Category: SAHM

Gentle Reminders

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Above the sink in my kitchen is a Happy Meal Super Mario. I need him there.

The first two weeks after we bought our house, we visited McDonalds at least four times a week. We packed and scrubbed and painted as we prepared the house for our move… and the kids got Happy Meals. I felt terrible.

Not at empty nugget calories or extra ketchup packets. But at my lack of time with my babies, my distracted attention. With my snappiness and harsh words while I packed, and organized, and unpacked. At my anxiety over mess in our small place, and all the time in the car as we went over nightly to prepare our house before we moved in. Moving is a difficult task with babies, and I didn’t do it gracefully.

A year and a half later, as I sorted through toys ready to be passed along, Isaiah pulled Super Mario and Yoshi from my pile of give-aways. “You can’t get rid of him!”

“Why?”

“We got him the week we moved in!” (Don’t let anyone tell you that children have limited memories before the age of 4.)

“We did.”

“Momma, you can’t get rid of him. We got to eat McDonald’s with Meema and Beepa while they helped us get our house ready.”

My five year old son healed me in places I didn’t know needed healing. While I thought I was doing some lasting harm to him, he was making an incredible memory.

It’s a good reminder to me now. We’re currently gutting our kitchen, and living on frozen pizza and premade salad kits. I might see boxes and unending mess and total chaos, but he’s still focused on finding a cup to provide water for the bugs outside and finding snacks in our new and improved refrigerator.

Lord, that I would remain calm, and take time to play Legos while our house is under construction. That we would enjoy eating dinner outside in the fading sunshine, letting the dog snatch pepperoni from under the table while our dining room is stacked to the ceiling with boxes. That we would snuggle at the couch longer to read, instead of sitting around the kitchen table to talk.

In a busy world, full of crazy schedules and mom guilt, Mario serves as an important reminder. We’re not going to get it all right, no matter how hard we try. We make the best decisions we can in difficult situations. We love, even in our messiness.. And we give all of it to Christ, who daily bears our burdens. (Psalm 68:19 NIV)

Somehow, He is still transforming and working all things to His glory. And giving us eyes to see and ears to hear, even through Happy Meals and a plastic Super Mario figure. Who has earned a permanent spot on my windowsill.

Blessings.

Becoming Mom

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I am blessed,at thirty-one, to still have the physical presence of my mother in my life.  The wisdom and steadfastness of her as love warrior in my life is a gift that I can never repay to her, but hope to pay forward with my own children.  Here are her words. . .

Anyone can give birth to a child and become a mother.  But it takes sacrifice, commitment, patience and love to become “Mom!”

It’s the sleepless nights tending to a newborn, the sacrifice of “self” each and every day, the constant watch over a toddler, nights spent awake watching over a sick child, the cancelled dinner or party plans at the last minute because of a fever or rash, the meals fit for kings prepared on a tight budget, the kissed boo-boos, the barf on your best dress, the holding of hands learning to cross a street and the trepidation letting go of hands to cross the street alone, the following of the school bus on the very first day of school to be sure they reach their destination.  The lost games, the tears you don’t have power to heal but somehow you do!  It’s standing in the rain to watch a sports game your child may or may not get to play in but wanting to be there “just in case!”  It’s being there for first loves, first dates, first heartbreaks!  Firsts!  Lasts!  Everything!  Day in, day out. . . because, well, that’s what moms do!

Sometimes, it means raising a child with health issues, sometimes disabilities. Sometimes, it means burying your child.  Sometimes it means tucking your dreams away for their future because they have other plans.  And that’s okay, because they have a right and duty to follow their own path.  And sometimes, it means watching them make horrible life decisions and loving them from afar, praying to God everything will be okay.  And sometimes it means loving them from afar because their life’s goals take them far away from you.

Being a mom is one of the most joyous and rewarding vocation’s any woman can ever hope for!  It is unconditional love at its finest.  And it is so very true that, as a mother, your heart is walking around on the outside of your body.  In my life, I have pieces of my heart walking around in eight incredible human beings.  I’m proud that they call me mom and I’m eternally grateful to God for entrusting their care and upbringing to me and their father.

Moms are their child’s biggest supporter, toughest adversary in tests of the will and harshest dose of conscience when you’ve screwed up.  But we do it for love!

To all the “mom’s” out there: Happy Mother’s Day!  Give yourself a little credit for raising up the next generation!  Motherhood is not for the feint of heart!  Nor is motherhood to be taken lightly!

With Mother’s Day just about here, I’m not sure I can celebrate my mothering yet.  I really haven’t arrived yet.

When I was seven and did my first confession, I remember confessing wasting energy opening the refrigerator and my white lies- and what if I was just keeping hold of information so I didn’t hurt anyone?  I was innocent, and loving and trusting.  But as I’ve grown older, I’ve become messier. A lot messier.

And not mom-blog messy of dishes undone and constant clutter, but the evil of spewing poison from my mouth, critical and judgmental, with downright disgust and hatred in my heart at times.  For the ones I love most and hold most dear to my heart.  Messy.  Ugly. Sinful.

And my mother, my love warrior mother, continues to love.  Love me!  Love deeply.  And speak grace and truth over me and each of my siblings.  Holding us accountable to our ugly and our sin, but pushing us forward.  Always forward.  Higher.  Better.

A mother’s love is the most beautiful love that pushes us to be our very best selves, because in Jesus, we can be.  We are new creations and a mother’s love remembers.  That somewhere in her messy, ugly, sinning adult, is the most beautiful gift from God.  An infant.  A new creation who is precious in His sight.  Who is worthy of her trying, her love.  Her all in all.

I’m not there yet.  My children are babies.  Whose energy is the most trying test for me.  They are innocent, and loving and trusting.  Their little mouths have only confessed utmost love for me.  Never uttered disdain or hate.  Their plump baby fingers have caressed and cared and clung.  Never pointed at me and spewed ugly.  Their eyes hold me in highest esteem, and they gift me with their love daily.  They’re in the years where I hold the most power, the most say and the most time.  In every moment, they are mine to steward over, to plant truth and grace into, and water and weed, and water and weed, and love on.

I pray.  Deeply.  That I will be able to be a love warrior in their lives.  To always, always, ALWAYS love them deepest because they are so very precious.  For all time.

True love “always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” (1 Corinthians 13:7 NIV)  God’s gift of a mother’s love is somehow closest to that of Christ’s in its depth, power and sacrifice.  I am eternally grateful.

 

Growing Stronger

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In the quiet of the early morning, I sat in my normal spot on the couch with a cup of coffee and prayed that I would have God’s eyes.  That I would see all of my time as precious time in His presence.  Not just the silence.  But every moment.

Because since that curtain tore from “top to bottom” and “the earth shook” (Matthew 27:51), every moment IS in His presence.  Desperately, I want to see.  And remember.  He is HERE.

Enter this day.  After early morning snuggles with my babies and quiet time in our Word, the crazy came.  Not the normal level of crazy that comes from having babies.  No.  My headstrong bird screamed most of the morning with hamburger gums from some aggressive incisors trying to push their way through.  And my rambunctious bug tried to spear his sister with a piece of driftwood that’s been unearthed during packing for our upcoming move, and then tied my vacuum hose around his waist and stretched every inch of that six foot tube as he pulled it like a sled across the living room.

Pouring rain.  An unfortunate incident with ketchup.  Isaiah disappearing.  An attempt at nap time.  Endless laundry.  And a whole lot of tired from new teeth and no nap.

Me, trying.  Saint James flexing his patience muscles as he deals with the crazies and his wife with the segmented brain and the ginormous attitude.  Bless him.

Gritted teeth and then tears over dinner.  And my apology of “I don’t want to be, to feel, like this.”

Then the brick up side my head that I so often pray for.

His presence.  Here.  In moving boxes taking over my square footage that should be play area for rainy days.  In no nap, and no quiet.  In teething.  In  chaos and attitude.  In life.

IMG_9024

Father Solanus Casey, the Capuchin friar, has a prayer that goes,

“Do not pray for easy lives.  Pray to be stronger.  Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers.  Pray for powers equal to your tasks. then the doing of your work shall be no miracle but you shall be a miracle.  Every day you shall wonder at yourself. at the richness of life which has come to you by the grace of God.”

The winter, the hard times, the chaos, the moves.  It is what makes us stronger.  Pain paves the way to compassion, suffering makes way for the deepest healing.  Each day, God is working.  He is here.

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.  Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” (James 1:2-4 NIV)

We pray for the vision, we pray for the strength and the perseverance, the character changes and the willing hearts, but are shocked by trials.  But it’s the tests that are growing us.

Recently, I asked my brother to spot me during a benchpress session, after not having lifted in years.  I maxed out and having not been to the gym regularly for over six years, my maximum weight was ten pounds less than when I had worked HARD over a couple years to set a personal record.  I was astounded.  The past couple years of lifting babies and hefty toddlers, sporadic workouts. . . and. . .  life.  Have made me, even physically, stronger.

God is working.  All of our moments, all of our time IS spent in His presence.  This IS holy ground, if we have eyes to see.  He IS growing us and developing us and using us.  And the day IS coming where we will pick up the weight astounded that it’s not so heavy.  To see that He has been using us all along, and that somehow we’ve changed and blossomed into a new creation that just, by its being, gives Him the glory.

Blessings.

 

Carpe Deum

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Sometimes I find something I’d really like to do:  a craft, a recipe, a re-decorating thing and I make up my mind that I’m on a mission.

I begin planning it.  I budget for the materials, buy all that I need during my weekly shopping trip and set aside a time in my overworked, old school spiral planner.

Then the day comes and I begin the thing in my quiet time (nap time), because, thank the omniscient Lord, my children still take an afternoon nap together.  This nap usually lasts about an hour and a half.  Except on this day.

I will no doubt have scissors askew, paper shreds everywhere, and a hot glue gun oozing on cardboard if I’m crafting.  If I’m baking, I’m elbows deep kneading or about to roll dough.  And if I’m moving things, nothing is as it should be.  I have stacks of organization going on, and furniture awry and probably some tool out, tossed aside that I’ve forgotten about.

On this day, the project day, one of the babies arises.  Less than a half hour into their nap.  My little snuggle bug and love bird, they are so sweet.  They are my heart.  They rub their eyes, and toddle toward me in their sleep daze.  They climb up into my lap and melt me to the core.  These days, they won’t last.  I never miss an opportunity to snuggle.

As the one in my lap slowly wakes up, the other one is now up.  Because they’re peas in a pod and the best of friends, or maybe just because the body heat beside them left.  In any case, the second one is not far behind.  They too will climb up into my lap for groggy snuggle time.  But at this point, the first is beginning to catch their snap.

It is now that I realize the dangers of the scissors, my dough rising over the edges of the immense silver bowl, or just how little progress I made with the organization piles across the floor.  Which is of little importance now, because it’s either being driven across as a bridge for matchbox cars or torn into the tiniest shreds and tossed about the room.

Oh, how the crazy arises.  Slow at first, with patience for this piece of heart that was just in my lap, and then faster as I realize my project will sit.  My opportunity was missed.

Carpe diem.

No mother coined this phrase.

But I try.  And as fast as the days are flying by, I can’t capture a moment or seize a day.  Because.  It’s.  Insane.  These small ones, they are the most amazing, incredible creatures.  Isaiah, who is crazy articulate, and demanding of responses.  Who laughs loud at himself in the mirror, practicing his funny faces and trying hard to be independent.  My three year old wonder who looks like a five year old, but still screws up his face like a baby when he cries.  Zoe, my fiery bird, who needs to feed herself, and clothe herself, and just do everything.  Herself.  Who doesn’t know how to speak her mind yet, but puts her hand on her hip and babbles, not letting the lack of words stop her.  The fifteen month old ball of energy who climbs tables and chairs and isn’t afraid to jump, who screams inconsolable and laughs hysterically in the same second.

I can’t seize the day, because despite my attempts at rhythm, there’s always a hiccup.  Or some bodily function, that will undoubtedly make me late despite my careful planning and laying out of clothes and jackets the night before.

It makes me crazy, and I can’t help it.  This season is insane.

This season is insane.  This December-Christmas business, where we want to and feel obligated to visit our friends and neighbors, families and coworkers.  Where we can focus on how much shopping and cleaning we have to do.  The wrapping, the plans, the baking, the visiting.  The decorating and the pressure to make memories.  Don’t seize the moment.

Carpe DEUM.

Seize God.

That’s why He came.  That’s why He’s here, among us, Emmanuel.  It’s no accident that during the weeks of Advent, we celebrate Him as our Hope, our Peace, our Joy, our Love.

In all these moments, we can focus on what we need to accomplish.  On seizing the day and making every moment count.  But what pressure that is, that we can’t and won’t ever live up to.  What if we focused on Him instead?

The One that came to be born of a young virgin girl.  The One who wasn’t born with a doctor in a house or an inn, but was wrapped in cloths and placed in a manger where the animals were bedded down.  The One who was called blasphemer and a drunkard that escaped stoning by the most religious.  The One who always, always, ALWAYS made time for the least, the poor, the marginalized, the voiceless.  The One who became a curse for us (Galatians 3:13 NIV) and completely turned the world on its head.  The One who fulfilled the prophet, “He tends His flock like a shepherd:  He gathers the lambs in His arms and carries them close to His heart; He gently leads those that have young.”  (Isaiah 40:11 NIV)  Who is also, “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” (Isaiah 9:6B NIV)

The One who was nothing what the world expected, but everything we needed.

There will always be projects and problems and pressures.  These are the pieces of life.  If they become our focus, we will miss out on the heart.  Maybe taking the time in relationship IS the mission.  And if the opportunity to love on someone arises, we should seize God and run to them with open arms, embracing the God ordained present.

Live blessed.

 

 

Honor Now

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I met God in the bathroom at Costco last week.  I wasn’t expecting to.  But Saint James had the kids, and I walked in, unhurried and not being screamed at or talked to.  Silence.  In the bathroom.

He was there.

If I had trusted public restrooms more, I might have taken off my shoes as I recognized this holy ground.  It was the first time in a long time I could remember hearing the sound of silence, and I walked slowly and mindfully out of the restroom to find my family.  I cried.

I think Saint James thought I was having some kind of mental breakdown during my three minutes away.  But that kind of silence doesn’t happen in my day to day.

Seasons.

These moments, these hardships– they’re passing.  The constant motion.  The stresses.  The joblessness, the fighting.  Facing uncertainty and anxiety in changing jobs, or moving, or getting pregnant.  Disease.  Sleepless nights.  Decisions on schools and nursing homes, wedding venues and hospitals.  Begging God in prayer.  Colic and bedwetting, tired mommas.   It’s all passing.

And those beautiful moments?  They’re passing too.  First kisses, first smiles.  The 8,047th  and the 159,432nd time kissing your spouse, rocking your tired baby, and enjoying the sunshine on a car ride to work.  Belting songs you don’t know the words to.  Watching a good movie in the rain with a huge bucket of popcorn.  The last time seeing a friend with heart ties.  It’s all passing.

We must honor the now.  We must appreciate the beauty:  the smiles and the laughter, the pain and the terror.  The heart.  Aching.  The moments.  Of being absolutely alive.

It means we’re here.

It means there’s purpose.  There’s plan.  But all of it is going so quickly.  So, so quickly we might miss it if we’re not mindful.

In his poem “Ash Wednesday,” T.S. Eliot recognizes the power of the moments.

“Because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place
I rejoice that things are as they are.”

Amen.

A Thank You to the Selfless Ones

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I dedicate this post to my mother, who is truly the best.  She is strong, patient, merciful, and passionate to a fault.  She is incredibly beautiful, incredibly selfless and continually growing more comfortable in her own skin. She’s a true Love Warrior and my life counselor.  She’s at least eight people’s hero.  Oh, and she cooks good, too.

I eat chicken breasts when we have dinner as a family.  I like to eat chicken breasts.  This is indicative to the stage of life I’m in.  My children are babies.  I have two of them.  I can find chicken for $1.99 a pound from a wholesale warehouse, from as reputable of a large scale chicken farm as you can find.  So I eat chicken breasts.

My mother eats chicken thighs.  She, also, likes to eat chicken breasts.  She has grown, birthed, fed, trained and raised up eight children, and has been eating chicken thighs as long as I can remember.  And her mother before her ate chicken thighs.

There are so many people wanting to be heard these days.  So many causes to rally around, so many voices crying for attention.  Turn on the news for a few seconds, pick up a paper, or check your Facebook homepage.  There are so many people, defending so many positions, asking for so many prayers, so many dollars, so much support.

And then there are the selfless ones, like my mother.  The ones there to listen, to empathize, to cry.  They seem to be few and far between these days.  In a world where “I want” comes first (and is often loudest), attitudes of love-service are hard to come by.  But I’m certain they’re there, ushering other people’s needs ahead of their own as they’ve done for years.

The diversity of the gifts these selfless ones foster are endless.  In the past thirty years, my mother has cheered on and welcomed a writer, a nurse, a machete-wielding forester (my sister has reached the apex of feminine strength), a building engineer, an airline mechanic and a restaurant manager into the pool of life.  And she’s still stewarding two more.  As her peace with herself grows, she encourages us in the path of trust as well.

These selfless ones don’t need their voices shouting above the crowd.  Instead, they’re the ones whispering in the ears of their little ones, “You can do it.  You are strong.  You are powerful.”  Picking them up when they fall, and raising them up to love themselves, to use their gifts, and to be the men and women they were called to be.

These selfless ones don’t need a “mom blog” to reassure them that one day they’ll have time for continuing studies and pedicures.  Instead, they look to and walk with the God of Hagar in the desert.  “The God who sees me.”  They’re comforted by His love, His Will and His guidance, knowing that He’s there for every step.

The selfless ones know there’s no “secret” to the easy life.  That it’s hard work, much prayer, and a lot of grace.  Even when grace is just being able to look back and say, “I made it.”  From the other side, it must seem a blur of tears and smiles, and laughter and hurt.  But so beautiful.

While I trudge through and soak in the young mothering days, conscious of how fast they’re passing, how fast my babies are growing, and wondering if I’m doing any of it right, I know I will embrace that day.  Saying, “I made it.”  Knowing I’ve had a hand in nurturing some of the finest souls I’ve ever been honored to meet.  I will smile, and, I hope, eat my chicken thigh in teary silence.

 

 

 

 

Art in the Sand

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I woke up at 4:15 this morning.

For those of you with a teething baby who doesn’t sleep through the night, you know what an accomplishment this is.  No snooze button.  No alarm for that matter.  Just.  Feeling rested somehow at 4:15 AM.

I then realized I was warm and wet.  Three year old Zay had peed in the bed, the inevitable result of having ice cream too late.  Yes, I cosleep.  A lot still.  And sugar affects him.

I got out of bed, checked the time and cleaned the bathroom.  Then I showered.  And I did the dishes.  Loaded the dishwasher, scrubbed pots and pans.  Wiped down counters.  Left only the floor to be done.

I did my grocery shopping with two children.  Three stores.  Finished by 11:30AM.  Did more laundry.

Later, my husband, Saint James, got home from a long work day.

He wanted to shave and cut his hair.  The washer flooded, leaving bleach water all over my clean kitchen.  I threw clean towels on the mess.  The bathroom has hair everywhere.  Isaiah, who woke up at 7:30 to a warm shower, “shaved” too, and needed another shower.

Bathroom ruined.  Progress in laundry ruined.  Kitchen ruined.

I sopped up bleach water with some lemon Pine-Sol.  Cleaned the floor on my hands and knees.  Started more laundry.  And cleaned the bathroom again.

Mommas.  This is what we do.

There’s this beautiful form of art where people do these intricate drawings in the sand.

Impermanent Sand Painting
A Beautiful Meditation by Andres Amador

People marvel at the beauty of it.  Why would they do such a thing?  How patient these artists must be.  How flexible to work with open hands, knowing the results won’t last long.  Aren’t they wonderful?

Mommas.  This.  Is what we do.

Tides of laundry come just as we finish.  Waves of dishes, at times we know are coming.  Sizes are outgrown, toys need to be rotated.  Always in flux, always in motion.

Do you marvel at the beauty of it?  Do you wonder at the wonderful person you’re becoming?

Of course, things are always in flux.  This is life.  Change is the only constant.  The pains and the details, the broad brush strokes and the joys, the irritation, the triumphs.  All of it.  It is beautiful.