I am a preparer. I like organization, and I like things to run smoothly. I am also a parent of four rowdy children, which means I am constantly and forever being forced to slow my roll and accept that my life will not be organized for the next 20-ish years.
And given the spacing of my children, I will likely have grandchildren by the time I send my final child out on her own, so the idea of me being organized ever is almost laughable.
I also just threw up a little in my mouth at the idea of myself as a grandparent. In my mind, I AM STILL IN COLLEGE!
All of that is a lead-in to the fact that the walls of my home are caving in on me, and there simply isn’t enough time in the day for me to get ahead of all the crazy. I’m trying to embrace the season of now. I really am. I am trying to let it go.
Tomorrow night we will welcome “K” back into our home. We truly cannot wait to have her back with us. When we first got the email saying she could return, I felt a surge of panic. Because of her age, it took a long time to confirm whether or not she would be able to return, so we were told only on Thanksgiving that she would be coming.
SO LITTLE TIME TO PREPARE!
I’m still not prepared, and Idina and I are singing our tune hourly. Let it go! Let it go!! Turn away and slam that door!
I haven’t slammed any literal doors…today. But I have let go of a few expectations. The first is that I will have a clean house. I won’t. It’s just not going to happen. This place is a bit of a pit, and the amount of work needed to get it into the shape I would prefer it be in is more time than I have between now and tomorrow.
I’d need a couple of clones and a few stiff drinks.
I’m getting done what needs to be done to make this a sweet time for our family. I got “K’s” room ready, and I’ve moved Sloan’s clothes into Landon’s room. I’ve got all my Christmas shopping done, and I have a loose plan of what we’re going to do between now and Monday when we fly to Arkansas.
I’m going to consider all of that a Christmas win, and let go of the desire to completely declutter all living spaces inside this house. When I get in this sort of a tizzy about the clutter, I end up doing foolish things – like accidentally giving Tia’s beloved Lovey Bear to Goodwill.
Which I did a few months ago and she hasn’t let me forget it.
A couple of nights ago, I actually dreamed that woodland creatures came into my home and cleaned it out for me. There was a bunny, a fox, a few birds, and a pack of mice, and they organized the whole house from top to bottom.
I woke up from this dream both happy, and a little confused. Clearly I’m a little out of my mind these days, yes? And the truth is, if that actually happened in real life, I would FREAK out, not for the obvious reason of woodland creatures cleaning my home, but because I am so ridiculously terrified of both mice and bunnies.
(The bunny thing is strange, I admit, but they do, in fact, scare me. They’re so unpredictable, and they stare at you with their beady little eyes like they’re going to pounce on your face at any moment. My children have been informed that we will never have a bunny…ever.)
So the house won’t be perfect, but we are preparing room in our hearts for another memorable Christmas. That will have to be good enough for now.
Because bunnies aren’t allowed, no matter how well they might be able to organize a closet.
Am I the only one who goes a little crazy when life feels out of control? Does anybody else feel this way…or dream of animals cleaning for them? Anyone? Anyone?
I hear this question at least once a day now that Sloan has his own blog. He’s written all of two posts in the two weeks since he started it, and he’s learning how to manage his expectations.
Welcome to blogging, son.
Yesterday after breakfast, he asked if he could check his blog. In general, our rule is no technology in the mornings before school, but I caved because we were out of coffee, and I can’t be expected to uphold any semblance of order in my home without some sort of stimulant.
He sat in front of the computer and stared at the screen, shaking his head in clear consternation. I peeked over his shoulder and fought off a grin. He had 15 comments on the last post, but most of them were back and forth between him and a friend.
“You have to put more content up on the blog,” I informed him. “After about 24 hours, people generally quit coming to your blog. It’s not supposed to be a chat board. You just need to put up a new post and bring people to it.”
That’s when Lee stepped in.
“Son,” he said, his voice getting a little deeper as though he had a great nugget of knowledge to offer. “I’m going to give you a bit of wisdom from the great philosopher of the ’80’s and ’90’s. He was a man who gave the world much. His name…was Michael Jackson.”
This is when I stopped making school lunches and turned, eyebrow raised, to listen where this conversation was going.
Lee leaned down, putting his elbows on the table so he was eye level with Sloan.
“Mr. Jackson said something important. He said, ‘I’m starting with the man in the mirror. I’m asking him to make a change.’ If you want to make a change in this world, start with yourself,” he put his hand over Sloan’s heart.
“If you want to make the world a better place, just look at yourself and make the change, son,” he said. His voice emphatic. Meanwhile I’m about to wet my pants laughing.
“Don’t worry about how people respond to your blog posts, or what they say. You just make the change and tell the stories. Let that be what your blog is about.”
Sloan nodded, his face laced with both awe and amusement. He was trying to discern whether or not his dad was serious. For the record, Lee was (mostly) serious.
Lee stood up and turned to me, his eyes wide. “Man, that was good stuff right there. Did you see what I did? I was on fire. That was awesome! Wiggety Wack!”
This is my life. My crazy, hilarious, at times baffling, life.
She marched out onto the floor and stood at attention, and I was in awe.
I don’t know why my daughter’s confidence still shocks me, but it does every time. When she steps onto the mat, she is so sure of herself. Though she’s nervous, and she doesn’t always execute every move perfectly, she possesses a confidence in her abilities that seems so beyond her eight years.
A large part of her determined attitude is simply what she was programmed with at birth. From the day she arrived, she has been strong willed, stubborn, and brave. As a toddler, just barely able to walk, I’d find her in all manner of places and positions.
I’d walk into the kitchen and find her on top of the counter, no chair in sight, and she’d smile like, “Look at this awesome thing I did.”
I’d look out the kitchen window and see her sitting on top of the basketball goal…nine feet in the air…over asphalt…and she’d stare at me like, “Yeah? What of it?”
This is who she is, this daughter of mine. She’s gifted and brave. But she’s also a little girl, and so vulnerable to being swept up in the tide of a world that waits to tell her she isn’t good enough – that she should be better, prettier, faster, stronger, and smarter if she wants to be noticed.
In this fast paced world, we as parents have a monumental task ahead of us. How do we raise confident children in a society that is buzzing around us at lightening speed? Even more specifically, how do we raise confident young women in a world that values beauty over brains – a world that says a woman’s worth only travels as far as her accomplishments take her?
Raising confident girls requires so much more than simply telling them to “Reach for the stars.” We should tread carefully when we tell our daughters that they can do anything they want with a little hard work and perseverance.
Too much of that message and we’re bound to set them up for some disappointment.
I want my girls to walk confidently toward their passions and to work diligently within their skill sets. I want them to step on the mats of life and not think about the chatter around them, because there will be chatter. In a world that is constantly moving, constantly changing, always telling them they aren’t enough, I long for them to know that their worth is far more valuable than what they see in the mirror.
My goal is not to raise girls who think they can do whatever they set their mind to. It would be unfair to set them up for that kind of failure.
Instead, I want my girls to know that they can accomplish whatever it is the Lord has purposed for them to do.
I want them to walk confidently in the path that the Lord lays before them, and to embrace each challenge as a gift. And more than anything, I want them to chase after God. I want them to pursue Him, and as they do so if it leads them to a high powered position in the corporate world, then that’s wonderful.
If it leads them to become stay at home moms, that’s wonderful. If it leads them to the mission field, to the sports arena, to the classroom, to fame or to obscurity – that’s wonderful.
My message to my girls will always be, “Seek the Lord above all things.” Beyond that, I will point them in the direction of their natural bent and pray that the Lord grant them the success that He has purposed for them. Raising a confident girl isn’t about telling her she can do whatever she sets her mind to do. There’s no Jiminey Cricket standing by waiting to grant her heart’s desire with the wish of a star.
I don’t want my girls to have confidence in their abilities – I want them to have confidence in the Lord.
This is my prayer, and as I pray, I will forever be on the sidelines cheering them on, marveling at their talents, and praising God that I get to be their mom.
I sat in the nurses station and glanced up at the wall. That’s when my heart sank.
Hanging on the wall was a poster that only confirmed, in my already emotional postpartum mind, that I was somehow failing my baby – that I had, in fact, failed all my children. It was my fault. I didn’t try hard enough. I didn’t eat enough protein or drink enough water or take enough vitamins.
Or maybe it was just me. I wasn’t enough.
Post pregnancy hormones are no joke. Rationality can slip right past us on any given day as we feel ALL THE FEELINGS all at the same time. So when confronted with posters like this one taken from the website Breastfeeding.com, a mother who is struggling to breast feed her baby is ripe for confusion and worry.
Poster from Breastfeeding.com
Before I had my first born, I thought the biggest hurdle I’d have to cross was natural childbirth. Once I got through that process, I assumed I’d be home free.
No one ever told me that breastfeeding was difficult.
While most women get their milk within 3-5 days, mine didn’t come in until day 8, and even then it was very little. In the meantime, my child was starving. He screamed hysterically day and night until I finally called the pediatrician and she had me start him on formula supplements.
I visited the lactation consultants, once again checking all pride and shame at the door as people I didn’t know had their hands in sensitive areas.
I took all the vitamins they suggested and ate the foods that were supposed to help increase milk supply. I drank gallons of water, laid around with a heating pad on my chest, and fed my baby every three hours, pumping in between feedings in order to stimulate more production.
Nothing worked. Within a month I was exhausted, my baby was still hungry, I was bruised from all the pumping, and I was an emotional wreck. As I sat in my chair cradling my newborn, I sobbed endlessly until my husband sat down beside me and told me to stop.
If only it were that easy.
I have tried and failed to breastfeed all four of my children. I would venture a guess that I’ve tried harder than most people. The work I have to do to produce a small amount of milk is astounding, and it’s unrealistic for me to maintain that type of schedule.
Posters and propaganda like the above do not help women like myself, or any others who either cannot breastfeed their children, or choose not to. So perhaps instead of pumping us full of fearful, and scientifically unsound, statements we could approach the topic of breastfeeding from a more gentle and understanding point of view.
Here is what we know as absolute fact:
– Breastfeeding is the safest, healthiest option for an infant if the mother is able to do it. It is scientifically proven that breastfeeding provides a child with excellent antibodies, and with a nutritionally balanced supply of food.
– Breastfeeding is cheaper. IT IS SO MUCH CHEAPER!
– Breastfeeding allows mother and baby to bond in a special and unique way. (Although feeding a child a bottle allows you to bond in different ways as you look into her eyes while you feed her.)
Here are the incredibly loose, and sometimes incredibly false, arguments presented:
– Breastfed babies are smarter.
Bull.
Brigham Young University released a study recently that gave insight into why breastfed babies score higher on IQ tests. And it has little to do with breastmilk.
Breastfeeding mothers tend to respond to their babies emotional cues, and they often begin reading to their children earlier (at 9 months of age).
“It’s really the parenting that makes the difference,” says lead study author Ben Gibbs.
So maybe instead of telling formula feeding moms that their children will be dumber than their breastfed peers, we could simply encourage ALL parents to adopt these obviously healthy parenting techniques.
– Breasted babies are leaner for life.
Ridiculous.
Once again, there are assumptions being made here that don’t take into account a number of other factors, namely both genetics and environment. The claim that a breastfed baby will learn to regulate his or her own eating habits for life simply because he was given breastmilk is ludicrous.
A child will learn lifelong healthy eating habits from parents who teach them. Parents who model healthy living will raise leaner children. Perhaps more breastfed mothers live their lives this way, but again, this has nothing to do with breastfeeding and everything to do with the parenting mindset. To connect the two is irresponsible.
– Breastfed babies are healthier and have fewer ear infections.
I can count on one hand the number of ear infections that all of my children have had in my eleven and a half years of parenting. Not one of my kids has had tubes put in their ears. Save from the obligatory yearly colds and illnesses that get passed around schools, my children have not been sick.
And they were all formula fed babies.
– Breastfed babies have lower risk of childhood leukemia, MS, allergies, and heart disease.
Once again, there is very little research to support these claims. Yes, a lack of breast milk could contribute to these things. But there are other risk factors that are much more likely including genetics, environment, and prolonged deficiencies in nutrition.
The fact of the matter is that it is simply irresponsible to put that kind of fear into a mother’s head when you have so little science to back up the claims. To make her feel that her choice not to breastfeed, or her inability to sustain it, will result in an obese, sickly child who has a lower IQ and is unable to properly bond to her is fear mongering at its very worst.
Image by Avodah Images.
At the end of the day, if a mother is feeding her baby, she is doing something wonderful. Nourishing a newborn will inevitably require some sort of sacrifice. For breastfeeding mothers, it’s the sacrifice of freedom. For formula feeding mothers, it’s the sacrifice of finances.
But we are feeding our children, and what a miracle it is! We have options, and that’s a good thing. I’ve said on more than one occasion that I am so thankful for formula, because were I born in a different time, keeping my children alive could have been devastating.
So let’s stick to sound science, stop pushing fear on one another, and applaud the effort that it takes to sustain our newborns.
You’re doing a good thing in feeding your babies, Mamas. A very hard, good thing.
I was in sixth grade when my parents sat my brother and I down and broke the news. We were leaving snowy Wisconsin and headed to St. Louis. As an eleven year old girl with a flare for the dramatic, I was certain that my life would end as we pulled away from our home. If I remember correctly, I collapsed on my bed in tears and moaned that my LIFE was OVER.
Then I called Missouri “Misery” for months.
I was super pleasant.
Despite my preteen attitude, St. Louis quickly became home. It’s hard not to love that city. It’s beautiful and hilly. The people are friendly, and the landscape is diverse and lovely. Though I attended college in Texas, and Lee and I spent our first two years of married life in Dallas, St. Louis would remain “home.”
We eventually moved there and it became our literal home. Our older three children were born there. We have such dear friends that still reside there – friends who are more like family in our hearts.
So it hurts to see a piece of my city in flames. The fires burn, and fights erupt, and I wish I could wrap my arms around the entire city and hold it tight. St. Louis is better than what we’re seeing on the news.
I have so many thoughts swirling regarding the events that sparked these protests. I hesitate to share too deeply because there is so much chatter out there already. I’m not going to say anything that hasn’t already been said, and others have spoken more eloquently than I ever could. So I will refrain.
I’ll work my questions out in secret, because sometimes we need silence. Sometimes we speak louder with our mouths shut. So I’ll do my part by not further adding to the online clatter. I will simply hold tight to the love that I have for the town that I will always call home.
And as we head into Thanksgiving, I’m ever mindful of how very much I have for which to be thankful. I am surrounded by people who love me.
I have a baby to snuggle, and she is quite snuggly.
So many blessings surround me. Yes, there are unanswered prayers, and there are unmet desires and requests that linger, but if I sit back and catalog all the good, I am desperately thankful for this life that the Lord has given me.
I’m also thankful for my firstborn who started his first blog this week. He is my child who is the toughest to parent, but who has the biggest heart. He does everything big, and his desire to help people in need ministers to me constantly.
He titled his blog One Can – One Life. He wants to encourage young people not to be afraid of serving and helping those in need. He would love it if you followed along as he highlights ways that we can give and serve in our local communities, and in the world.
While the fires burn, and hearts are hurting, perhaps we could take a cue from an eleven year old with a huge heart and look around for ways to help someone in need today. A graceful word, a hug, an understanding heart – these can go a long way to easing broken hearts, a balm to wounded souls.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. I hope it’s blessed weekend for all of you.
I have a confession: I desperately miss the carefree days of blogging at Minivans Are Hot. It was time to move on, and I’m glad that I did, but I do miss that space. I miss the random and ridiculous, and all the laughter.
So I decided that this space is going to have to lighten up a bit every now and again.
Here’s the thing – I’m really not that deep. I don’t find great meaning in each and every day. My life is crazy. It’s a fight to keep my head above water most days, what with ALL THE CHILDREN, ALL THE TIME. Seriously, there are kids everywhere right now. I feel like Miss Hannigan.
Everywhere I turn, I can see them.
And then there’s the laundry. Lawdy, all the laundry. As I folded clothes tonight, I tried to think of something I could write that would really encourage and bless the internet, and you know what I realized?
Laundry is just laundry.
I can’t always find a Jesus-y application in a pile of clothes. (Wait…hang on. I’ve got it. The clothes were dirty, but they were made clean, just like our sin made us dirty, but Jesus washed us clean.)
*groan*
Okay, that was awful.
So I don’t have something super deep to share today, and there are so many reasons for that, one of which is the fact that I am completely and entirely distracted by the roaches in my kitchen.
Because they have apparently made a nest somewhere in my kitchen, and I’m fairly certain that nest is somewhere inside, or above, or under, or behind my microwave. Which can only mean one thing.
It’s time to burn the house down.
At least that was my suggestion, but Lee said I should call the bug man first and see if that works. Seems like a waste of time when we could just torch the place, but I figured I’d give it a try just to make him happy.
I killed three roaches around the microwave the other day. Yesterday, when I opened it to reheat my coffee, another one came crawling out between the glass panes, then he turned and laughed in my face because he knew he scared the bejeebus out of me, but I couldn’t smash him.
He then proceeded to do a little jig while I pawed at the glass, trying to figure out if I could somehow kill him without breaking it.
The bug man is coming out tomorrow, and I’m perfectly content with him taking a hatchet and a blow torch to the microwave, or really to the entire kitchen. We don’t need a kitchen. That’s what restaurants are for.
So there are the roaches who are distracting me from any deep thoughts. Then there’s the whole not sleeping all night thing, which leaves me sort of fuzzy most days. There just isn’t enough coffee.
And I mentioned ALL THE CHILDREN, ALL THE TIME right?
Sweet kids. I love them so much. But we’re going on day four with daddy out of town, and my brain cannot ingest any more talking, and three out of the four really enjoy the talking. They have words they want to share, and stories they want to tell.
Detailed stories. So many details, all of which I am apparently supposed to remember. Then they all start talking at once, and I go into a zone. Then suddenly Sloan is waving his hand in front of my face and yelling “Earth to mom!” Which they all think is hilarious, and they laugh while I stare at them blankly, trying to remember what they were saying…and their names.
And did I eat anything today? Sometimes I forget to eat, which is probably fine since THERE ARE ROACHES IN MY KITCHEN!!!
There’s also the baby, God bless her. She’s wickedly adorable, and a welcome distraction. Until she starts crying.
So let’s see, I can’t think of anything deep and profound to say because of the children, the roaches, and because I can’t find Jesus in a pile of laundry.
I did, however, write some pretty words for Extraordinary Mommy this week. Words about gratitude and family, and tender moments with my daughter. So if you want more pretty words, join me over there.
But if you want nonsense, stick around. I’ll be here, babbling semi-coherently until Lee walks through the door.
Have a good weekend, everyone! Go have some fun! Pour a tall drink! Share a laugh with friends! Talk about everything and talk about nothing, and when you do, think of me.
I’ll be here, digging out from under the laundry and listening to all the words.
