Swingin’ in the Rain

Yesterday was a rough day.

After a week of steady rain, attitudes and annoyances all rubbed up tight against one another to form the perfect storm of insanity inside our home. From the moment the day began, the small people in our midst were clawing at one another’s throats.

You know how little baby tigers play with each other, tumbling around, nipping at one another’s ears and pawing at each other’s faces, and you wonder if they’re fighting or playing?

It was just like that here, but they were definitely fighting. 

Even Lee and I felt the stress of a long couple of days, griping at each other in frustration over silly little things. And so the day went with all of us tired and annoyed, and feeling a little trapped.

Not to be outdone, Annika got in on the insanity of the day. Somehow she managed to fall over backward on the hard tile floor four times. By the last tumble, I was exasperated as she wailed and screeched. I was ready to sell the house, and move into a home made of rubber and foam, in a place where it never ever rains, and children never argue, and you can eat all the Nutella you want without repercussion.

If I’m going to dream up a utopia, it’s going to involve Nutella. Amen? 

After dinner, the kids asked to watch a movie, and I was tempted to say yes. It would keep them quiet, and meant I could disengage almost completely. But somehow I knew that sitting in front of the TV was the wrong response. So did Lee.

“We’re going to the park,” he announced, and was immediately met with groans.

“But it’s raining. I don’t feel like it. I’m tired.” 

The list of complaints went on and on. We ignored them and ushered our little tigers out the door and into the grey outdoors.

There was a break in the weather, so I plopped Annika into the stroller and walked her the half mile to the park where Lee met us. As soon as we arrived it started raining again, and my frustration level hit a high note.

RainDance4

WHY WITH ALL THE RAIN?!

All we wanted was a little free space to spread out – couldn’t God hold off the rain for thirty minutes so we could regroup? I expressed my frustration in a whispered prayer to the Lord.

And then I stopped. Because it was silly to feel frustrated over rain. I knew that it was. Besides, it was more of a steady mist, so why not make the most of it?

RainDance 2

While the boys hit the tennis ball through the misty air, the girls and I headed to the swings, and it was there that I found a glimmer of hope at the end of a long day.

As Annika moved back and forth through the weepy sky, her face lit up and giggles erupted. Tia laughed in return, blonde hair slowly growing damp as the rain cleansed us all of the anger that had followed us to the park.

RainDance8

For twenty minutes, we played in the rain. Even the dog enjoyed herself, wandering freely off her leash in the field behind the playground. It was exactly what we needed, and isn’t it funny how water can do that? Cleanse and renew? It’s always that way, isn’t it? And so I was reminded:

[Tweet “When life offers a rainy day, you can either lament, or swing high into the rain. Choose to swing.”]

RainDanceCollage

As we drove home, all damp and a little chilled, I found myself whispering a prayer of thanksgiving for our opportunity to play in the rain. It wasn’t the way I wanted it to happen, and it didn’t solve all the frustrations of the day.

But once I changed my perspective, I found that the rain was what we needed all along.

The goal now, of course, is to keep that attitude as it appears it’s not going to stop raining here in Florida for the foreseeable future.

Send a lifeboat. And Nutella. And maybe a little wine if you’re so inclined.

Living Creatively with Children

SAA154

Summertime is ripe for creativity. When I think of summer, I think of adventure and exploration, of trying new things, lazy mornings, books by the pool, and popsicles at all hours of the day.

Summer is for creating. It’s for stepping away from the every day mundane that dictated your life, and stepping into something new and exciting – even if only for a time.

I try to offer my children a long creative rope in the summer. If I’m honest, there are times when I wish we lived at the edge of the Wisconsin woods, but those times are only in the summer months when the Florida sun is merciless, and the flat terrain leaves little to the imagination. But then we have evenings like the one we had Friday night, where we swim as a family in the great, big ocean, and I decide Florida’s not so bad after all.

But I do long to see my kids explore. I wish I could send them into the trees with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a roll of toilet paper, and firm instructions to stay outside and enjoy this beautiful day.

I may not be able to shoo them outside for an entire day, but I can offer them plenty of places to escape. Exploration isn’t limited to the forest. It can happen right here inside the walls of our home. Here are a few tips for widening your children’s creative scope this summer.

livingcreatively

1.) Build Forts

Basically, when summertime rolls around, I take a deep breath and remind myself that it’s okay for the house to be messy. I like order. I really, REALLY like order.

But I have four children, so order is a laughable concept. Instead of sweating out the ever chaotic house, I choose to embrace it in the summer. And there is nothing more chaotic to me than a bedroom transformed into a fort – blankets strewn this way and that, kitchen chairs pulled into the room to hold up the “walls” of the fort.

It’s enough to give me an eye twitch.

But they love it. Reading books is boring…unless it’s done so lying back on a pile of pillows under the canopy of a bedroom fort.

If I’m willing to embrace the chaos, a bedroom fort is a heckuva way to celebrate summer.

SAA15

2.) Keep Painting Materials Handy

Like fort building, watercolor painting makes my heart race, and not in a good way. The paint brushes that need to be cleaned. The drips of paint that find their way to my countertops and floor, the gigantic “masterpieces” that I must find a way to display – it’s all stressful to this orderly Mama.

But…

The other day, my concrete, typically unimaginative second born pulled out the paints and tore off a giant piece of art paper, and she began to create. With her tongue stuck between her lips in quiet concentration, she dove into her painting, and when she was finished she held up her paper proudly.

It was gorgeous.

There’s something very calming and magical about putting a brush against the page. When the kids are arguing, painting is one of the first activities I suggest because is requires a deep breath…and minimal talking.

Win-Win.

SAA152

3.) Read Good Books

I don’t have readers. I wish that I did, but I simply do not. My children don’t like to read books. So I do what any good mother would do.

I bribe them.

Yes, I pay my children to read in the summer, but really I like to think I’m training them to enjoy the gift of words. There is nothing I love more than seeing my kids light up over a good story. And so we spend time in the library during the summer where they’re given the freedom to choose their own adventure.

This discipline of reading is two-fold, as I must also make myself slow down and read with them. I want to show them the beauty of getting lost in story, so I read as much as I can in the summer.

As much as I love reading, slowing down myself to do so is harder than it seems it should be, because usually when they’re still and quiet, my first response is to start cleaning up some of the messes.

LET THE MESSES GO!

That is my summertime mantra.

SAA153

Summertime can be stressful with everyone home at once, all the live-long day. This is where our Summertime Agenda of Awesome comes in handy, as well as a willingness to let go of my need for order and control.

A little bit of chaos has the potential to produce some magical days. I’m looking for the magic this year.

Are you?

The Girl in the Trees

I have this image of a younger version of myself – ten, maybe eleven – and she’s tramping through the field behind our Wisconsin home. Just beyond the line of tall grasses that liked to tickle my waist stood the forest, thick and green, and  begging for adventure.

Georgia

This little girl me loved to walk through those weeds, stepping high to avoid ant piles and other potentially hidden creatures. I loved to run my hands over the tops of the orange grasses, and step into the clearing of the woods where the cool air would nip at my skin.

There was a half built tree house there, a long ago abandoned project that was no more than a platform high in the trees with a few boards nailed into one of the trunks for a ladder. I’d scramble up to the platform and sit close to the edge, my feet dangling over the side, because I liked the feeling of emptiness beneath my swinging feet, and also because the boards in the middle of the platform were beginning to rot and I was never quite certain they would hold.

That girl had a lot of imagination. Great stories were acted out inside the canopy of those trees. And many days were spent up there with a notebook or journal and a pen, writing down all manner of thoughts and desires and dreams.

After watching The Secret Garden for the first time, I imagined that place in the woods to be my own secret garden. It wasn’t a well-kept secret given that it was the neighborhood hang out, but when I was there alone, I let my mind wander.

Sometimes I wonder what I would tell that girl if I could go back and visit her. Would I warn her of some of the bad decisions she would make and tell her to avoid them? Maybe, but probably not. Bad decisions are character building, after all.

Would I tell her to just enjoy every moment, because it all goes by so quick? Would I tell her not to take advantage of loved ones being near, because in a heartbeat life can change, and loved ones can leave your side? I might tell her these things, but it probably wouldn’t matter.

That girl was fanciful and imaginative. She was idealistic, and the innocence of youth followed her like a breeze. She would have heard me, but she wouldn’t have understood.

I don’t know what I’d want to tell that younger version of myself. Hold on to your dreams no matter how long it takes, because you never know what’s going to happen? 

I think that quality was knit into the fiber of her being – of my being.

Today is my birthday. Another year has passed, and what a year it’s been. This time last year, Lee and I were frantically making plans to visit his parents in Conway, to be there when his dad went in for his first chemo treatment. We got seven months and one day with him after the diagnosis.

Yesterday, I was cleaning out a book shelf and I found a recordable book that we had his dad read last year. It wasn’t working well, I’m hoping it’s just in need of new batteries, but when I opened it up and his voice rang out strong and clear, my heart skipped.

Sometimes I miss those days in the Wisconsin woods when all that complicated life was the requirement that I make my bed daily. But really, despite all that life has brought our way, it’s only sometimes that I miss those days.

Because the girl sitting high in that unfinished tree house with the rotten boards had no idea what was waiting for her. She couldn’t even dream it up. She didn’t know the love that waited in the wings, or the laughter. She didn’t know that dreams would come true, and that one day she’d grow up to have so much more than a Secret Garden.

She didn’t know that with the sting of death came the reality of heaven, and the sweetness of living with both of those realities was something almost indescribable.

I think I’d leave her alone up there in the trees. I’d give her the dreams and the dancing visions of fame and fortune. I give her the peace that she so loved sitting on that platform in the sky.

The girl in the trees is still here, all wrapped up in my memory. She’s still a little fanciful at times, and imaginative, and perhaps even a bit idealistic. There’s no more innocence of youth, but there’s the wisdom that comes with age.

I like how the two versions of myself have merged.

Four Kids = Easy

Lee is out of town for four days. That’s important to know before reading further.

kidsselfie

It started at midnight on Saturday night (Sunday morning?) when Tia came into my room complaining of a headache and stomach ache. I gave her some medicine, then nestled her in bed with me, and while she slept I stared up at the ceiling fan, mind spinning.

She’s been complaining of headaches off and on for a week, coupled with a bloody nose now and then for good effect. By 1:00 am, I’d convinced myself that she was suffering from all manner of diseases, and I’d also run through the episode of Little House on the Prairie where Albert dies after a sudden onset of bloody noses.

I scooted closer to her to listen for steady rhythmic breathing, and I finally drifted into a fitful sleep around 2:00.

Annika woke me up at 5:30 ready to go. She was in no mood for more sleeping, so I finally resigned myself to a long day and dragged out of bed. I was leading worship at church, so I needed to have everyone ready and out the door by 7:45 anyway.

I showered, but didn’t wash my hair because who has time for that, while they watched TV. Because it’s easier to let them watch TV than to ask them to be productive.

After a bit of shoo-ing, and insistent hand clapping, I managed to get everyone into the car, dressed and semi-put together. We were half way out of the neighborhood when Landon spoke.

“Mom, I’m hungry. I didn’t get breakfast.”

I cracked open a box of donuts at church and shoved one in his mouth…and my own because I didn’t get breakfast either. I let Annika take a bite of my donut because she stared at it so intensely I couldn’t say no. Did that donut contain peanuts?

No idea. Maybe? She survived, so we’re good.

I asked Tia if her head still hurt and she said no, so I’m glad I lost a night of sleep over my unfounded fears.

DARN YOU, LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE!

I put my nine and seven year olds in charge of watching their sister while I practiced for that morning’s service, and I left my eleven year old in the church kitchen alone to work with scalding hot liquid as he prepared the pots of coffee that would be waiting for everyone when they arrived.

Minutes before church started, Landon leaned over to show me one of his teeth twisted around and stuck in a stomach wrenching position.

“Can I go pull it?” he staged whispered. I nodded, and I sent Tia to the bathroom with him to help. Together they worked the tooth out in the church bathroom, and he returned to the sanctuary with it in a little baggie. Then he spent the next ten minutes dabbing the hole in his mouth with his finger and showing me the blood.

Jesus be near.

After church, we came home and as I set Annika on the floor I caught sight of a lizard scurrying across our floor. He’s been hiding in the house for days, but he’s an elusive little bugger. Also, he’s not so much a lizard as he is a small, black dragon. He somehow manages to disappear every time we go hunting for him.

I feel semi-certain that he is hiding inside one of our chairs, but I try not to think about it for very long, otherwise I start imagining him creeping up behind me while I watch TV and karate chopping my neck, knocking me unconscious, then taking over the house and inviting in all his Rambo lizard friends.

 Clearly I need more sleep.

The kids spent the afternoon in the pool, and I forgot to put sunscreen on them, so they got sunburned.

Landon asked to play the game of LIFE with me while his brother and sister played at friends houses. I obliged, and despite actually trying to lose, I still managed to beat him by about $250,000. (If you know Landon, you’ll understand why sometimes it’s easier to just let him win rather than deal with the consequences of him losing). He cried, and I sighed.

And while we played, Annika managed to find a stray piece of paper on the floor, which she ate a portion of before I discovered her and dug it out of her mouth.

I fed them leftover meat and stale chips for dinner, and at 6:00 realized Annika hadn’t had any solid food all day. Sundays are hard, and schedules are off, so she’d only had bottles. No wonder she was watching us eat like a rabid Velociraptor.

I put them all to bed dirty, and just as I turned out their lights a thunderstorm rolled in, and everyone came tearing out, eyes wide, full of fear, because my first born has conditioned the other two to believe that any cloud that produces lightening is a funnel cloud.

I promised them that if any of the clouds started spinning, I would retrieve them from their beds and we’d take shelter in my closet. Then I sent them back to their bed despite their tears and protests. Meanwhile Annika screamed in her crib because she took such a long, late afternoon nap that she was absolutely not tired at 7:30. I put her to bed anyway, because I was tired at 7:30.

Finally, blissfully, they all fell asleep. By 10:00, it was silent in my house. I fell into bed, and let slumber wash over me. While I slept, I dreamt I was on a Merry-Go-Round that started spinning uncontrollably while a woman with a raspy voice barked instructions repeatedly over the loudspeaker in German.

I interpreted her yelling to mean I should hold on tight.

When I woke up I was clutching my pillow, clenching my jaw, and the room was spinning.

Four kids, y’all.

I’m nailing it.

Slow Descent? Nah, Just Fall Into It

Castle2

Ten hours and fifteen minutes after taking off from Munich, the plane finally began it’s approach into the Atlanta airport. I couldn’t even really feel excited over the sheer exhaustion of it all.

Ten hours is a long time.

I’d finished writing a chapter in my book, written the beginnings of a short story, read for quite a bit, and watched three movies, because somehow zoning out to the tiny television screen felt the least like trying to slog through quick sand.

Sandwiched between my husband and a very kind young German man, I’d shifted and squirmed through most of the flight, because I can find neither comfort nor sleep on an airplane. It’s a terrible curse to not be able to drift to sleep in any position but fully prone.

One of the movies I watched had a bit of suspense to it, and at one point, when a shark leapt out of the water and almost bit the main character’s head off, I yelped and accidentally grabbed the arm of the kind, young German man. Lee fell over into the aisle laughing while this poor fellow confirmed his suspicions that I was a crazy American. I tried apologizing, and he smiled politely, then shifted as far away from me as he possibly could.

Bless him.

As we made our way down, the runway in our sights, I offered Lee a small smile. “Almost there,” I said, and he nodded in return, equally numb.

We raced toward the ground, waiting for the wheels to touch down on American soil, and then WHAMO!

It was one of the roughest landings I’ve ever experienced in an airplane. I suspect the pilot had his own feelings of numbness to contend with, and perhaps he got tired of the slow descent and decided to just throw that sucker down and be done with it.

As the plane shuddered and bounced under the weight of a quick landing, I gripped the armrest. I almost grabbed my new German friend’s hand, but I noticed he had tucked his hands under his legs in self defense. Poor fellow.

A few minutes later, the plane rolled to a stop, and my grip loosened as I realized we’d made it safe and sound. The plane didn’t barrel roll into the gate like it seemed it would in those first few moments after slamming to the ground. We had arrived. We were home.

I didn’t realize our landing would be a metaphor for reentry into every day life.

It’s amazing how a getaway can revive a person. Last week away was fabulous from start to finish. I loved every minute of it, and if I’m going to be completely honest, I didn’t really miss the kids until the day it was time to go home. I simply relished in the freedom of kidless-ness. There were many moments when I wished that the kids were with me. Each time I explored a castle, I wished I could share the experience with them, because I knew they’d love it.

But I never once wished I was back home.

When we finally landed in Tampa, though, Lee and I were beyond ready to get home and see the children. This was our slow descent. It felt like it took forever for our wheels to hit the ground, but finally we were there, and the return hugs and snuggles we got were worth every minute away.

The first night was sweet and fun as we shared our trip with them, and they shared their week with us. My mom not only survived, but she did a slam bang job of holding the house together in the process. She deserves a few extra jewels in her heavenly crown for last week, for sure.

MomandTia

We went to bed that first night, and slept soundly, then woke up and WHAMO! No more slow descent. Arguments, homework, notes from teachers and homeroom moms listing out 8,462 things that needed to be done before the last day of school, soccer try outs, practices, and incidents that occurred while we were gone that needed to be addressed.

It’s like we fell out of the sky and slammed back into real life, and last night Lee caught my eye after we finally managed to get them all in bed. His wide eyes matched mine, and we sort of just stared at one another for a long minute before starting to laugh.

“I guess there’s no easing back into this, right?” I asked. Lee shook his head and raised his glass to me.

“To Germany!” he cried.

To Germany, indeed. I write this now after a restless night with a kid who had nightmares and ended up in our bed…on top of me for the the most part. The same kid woke up with a gushing bloody nose that I got to deal with before a sip of coffee crossed my lips.

Welcome home, and thanks for dropping in, I thought to myself when I got them all on the bus, but there’s a grin behind the thought, because I wouldn’t orchestrate life any other way than this – crazy, and busy, and brimming with love.

I could do without the bloody noses, though…

Subscribe to receive a FREE excerpt from the award winning Like A River From Its Course!

You have Successfully Subscribed!