully sleeping until Finn wakes up for the umpteenth time.  I just wanted you to know how much I enjoy when you decide to overtake my body.  


Forever Yours,
Shannon

My Top Ten: The Catch-Up

I have been reading a book-big surprise to everyone-in which the main character talked about thinking of someone as a "product" that she had to market, not a person but a product, person=product and it made me think-isn't that what we do with our families, our husbands, our children, ourselves? (I am feeling rather sarcastic and sassy today.)

Okay to be honest, I started this post on Monday and I then subsequently just left it sitting up on my computer until I could come back and finish it and now it is Thursday.  I have had countless interruptions, many butts and noses to wipe, meals to make, laundry to fold and an anxiety attack to avert.  So in the spirit of scatterbrained randomness I am treating you all to a lovely sprinkling of the thoughts that have been vibrating and banging around in my head.  (I will return to the marketing theme another time.)

Here goes the round-up!

1.  I am reading lots of things right now, in fact I am actively reading 5 different books but at this very moment there is one that has captured my heart: bittersweet: thoughts on change, grace and learning the hard way, by Shauna Niequist.  It is a collection of  personal essays and it speaks into my very soul.  Right now I am ruminating on the one called: things i don't do.  It is about deciding what you want your life to be about.  Shauna had lunch with a older friend of hers, Denise, here is what Denise told her: "...it's not hard to decide what you want your life to be about.  What's hard (she said,) is figuring out what you are willing to give up in order to do the things that you really care about."  Oh my gosh!  We always worry about doing everything, everything that everybody else is doing...keeping up with the Jones's everything, never really stopping and evaluating what it is we really want our lives to be about and how to accomplish that.  As I am traveling down this path right now I have to figure out where to build my alters (thank you Anne Graham Lotz), what I REALLY want my live to be about and what I am willing to give up because if I don't the everything(s) that I do do are going to take over and minimize what I am about and who God wants me to be.  I don't want my tomb stone to say "she did everything and none of it mattered".  I want my life and the things in it to matter!  I am here to do something great, even if I don't know what it is yet, I know that there is more to life than doing everything.  As Shauna says, "do everything better" is a "super-charged triple threat, capturing in three words the mania of modern life, the anti-spirit, anti-spiritual, soul shriveling garbage that infects and compromises our lives." I don't want my life to be one big compromise!

2.  POOP! My life is all about poop! The past few days I have been woken up to Reese calling me from the bathroom, "MOM, I'm done.  I went poop and pee."  I don't want to wipe somebody's nasty poop butt first thing in the morning.  It has been the first thing I do when I get out of bed at 7am (okay, 8am-I am mother of the year as I sleep for an extra hour while my 3 Stooges sit downstairs rotting their brains in front of PBS Kids).  Really, really?  GROSS! There was no disclaimer when I became a mom that said you will wipe butts clean of poop all the time!  There really should have been.  On a positive poop note, Finn is pooping on the potty and that is infinitely better then cleaning/wiping a poopy diaper butt!  Plus, it is so cute when he says "All done, MOM!"

3.  I am scared down to my very core and fiber of my being about the fact that we are truly and honestly considering me staying home full-time (as if my 10 hour a week part-time job makes me less of a full-time mom).  It is anxiety-attack making.  My blood runs hot and I can feel it rushing through my veins.  I am scared of what God is asking me to give up: built-in freedom and my outside source of validation of being a productive member of society (and of course the small amount of money that I make). I know in my head and my heart that His promises are faithful and that His pin-pricks at my heart are what I need to be listening to and following, but, yes I said but, I am so scared.  I am lost in the forest of being scared when I just need to BELIEVE in my heart that His path is where I need to be.  Help me believe Lord, I am scared, I am afraid, please carry me.

4.  Dinner....HELP!!!

5.  I am loving, absolutely loving, listening to Audrey Assad's album The House You're Building.  It is like a huge hug that squeezes my heart.

6.  Mario Brothers for Wii!  I love (okay really loathe) playing this 2-player with my husband!  It is so funny to watch him get so mad at the game that he stands up to finish a level because he thinks is might actually help him to get to the end!  Oh, I love to watch him get mad at something so ridiculously silly!  The kids love to watch us play and Finn calls it "the brothers, play the brothers."

7.  Dear Mr. Groundhog,
     As groundhog's day is upon us I would respectfully like to ask that you not see your shadow.  As much as I like winter and how beautiful it is when the world around me looks like a snow globe I am desperate to get into my gardens and feel the earth on my fingers.  My children are longing to be outside and run around like crazy people through the sprinkler.  I wish for a ring around the bathtub to clean.  So, Mr. Groundhog I again beseech you, please don't see your shadow.

Yours kindly,
Shannon

8.  My sister and her husband are moving here next week!!!!!! I am so excited!  My heart leaps for joy and screams in utter excitement!  You have no idea how excited I am Emily!  We are so planting that garden together this summer!!!

9.  I love the fact that my best friend is going to meet her son for the very first time in 18 days!  I so wish that I could be there to see her and her husband cry and hug and kiss this incredibly special and sweet little boy of theirs.  Oh Joshua, they can't get you home fast enough!

10.  I have visitors for the next 3 weekends!  My mom and dad this weekend, my brother next weekend and my mother and father-in-law the following weekend!  The efficiency suite is ready, complete with a kitchen and grill for any of your culinary needs!  Little Tikes really does think of everything.  I am excited for my kids, who love to have sleepovers in each other's rooms with their grandparents and aunts and uncles!  They live for these visits!

Okay, 10 things is enough and if you read them all, THANK YOU!  Now I must go shower, start laundry and referee my children!

Chocolate Binge

I have a confession to make:  I ate 6 small squares of delicious milk chocolate last night.  I ate 3 pieces in bed!  Most of you would say that 6 pieces don't qualify as a binge but as much as I love it, I have been staying away from chocolate.  I love chocolate but chocolate doesn't love me.  My complexion reacts in a not so pleasant way.  It seeks its revenge on me by blessing me with the outbreak of those usually in puberty.  I don't get the "cute" little whiteheads, if you can call them cute, but I get the big, angry, volcano like pimples.  I swear that my skin has never been as "bad" as it is now.  I had lovely, dewy, glowing skin when I was younger (though maybe I am romanticizing it) but now post-kids, in my late 20's I feel like a teenager with acne.  What is the secret to fabulous looking, smooth, pimple-free skin?

I can tell you what hasn't worked.

1.  Pro-Active doesn't work.  Oh it works if you want to bleach your sheets or completely dry your face out so that you have red, flaking patches, but it doesn't clear my skin up.  I don't look like any of their spokeswomen.

2.  Acne-Free doesn't work.  It's the "knockoff" version of Pro-Active.  If you would like the same results as above feel free to purchase it.

3.  Random concoctions of different face washes and masks.  Maybe if I use this one in the morning and this one at night or visa-versa it will fix it.  Maybe I should be a chemist.

I have no idea what will give me great skin!  I probably should just go to the dermatologist, though sometimes I don't think that they even know what will clear your skin and then you end up with even more chemicals on your face and your sheets.  "Call the dermatologist" has been on my to-do list since the middle of summer, maybe I should actually follow through and do it.

Back to the chocolate though...boy how I love it!  Just thinking about it makes my mouth salivate in anticipation.  I am not a chocoholic, just a chocolate lover.  Even the word chocolate is fun to use.  "My hair is usually a chocolate brown." or "Don't you just love that rich chocolate colored sweater, I have to have one."  Mmmmm. Maybe I should just make a chocolate mask for my face.

P.S. Just in case you see me this week please don't say anything about the newly emerging pimples.  I can already feel them growing.

Transition Lenses

What is it about change that makes it so darn scary and hard?  Someone once told me that she hated change and that is why she doesn't want to make changes in her life...I don't want that to be me.  I don't want change or the thought of change to paralyze me into staying the same.

Oh I'll admit that change is super scary and nerve-wracking.  It always brings up the "what if" or "what will happen" questions.  It always makes us break out of our nice and tidy lives that we have wrapped up with fancy paper and bows.  Fear should not control our lives, our decisions or our future and  if it does boy would we miss out on some of the best parts of life.

So speaking of changes (NO, I am NOT pregnant) our family is looking at making a few big ones and it is scary.   I think that it is the thoughts of the unknown that holds me back from making immediate changes, even if I know they are the right ones.  But what if I am wrong, what if it was the worst decision ever and then I have failed-what then???

Owen will be in 1st grade next year!  I can't believe it.  I have no problem using cliches, so I will, boy does time fly when your kids are young.  Obviously that means that he will be gone all day, 7:55am to 2:25pm.  That makes me nervous!  I won't be by him or guiding him through the day, someone else will be.  It's funny because when your kids are little you can't wait to send them to school, you can't wait to have time to yourself, time when you are not the boss, referee or nurse.  Not only will Owen be at school, Reese will be too.  We are sending her back to pre-school next year.  She will be there 4 days a week from 12:30pm to 3pm.  Then add in all the after school activities (Awana, gymnastics, soccer) that we will participate in plus the homework that will have to be done.  Yes, there is homework in 1st grade. Finn of course will still be home with me so that means I will be wrangling a very feisty 2 year old.  Now lets add to that all the menial daily tasks of laundry, cleaning some part of the house, preparing meals, running errands, the list goes on and on.  Where in all of this do I find time to go to my part-time job, which is in the evening?  Am I supposed to ask my husband to come home from work early 2 or 3 nights a week to shuttle our kids to their activities? Now before I answer that I should preface it by saying 2 or even 3 years ago I would have said YES, he should come home early to do that.  But now, I don't think so.  His job for our family is to provide for us, not the cave-man beat my chest, I am man and you are woman way, but in the God is our provider way. (Don't read into that. I don't think that my husband is god.)  As my husband and the father to our children his job is to provide us with the means to live-a home, food, clothes, etc.  That is his contribution to our family.  How is he supposed to do that and do it well, to the best of his ability when he is always having to leave early?  I should say that my husband is a team player when it comes to our family, and he has left work countless times when there is something that he needs to be with us for, i.e. ER room visits, sickness, babysitting issues.  We are his priority, how lucky I do I feel that we come first?  What is my priority? I have started feeling torn between my full-time and part-time jobs.  I am never fully present at either one.

As I said in my first post, motherhood is not what I thought it was going to be.  What in life is exactly how we imagined it?  What I am realizing is that what I thought I wanted and what I need are two totally different things.  I thought/have thought that I needed to work some in order to be a good mom.  Now I do feel that I need to have something of my own, designated solitude, in order to be a good mom, but that doesn't necessarily mean that I need to work when I am needed at home.  I need to be home with my kids, they want me to be home with them.  Our lives run more smoothly when I am home.  The kids function better when I am at home with them.  And quite frankly, I am finding that I function better when I am a full-time mom and my loyalties are not split.  Now I am not saying that it will be perfect if I start to stay at home full-time because trust  me I KNOW I will need time to myself in order to be a better person but I think that my family would reap the benefits.

What scares me about this? How about everything!  Everything from the loss of income to the total responsibility.  I don't want to stop contributing to the family.  When I work and I get a pay check and that is a tangible contribution to the family, I don't always see my tangible contribution to the family through our kids.  Half the time all I feel like I do is yell at them, but that is another discussion for another time.  What is wrong with our culture that it is not okay to be a stay at home mom, that we are some how reverting to the 1950's by not living up to our full potential as women if we stay home to raise our kids? I think that our culture is effectively devaluing the role of mom and therefore we start to think that we are nothing if we aren't doing everything-being mom and financial contributor to our families.  I envy the moms who can do it all-well and not feel torn.  I don't want my children to be thought of as a handicap that keeps me from being a productive member of society.  Just because I have 3 kids doesn't mean I can't do it all.  It just means that I have to prioritize and evaluate the most important parts of my life, my family-my husband and children and our overall well being as a family.

So how do I transition?

Pity Party Morning

Today is one of those days that I just want to go back to bed and curl up and not see the light of day until tomorrow morning.  In honor of those feelings I am having a pity party this morning, well until I get in the shower (where I am hardly interrupted and by myself) and surrender all of my anxieties over to God.

It is funny to me, that we think that the way our lives should go should follow our own plans/maps.  Oh I can't tell you how many times I have cried over the fact that my life isn't what I think it should be.  Oh I know life it not fair. I know that my life is so incredibly easy compared to 99% of the world, but that doesn't stop me from wanting and wishing it to be different.  As I see these words actually typed out I realize how ridiculously selfish that is.  I WANT things to go according to MY PLAN!  The Lord whispers to my soul that MY PLAN isn't what He has in-store for me and my life.  MY PLAN doesn't even begin to resemble what He has planned for my life.  It is so hard to accept that my timing isn't His timing and His timing is the only one that counts! The culture that we live in leads us to believe that we can have anything that we want instantaneously, right now.  We get so used to satisfying our every whim and heart's desire but I ask myself, is it really satisfying our soul's deepest desires? The easy answer would be of course it is satisfying those deepest desires, otherwise why would I be doing it. But the real answer is that satisfying our every whim usually leaves us with a fleeting and short lived satisfaction.  This satisfaction doesn't usually reach down to warm the deepest and emptiest places in our souls or hearts.

I WANT so much stuff!  Here is a short list I have complied for you in 30 seconds:

1.  My OWN house!
2.  100% job satisfaction for both my full-time and part-time jobs.
3.  For my husband to be appreciated for all that he does at his job and for that appreciation to be transferred into a fat compensation program...because as we all know money buys happiness.
4.  A household expense account that can withstand me satisfying my every whim and shopping trip.
5.  A child that sleeps through the night, every night.
6.  Laundry that washes, dries, folds and puts itself away.
7.  A maid and personal chef, so that I don't have to deal with the menial daily tasks.
8.  Perfectly behaved children.
9.  Knowing what my purpose in life is and how to achieve it.
10.  World peace, because what list would be complete without it.
11.  A deep and personal relationship with my Lord and Savior, one in which He calls me, His friend.

WOW!  I look like a completely self-absorbed and selfish person.  The only thing on this list that I can have a direct effect on is number 11.  Quite frankly does the rest of it even matter in the scheme of life?


(I will be back to post again later today but now I must go get in the shower.)

B**bs or lack there of......

So this morning I was getting dressed, like I do every morning, however I actually care about what I wear on Mondays and Wednesday, okay I really care about what I look like everyday but more so on these two days because I work in the evenings at my "part-time" job, I put on the shirt I had picked out and discovered the problem...it was one of "those" shirts.  "Those" shirts are the ones that I wore before I lost my 2 friends, the ones I affectionately call my boobs.  The shirt is a lovely shade of deep purple, has a deep v-neck with small ruffles and three little buttons.  Underneath this shirt I have my cami, which serves the purpose of smoothing down my extra skin and covering my lower back if I decide to treat everyone by bending over, and my bra, the only one that I own that actually fits.  Okay, maybe that is a little bit of an exaggeration, it is getting a little bit loose again, not it the band size mind you but the part that actually matters: the cup.   Case in point, I was washing my face before bed on night (within the last month) and my dear husband says to me, "maybe we should have gotten you a new bra for Christmas instead of your boots."  Don't all gasp in horror, he wasn't trying to be mean but I don't think that he understood the seriousness of his statement.  I chuckled a little bit when he said this, you know that uncomfortable I can't believe you said that even though it is true chuckle and replied, "I know,  but that wouldn't have been a good gift, plus it was traumatic enough having to get a (size) x-small bathing suit top to take to Mexico." (side note: for those of you who don't know we went to Mexico with my husband's mom's whole side of the family for Christmas and this require the purchase of a new bathing suit.)  The man has seen my chest through its best and worst times.  The best times being the "porn" star boobs I got while nursing each child and the worst times being once they shrunk back to their pre-nursing size.  That pre-nursing size wasn't what he was bargaining for and certainly wasn't what I was looking forward to once I was done nursing.  They don't tell you before you have kids and nurse them that your boobs are going to be returned to you flaccid (i.e. not the perky cute things from before), with saggy nipples and covered with stretch marks. (Sorry to those of you who deem this too much information...its called life and I have no filter in place today.)

Okay so back to the shirt, I would say that it is loose in all the right places, the places that matter, you know from the right under the boobs down, which it is but it is also loose from the chest up too and not in one of those supposed to be loose and baggy, "cute" ways.  In fact everytime I move, whether I am sitting or standing I am constantly checking to see if my shirt has fallen away from my boobs revealing my bra, which my cami isn't doing a very good job of covering since it keeps moving too. I am definitely changing my shirt before I head off to work this afternoon, where I get to work with some delightful high schoolers who still have their perky boobs.  My friend M, who has, as some one once said "Helga and her sister Olga", will probably be receiving a package on her front porch sometime this week with some new shirts so that she can give them the life they deserve.

This is a topic that I will definitely be revisiting in the future!  Maybe by then I will have my friends back...oh wait nothing short of a miracle or a breast augmentation will fix that!