Lee is out of town for four days. That’s important to know before reading further.
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.
I walked timidly into the chiropractor’s office. I don’t like chiropractors. Allowing someone to grab my head and twist it until my neck pops like a roll of bubble wrap makes my stomach get all twisty. I know these people are trained, and I’ve never actually heard of a chiropractor twisting someone’s head right off their body.
But what if it happened, and I was the one on the table?!
I went yesterday, though, because the day before I threw out my back. Because apparently I am an old lady now, and that’s what happens to old ladies who bend over and try to pick up a heavy baby.
Lift with the legs, not with the back!
So I think it was obvious to the people in the office that I was feeling a little nervous. I’m guessing the tip off came when I told the assistant, “I’m super nervous about this.”
She led me to a nearby room and had me lay on a water bed. But this was no ordinary water bed. It was a hydrotherapy water bed, heated to 100 degrees, then turned on to pulsate every bit of nervousness straight out of my body.
For twenty minutes I laid in the dark room while the water beat my muscles into submission, and I think I met Jesus there. When she walked back in and flipped on the lights, I felt momentarily offended. Why would anyone ever tell you to stop laying on a hydrotherapy bed?!
I’m kind of holding out hope that heaven will be equipped with hydrotherapy beds.
By the time I saw the doctor, I was ready to let him pull and pop and crack and maneuver everything around until I felt the tension lessen on my lower back, and I walked out having experienced both the good and the bad of an adjustment. And together they worked to free me of the pain that had threatened to push me down.
As I drove home, all relaxed and happy, I thought about those twenty minutes on the hydro bed and how utterly at peace I felt. My back didn’t hurt, there were no sounds of children or phone messages begging for my attention. It was quiet, save for the hum of the machine that coaxed out all the knots.
It dawned on me that I haven’t had enough of those moments lately. I haven’t taken enough time to sit still, to close my eyes, to simply relax. Yes, it would help me slip away and recharge if I had my own hydrotherapy bed (and don’t think I haven’t already priced them), but since that’s not an option, I need to come up with another solution.
I’ve felt creatively parched lately. A traveling husband, busy schedules, and little time alone to sit and think left me all knotted up. I sit down to write and the words feel locked, the characters muddled, the stories choppy and incomplete. I try to remember the most basic of tasks, and it’s like someone turns a jack hammer on in my head.
And don’t even get me started on the assignments that teachers are sending home right now. Torture, pure torture. The kids bring home the same predictable homework all year long, and then the last month of school we change it up and play Spelling Bingo, and Living History projects are due?
*bangs head against wall*
But isn’t that the nature of motherhood? It’s like walking into the unknown, your back all tied in knots. And you have to take all the stress and the frustration to the Lord, surrendering control so that He can loosen a few joints.
Sometimes the loosening feels like a hydrotherapy bed with the Lord offering refreshment through a quick nap, an unexpected play date, or a few moments alone to clear your head.
And other days, you’re not afforded the opportunity to slip away, so you surrender your control to Him, and He loosens the joints for you. You trust that He knows what’s best, and you try to resist pushing back against Him as He makes the necessary adjustments in your heart.
It’s a loose metaphor, I know. But it’s working for me today, and maybe it’ll work for you? Maybe you’re tired, weary as the end of the year push threatens to undo you. Maybe you can’t step away, so you simply need to lean into the Lord and let Him adjust the frustration and fatigue out of your spirit.
Or maybe you just need to buy yourself a hydrotherapy bed.
Happy weekend, everyone! I’m praying it’s a relaxing and sweet time for you all!
She walks out of the bathroom and looks at me imploringly, asking without saying a word, and knowing my answer without really having to be told.
Hanging her head, she trudges to her room and pulls a rash guard on over her two piece bathing suit, then heads out to swim.
This was our compromise. She so desperately wanted a bikini, and I caved, but on one condition: She only wears it at home when it’s our family. If anyone else is over, or she goes to a friend’s house, she wears a swim shirt.
This has been a tough rule for me to implement, if I’m being honest. Really tough. And I’ve caved on occasion, which isn’t fair to her. But the battle wears me out, because while I do see the value in teaching my daughter modesty, I also understand the struggle that she faces, especially living in a state when it’s bathing suit season year round.
It’s almost true what she tells me: Everyone she knows wears two pieces. And at nine years old, when she’s oblivious to sexuality, teaching modesty is a difficult concept. At this age, it simply boils down to obedience. I require her compliance on this issue even though she doesn’t understand.
“Why does it matter if I show off my body?” she asks. “People don’t really care about looking at me.”
Oh, but my daughter, they do.
It complicates matters when she’s a gymnast, and at nine years old has a body that is envious. Toned and lean, she doesn’t look like most nine year olds, and it makes her dad shudder to think what she’ll look like at 16.
So we fight the fight, even though it’s hard and it doesn’t make sense, but sometimes the boundary lines get muddied, and I stumble over myself, and I can’t find the balance.
“Well, if I’m going to my friend’s house, and it’s just going to be us girls, can I wear my two piece then?” This is where the battle heats up, because why not? Why can’t she if it’s just going to be the girls at a friend’s house? But then the envelope gets pushed even further.
“Well, we’re going to the beach, but it’s just with my friends who are girls, so can I wear my bikini?”
Round and round we go with me bringing bathing suit after bathing suit home for her to try on. Tankini’s and cute one pieces. Fun rash guards that are bright colors. Everything I can do to show her that wearing a bikini is not the only way to have a good time in the sun.
It’s a battle I’m willing to fight, but I admittedly get tired. I grow weary with the constant asking, the forever boundary pushing, and she’s only nine. We have a long way to go.
But I believe it’s a worthy battle. I really do. In a world that defines women by how they look, I want my daughter to have confidence that her bikini body isn’t what’s most important.
And fitting in, though so very compelling, isn’t all that important, either.
I want her to respect her body, and not to define herself against a culture that says more skin means more beautiful.
That being said, what I won’t do is tell her to cover herself in order to help the boys control themselves. It’s not her job to try to control a boy’s physical impulses.
But she can respect their struggle. And she can respect herself.
The truth is, deep down I don’t have a huge problem with two piece bathing suits. Two piece or one pice, a bathing suit leaves little to the imagination, and I think there are plenty of cute two pieces that don’t look like little swaths of lingerie.
But I can predict the future, and I know that if a boundary line isn’t set now, at nine, then when she is sixteen and her body is everything that terrifies her father, it will be too late. The battle for modesty starts today, even if her young mind cannot grasp the importance or significance of the issue.
So every time she comes out with wide, imploring eyes, I offer her a smile and a wink, then toss her the rash guard and remind her that she is precious and beautiful, and it’s okay to be different.
I also bought her a cute tankini that shows a tiny strip of her abdomen.
Compromise.This is the key to winning the good fight.
This post is not at all meant to be an indictment on anyone who allows their daughter to wear a two piece. This is the struggle that we face as a family based on things that we feel are important to us. I am not in any way condemning or laying guilt on those who choose differently.
Yesterday, I looked down at my fourth born, who fell asleep on my chest about mid-way through the day because it was Mother’s Day and she apparently wanted to do the sweetest thing she could possibly do to make sure she got the title FAVORITE CHILD (mission accomplished), and I breathed in her scent and thought, “I still have no idea what I’m doing with you.”
There are a few perks to having a fourth baby with three older kids in the house. In a lot of ways, I’m much calmer than I was before. And in other ways, I’m a total wreck.
If this baby lives through the next 9 months, it will be a miracle, since we’re roaring into the crawling stage and pretty much this entire house is a choking hazard. Why did we ever get our children toys? Why couldn’t they just play with sticks? Are toys really necessary?
And why did we think a house with a pool was a good idea? Sure, when we moved in we didn’t forsee having another baby. Sure, we live in Florida and the resale value of a house is higher with a pool. But why did we do this? WHAT WERE WE THINKING?!
This is why I don’t sleep anymore.
The perks of having a surprise baby far outweigh any of the drawbacks (i.e. lack of sleep due to the fear of ALL THE THINGS that could go wrong), but in truth, there are days when I simply don’t know what I’m doing.
Am I supposed to be feeding her solids at this point? I dunno.
Should I make her food instead of buying the store bought stuff that’s probably full of arsenic or some other toxin that’s bound to make her a tiny little crazy person in five years? I’m willing to take the risk on the store bought.
Should I give her medicine for this runny nose, or make her tough it out? This is why I have Essential oils. Makes me feel useful and appear to have a plan for how to tackle congestion when on the inside I’m panicking because LOSS OF SLEEP LOSS OF SLEEP LOSS OF SLEEP!
Sometimes I look into the future, and I wonder how this is going to work with her. When she is six years old, all of her siblings will be teenagers. Will there be time for play dates? Will she be able to have any friends of her own, or will she turn into one of those wallflower Emo girls who can’t hold a decent conversation with people her age because she’s been drug from one event to another with her siblings for the whole of her life?
Should we give her one more sibling so she has a playmate?
THERE ARE SO MANY QUESTIONS!!!
These kids of mine are all so different. Their gifts are different. Their challenges are different. Their strengths and personalities, likes and dislikes – all of them are so different. And now there’s this baby whose personality is starting to emerge, and I love it. We’re officially entering the phase where every day I claim, “This is my favorite age!”
She’s beginning to crawl (Jesus be near), and giggles at random moments (the best ever – don’t let it stop). She’s still sweet, and the fiery side hasn’t emerged quite yet (No back talk, no arched back screams, nothing – This is why she’s so deserving of the FAVORITE CHILD title).
But that’s going to change. I know for certain that it will, and she will present her own unique joys and challenges, likes and dislikes. There’s a part of me that wishes I could just freeze her where she is now. Why do we need to rush on to the next phase?
But then I look at my big kids, and instead of thinking about the challenges, I catalog their strengths. I measure the humor and the talent, the insight, the child-like wisdom, the generosity, and genuine care for the people of this world, and I think that this motherhood gig is pretty dang amazing.
Hard? Yes.
I’ve done it four times now, and do I know what I’m doing? Sometimes. But usually no.
Am I good at it? Yes. Even when I feel like I’m not, I know that I am.
Would I change a single thing? Nope. Not one.
I wouldn’t space things out any differently, either, because seeing my big kids with their sister is heart meltingly sweet. They turn to sugar around her, and she knows it. She may end up rotten for it, but I’ll take rotten over wallflower Emo any day of the week.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go puree some organic applesauce for my sweet baby.
Just kidding – I’m gonna go make myself another cup of coffee and pop open a can of Gerber Stage 2 Sweet Potatoes, then plop a box of Rice Crispies on the table for the big kids.
Last year, I posted this photo of a sign I hung on our laundry room door. It boldly proclaimed the plans for our Summertime Agenda of Awesome:
We really did have an agenda that was packed full of awesome last year, and this year proves to be shaping up nicely as plans are finalized, and preparations are made for trips and visitors.
But still, in the busy and the crazy and the constant Go-Go-Go of life, I want to make sure we take some time to just breathe. Because the temptation is to fill up every square moment of the days until suddenly school starts again, and one more summer is gone as life continues to chug full speed ahead toward kids graduating.
Sloan starts middle school next year.
Hang on. I need a moment to process what I just wrote.
Middle. Freaking. School.
We only have eight summers left before he goes to college. Eight summers left to make memories as an in tact family unit. Eight summers left to explore together while everyone lives under the same roof.
So I’m very conscious of the fact that we need to soak the days up for what they are. A treasured gift. Because some day these kids of mine will be grown and out of the house. And when they leave, I hope they’ll look back on our summers with fondness. I hope the arguments and boredom, and the sense of insanity that always seems to trail behind us like a persistent breeze fade away, leaving nothing but a true sense of nostalgia.
So with that in mind, I’m busy planning this year’s Summertime Agenda of Awesome, and I thought I’d share a few suggestions for all of you so that you could plan your own awesomeness.
1.) Limit technology
Oh, it’s a temptation to let them park in front of the TV and lay around the house, and there are certainly times for that. But summer is also about swimming and basking in the hot sun. It’s is for lemonade and cookies, and falling into bed tired and exhausted after a long day of playing.
Set limits on television and electronics usage, and stick to your guns. The kids will try to talk you out of the limits, and they’ll make persuasive arguments that will sound good when you’re feeling exhausted, but don’t let them wear you down! Offer a lot of alternatives to technology to help them learn to entertain themselves as the lazy days stretch out slowly.
2.) Let them sleep in
Friends, I say this as one who has children who are loathe to sleep late. While there are perks to having early risers (namely getting them out the door during the school year is a breeze), in the summer it is less thrilling to hear them rummaging through the kitchen at 6 am.
So, if you have sleepers, let them sleep in (within reason) as often as possible. And if you don’t, like me, then you’ll simply need to plan on drugging your kids so they sleep longer.
I’M KIDDING!
(Unless that’s a possibility, in which case I might not be kidding…)
3.) Stockpile their rooms with books
Make it a habit to visit the library weekly and bring home new books. Because I have children who don’t love reading, I bribe mine to read. They get 1-2 dollars/book depending on length and difficulty. (I might even be inclined to pay more if they read a really hard book, but I’ve never had to cross that bridge.)
Maybe you have strong readers and paying them per book would bankrupt you. Perhaps you put pay them for the number of pages they read (set the number high for the avid reader). Or perhaps you simply offer a fun excursion at the end of the summer if they reach a certain goal.
Whatever you choose, make reading a summer staple, and teach them the art of relaxing with a book rather than relaxing with an iPad. (Hint: You’ll need to lead by example on this one, mom. Stock up your own pile of books as well.)
4.) Plan fun activities
Summer doesn’t have to break the bank. You can find enjoyable summertime activities right in your own backyard if you’re willing to do a little research.
You can also add fun items to the list like painting together (buy up a bunch of paper and water color supplies before school ends and set it in an accessible place), set up a lemonade stand and help the kids raise money to give to a worthy cause.
Let them each pick out a recipe from one of your cookbooks and give them full reign over the kitchen (or age appropriate reign over the kitchen).
There are so many possibilities for summer. When your days stretch from minute to minute, rather than the more hectic hour to hour of the school year, the time to create lasting memories is ripe for the taking.
Of course, the greatest agenda in the world will not prevent those dreaded words of “I’m bored” from slipping out of your children’s mouths, but at least when you hear them you can gesture to the sign on the door and let it be known you’ve done your part in helping them occupy their time.
