proof positive

For those of you who read my last post and are feeling concerned about my qualifications for motherhood, I want to reassure you (if it were possible) with the following facts:


(First, I know I don't deserve them.  No one ever deserves the gifts they are given.)

I love to hug my children and they hug me back.  The feeling of one of my offspring snuggled up trustingly beside me is immeasurably precious.

They smile when I kiss them.

I enjoy working beside them, cooking, or sewing, or doing yardwork.  I even enjoy teaching them these things.

According to them (despite my offering proofs to the contrary), I am a kind, patient, and funny mother who is never selfish and always puts them first.  (Let's just chalk that up to the optimism of youth, shall we?)

I love giving them good things - a favorite meal, a sweet treat, a small gift picked up while I'm running errands - just to see their faces light up with pleased surprise.

They trust me.  Confide in me.  Offer their journals to me to read.

I ask for their opinions and preferences when we make schedule changes or plan family week (photos coming soon ... !).

They still call me Mommy, despite hearing their friends move on to "Mom."

Most of my waking hours are spent considering what is best for them.  They fill my prayer time; God has heard more from me about my children than about any. other. thing.

I trust them.  I regularly answer their "Should I ___ or ____ ?" with a confident "You may choose.  I trust your judgement."

It's true that I dearly love Quiet Time.  It's true that evenings, after the children are in bed and it's just me and my Farmer, are one of my favorite times of the day.  It's true that I look forward all month to the time when my own mom comes to spend the day with my children so that I can (one sweet day a month) meet a friend, or go shopping for fun, or walk in the park with just my thoughts and the birds to listen to.

I am wired for solitude.

And I am a mother.

And I love my children.



[I just don't love to play their games.]

several thousand words

Sometimes, when the words don't come, pictures will have to do:

 

one thing

Somehow at lunch the other day, we started envisioning the children in their far-off future.

Sugar at 47, we thought, would have my mother's soft smile, my Farmer's silver-streaked walnut hair, be curator of a natural history museum, and dandling her first grandbaby.

Spice, a retired dancer, would run her kennel in cargo pants (or swirly skirts, we couldn't decide) alongside one of her children, and give ballet lessons on the side.

Nice would work as a nurse in labor and delivery, and adopt a child from far away.

Lil' Snip, apprenticed by my Farmer's favorite welder, of course, would build farm equipment and, if his current exhortive style is any indicator, preach.  Or boss serfs, maybe.

< < < - - * - - > > >

I asked my Farmer at supper that night what he thought he'd be like by 60.  He said he hadn't thought about it, but maybe he'd be enjoying his grandchildren.

Grandchildren.  Wow.  But I suppose in 20 years Sugar will have passed 30, and the others will be hard at her heels.  We might well have a lapful of grandbabies.

Who will I be by then??

Only God knows, of course, but somehow it helps a little to think so far ahead of the reality in front of me now, to have something, if not to aim for (since I've pretty well proven my inability to change anything about myself), then to look forward to.  A sort of hint, hint, if you will, to God (who I assume reads this blog even if no one else does).

I'll have traversed this treacherous terrain that I'm currently in, by then, and come out on the other side.  I'll be older, and my hair will likely have traded in chestnut for grey (although I'm hoping for silver, at least, or white, best of all).  My skin, already on its way to crepe-dom, will likely be papery over blue hilly veins:  I am thin-skinned, by both meanings of the word.  My fight for a youthful figure will have been lost for good, I suppose.  I hope I won't still be waging that futile war.  I can see glimpses of my physical destiny in my mother and her sisters, and would love to eventually inherit their cheery perspective as well.  My eyes, I pray, will still be bright with interest in everything around me.

In my musing, I glance at Randy Alcorn's Heaven on the table at my side, and suddenly I know what I want, more than anything else, when I am in the winter of my life:  I want the Spirit of Jesus so filling my heart that my eyes are filled with Heaven.  I want to be so God-love-saturated that joy and peace and compassion sprinkle everyone I'm with.


I want to have chosen the one thing needed, as Mary did.


To get there, I will need to learn to give up many things:  control (or its illusion), busy-ness (which is maybe the same thing, after all), self-preservation.... and perhaps things themselves - physical things, which take up space in our hearts and minds as well as in our shelves and attics.

I will have to learn trust, choose dependence.

Today is as good a day to start as any, I suppose:  Easter, symbolic of new life.


How shall I begin??

un-movie night

It's happening again, right now.

A week ago I found an old VHS of Chitty-Chitty Bang Bang in a thrift store, remembered enjoying it as a child, and brought it home to show to my children.

They still haven't seen it.  Each afternoon or evening that would have been just right for a movie night - it was cold and grey, or we'd been home for "x" days in a row - I've thought of hauling out the TV (which we keep on a high shelf) and VCR (which we keep in a closet) and lining up the children on the sofa to watch a slice of my childhood ... but I don't do it.

I hate to disturb them.

It's dark outside; we've eaten our supper and are planted in the living room where the fire burns hottest.  Spice is curled up on the sofa reading a Dr. Seuss biography from the library.  Sugar plays Colorku, a beautiful wooden version of Sudoku using colored balls.  Lil' Snip is building Lego tractors under the direction of Nice (who is living up to her name instead of plaguing her brother for the pleasure of hearing him squeal).

And I just can't make myself break up all the coziness, an almost palpable sense of "we are us; we are family; we belong here together."

So the videos I bring home gather dust on the shelf, and the children ask from time to time when we're going to watch them, but they never seem to remember to ask when we could watch them .... so we don't.

And no one seems to mind.

And Sugar learns new songs on the piano,
and Lil' Snip builds a million Lego towers,
and Spice makes music on her recorder,
and Nice sings songs she made up in her head,
and Sugar teaches herself new crochet stitches from a library book,
and Nice reads the Little House series,
and Spice teaches "school" to her siblings,
and Lil' Snip drives his trucks
and the girls dress up in ballet leotards and dance "The Waking of the Spring Flowers"
and it's all too lovely to interrupt for a mere movie ...


[for more thoughts on the TV-less life, check out this blog]

a separate peace

The lights burn to brighten the rooms this January morning while the sun hides behind wintry clouds.

The pellet stove hums warmth into the room, and the humidifier fan hums its moisture up against the dry heat, and Spice sings merrily, making up cleaning songs from Christmas tunes as she and Nice wipe houseplant leaves.  Nice likes the job so much that she requests daily plant-cleaning privileges, and suggests that they sing to the plants, too.

Lil' Snip has abandoned his Legos for the joys of cushion fort building, busily wedging pillows against stools set against the sofa.  Sugar's task - dusting the miscellaneous glassware in the china cupboard - inspires her to converse with Spice and Nice in an imitation British accent.

The sky outside is dim; snow is in the forecast.  I hope it comes - it will bring the birds, first, and I want to see if they eat the berry and nut suet I made for them.

It might as well snow:  We have a borrowed dvd, plenty of light and music, and nowhere else we have to be.

enough

I left this morning while the sky was still dark.  The children were all still in bed, and a full moon shone bright over low-lying fog.  Within a few minutes the sky was brightening to a fiery pink, and I was in a friend's car en route to a women's conference.

Hours later I came home.  It had been a full day of smiling, listening, and small talk.  I had been challenged, and reminded of truths I already knew, I laughed, and learned.  It had been good.

There had also been all the petty disappointments that you're not supposed to mention - having a bad hair day, not enjoying a speaker as much as I'd hoped, seeing goodie bags I liked better than the one I'd been given, feeling left out of conversations, and not winning a door prize.  (I never win door prizes, so you wouldn't think that could disappoint me anymore ....)

I had a headache from the long drive home, but decided to stop off at my favorite thrift store to hunt for jeans.  No luck.

Driving the last few miles home, I tried to tally up my day:  a break from responsibilities - good.  Headache - bad.  Hearing one of my favorite women's speakers - good.  Social awkwardnesses - bad.  Yummy meal I didn't have to make (& got to eat sitting down the whole time!) - very good.  No jeans - bad.

As I turned into our road, though, the balance suddenly tilted solidly on the side of good as I remembered -

 - my family loves me, and are very likely waiting to greet my arrival home with enthusiastic smiles and shouts of joy.

And sure enough, there was Spice peering out the window when I pulled in, waving excitedly with a huge smile on her face, happy to see me just because I'm the mommy here.

It was enough.  

I still had a headache.  I still had the goodie bag I wouldn't have chosen.  I still had no new jeans.

But I also had my children, hugging me, overflowing with news from their day, and my Farmer, offering me bites he had saved from the supper he made.

I am loved.

And it is enough.


and p.s. - my goodie bag is growing on me...!

snippets

Lil' Snip, awhile back eating his first french fry, asked: "Are there mashed potatoes in these?"

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A homeschooling mother's victory: daughter pulling the wrapping off of a frozen pizza to exclaim "dendritic crystals!!" and sending an excited sister to find her magnifying glass.

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Lil' Snip (the only son among three daughters) looking adoringly at his colored pencil, which he has just discovered can be extended by twisting the end, cooing "cuuuute!" in an exact replica of our expressions over him.

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Spice one morning told me about a dream she'd had [my thoughts in brackets]:  "I had a dream last night about a monster [oh, no!] that I was chasing [you GO girl!] that turned into Truffle [(a beloved cat) - that's my girl, turning monsters into playmates!!]"

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Isaiah was showing me, rather vigorously, how he pats his head. "Be nice to your head," I told him, "because it's your head!"

"And," he reminded me, "my face is on it!"

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Spice asks me if she's a pessimist or an optimist. Trying to avoid labels, I tell her that she's just her. She counters with: "Does that mean that I'm a pessimist and you just don't want to tell me?"

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... and one from my Farmer:  My elliptical and I had started getting reacquainted (slowly), so I was disappointed to see that the bathroom scales hadn't moved in the direction that I had hoped. My husband, quick-witted, quipped "Boy, you must put on muscle fast!"

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Monday music

Instead of diving madly into my week (per usual), trying to get seven days' worth of to-do done in a Monday, today I am choosing to sit, purposely, listening and observing a bit, soaking in what is before jumping into what might be (and, further, remembering that there's a vital difference between what might be and what should be).

Since my ears are my most acute sense this morning; I'll start there.

I hear ...
... Nice stomping, and slamming doors at her sister
... Lil' Snip blowing on a harmonica and shaking maracas
... piano music on the stereo
... the phone ringing!

I smell . . .
... Comet cleaner where Spice is cleaning the bathroom
... coffee from what's left in my mug

I see . . .
... studious Sugar, practicing typing
... "nap" and "read" on my to-do list
... Tinker Toys as far as the eye can see
... Lil' Snip's ambitiously long Lego "fire engine"

I feel . . .
... comfy crop-length sweatpants
... the sofa under me, weary-seated, but still with good back support
... contentment for the chaos of busy children, home with me
... not hot or cold - thankful for autumnal weather, early

I'm looking forward to . . .
... lunchtime!  (and then - O Glorious Quiet - naptime!!)
... my nap!  my book!
... mid-week visit with sister
... family week in September, when we live outside together
... and further on, a women's retreat and some days in the mountains with family
... much, much further on (I hope), Heaven.

taking off the rose-colored glasses

If you have children (or ever hope to), R.E.A.D. this!  Jen Hatmaker exposes the secret thoughts shared by every honest mom everywhere.  (Well, at least her, and me).

Ahhh, it was hilarious!  Thankyousomuch Jen Hatmaker, for a great Saturday morning laugh.  And also for {inadvertently} validating how I feel so much of the time as I fumble through teaching my children at home. 

The Guilt. 

But you know what?  We're all in it together, aren't we - grumbling at how hard it is (some more hilariously than others, thank you Jen) but DOING IT ANYWAY because, well, it's right, and even though we sometimes want to take a permanent vacation from them, they are our children and we would pretty much offer our lives for them. 

Oh wait.  We ARE.

impossible? nothing!

If things ever feel a little dull around your house, I suggest that you find a glass-lined coffee carafe and dash the lining forcefully into the sink.

Preferably in the presence of multiple children, especially if one or two of them are given to hysterics (inherited, just possibly, from you).

If the gunshot BANG and the hysterics aren't exciting enough, rest assured that you will likely be finding mirrored shards in unlikely places for hours, or even, if you're lucky, days or weeks (depending on the thoroughness of your housekeeping).

You can go ahead and indulge in some hysterics yourself, just to go along with the general mood.  Sprinkle in a few gloomy thoughts about the impossibility of cleaning it all up, the danger to all small & tender bare feet in the family, and the injustice of it happening on day when you were so desperately hoping for respite that you wore your comfy pants to remind you to take it easy.

And then grab some damp paper towels and start wiping.

Last, but not least, remember to take a photo of [some of] the carnage to remind you, when you've calmed down, that all things are possible, even cleaning a few million microscopic mirrored glass fragments from the kitchen and adjoining laundry room when you least felt like it.

"With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."

Matthew 19:26

{another bad morning I had}

on rainy Monday mornings

It's a rainy Monday morning, and somehow there are candles lit, soft music a background to children playing and studying and working, laundry whirring in the machine, and peace reigns.  Remarkable.

I am not a morning person.  NOT.  So (this will sound like backward logic, but stick with me) I have to get up early enough to have some time to myself before I start my jobs (mothering, homeschooling) just like I did before children, when I left home to work.

So I get up at 5:30 (well, 5:42 by the time I'm done hitting the snooze button) to give me time to shower (which is to say, "wake up"), read my Bible (or something "inspirational", which yes, is sometimes email or facebook), make and eat breakfast with my Farmer, and have a few minutes to [eat our chocolate allotment and] chat a little before the troops descend.  At which time I go get Lil' Snip, still miraculously confined to his crib.

The troops, sometimes also referred to as children, wake up between 6:30 and 7, but our mantra is "morning time is quiet time" (to keep Mommy sane, basically), so they may read quietly in their beds (Bibles, Bible storybooks, etc.) until 7, then they dress and make beds and put away pjs before they come down, by which time I am fully awake (most days) and have hopefully found a good attitude about life.  Lil' Snip, as yet unfamiliar with our morning mantra, chooses from an assortment of activities of his choosing:  singing, banging on walls, thumping feet on crib, telling stories to his bear, exclaiming over something he can see from his window, or wailing for no discernible reason.  He also showed me yesterday how he lies on his back and kicks his feet in the air.  Never at a lack for entertainment, that one.

Not the system for every family, I know, but it works well for us, keeps Mommy out of professional therapy, and helps the children's mornings to go more peacefully, too.

It hasn't always worked so smoothly.

In the pre-reading era, a lot of intervention was needed.  Certain sisters hit and/or taunted certain other sisters.  Certain sisters tattled.  Certain sisters wailed with remarkable volume and intensity.  Loud thumps startled my Farmer and me from our coffee.  I despaired of ever, ever, EVER enjoying mornings.

But, little by little, we have somehow, by God's most generous grace, been insistent on our standards for mornings, and now it is hard (and yes, almost humorous) to remember those infuriatingly tumultuous mornings of so long ago (oh, say, last year).

Of course, now that I wrote this, tomorrow morning may be a crazy-maker ..... but I'll be able to read this and remember that peace is likely to reign again, someday ....

morning in the sun

This morning I tackled my flowerbeds.

They've been there, waiting for me, for weeks, and it was only last night's firm decision to venture out that stirred me from the stupor of an overcast sleepy morning.

Lil' Snip kept me company, wandering around in his inadequate Crocs through still-dewy grass while I pulled henbit and chickweed from the scanty irises and emerging hosta.  I uncovered a spiderwort that I'd forgotten about.  Divided and transplanted a primrose in full flower.  Made a pile of sticks for our bonfire pile.

My winter-stiff gardening gloves grew slick and supple from the moist soil and lush weeds, and before I knew it, all that was left in the flowerbed was flowers, and it was time for Lil' Snip's morning crib-time.

I lounged with my laptop while he played in his crib, Sugar and Spice playing Legos in the next room.

My Farmer and Nice came home from the dentist and he & I drank coffee and sampled the truffles he'd found at the dent-n-bent store, while Nice busied herself opening all the packages of toothbrushes and toothpaste.

When he could delay it no longer, my Farmer headed in to work, and Lil' Snip and I headed back out to the next flowerbed, beckoning the Lego Ladies (a.k.a. Sugar and Spice) to come join us.  Nice finished watering the plants in the sunporch and came out to join her sisters in fort-building.

Lil' Snip found a [child-sized] hoe and told me he would "shovel" with me.  I found a spot near me where he could do no harm, and he "shoveled" away while I attacked the rosebed.  Wild strawberries flourished here with henbit and creeping charlie and virginia creepers - apparently all the leaf litter makes that bed a vine paradise.  I pulled and pulled, uprooting all manner of trespassers with abandon, starting from the edges and ruthlessly working my way back.  Lil' Snip called encouragement from time to time:  "We're doing good, Mommy!  Good!"

I filled a wheelbarrow with my weeds.

Finally you could see clearly the daffodils I'd put in last year, the tolerant ferns that refused to die despite my neglect, even some columbine that had braved the jungle.  The chrysanthemum had mysteriously disappeared (not the first one in my care to do so), and some feverfew that had been there apparently accompanied the henbit to the rubbish heap in the wheelbarrow.  Humph, well, it shouldn't look so much like a weed!

Next I approached my eight-year-old Don Juan rose, pruners in gloved hand.  No time to read up on rose-pruning.  I knew myself:  it was now or never.  I cut off obviously dead bits, snipped off crossed or inward-growing branches, and topped the ones that towered above my head.  It was an experiment in horticulture that I could only hope worked out.

About then Sugar called over to me:  "It's time to go in!!"  Where had the time gone?  Lunchtime already?!

Lil' Snip and I dumped the weeds behind the shop while his sisters went inside to make lunch.  He showed me where our Polish crested chicken has hidden a nest; I had to make myself as small as he is to see her!

We went in, glowing, to put away our tools and wash up.  Nothing like a little sunshine and dirt to make you feel pleasantly virtuous.

what did you do all day??

When my Farmer comes home in the evening, we sit down to supper, thank God for his blessings, take a deep breath, and, after a bite or two, ask each other about our days.

"How was your day" I might ask.  And he'll tell me about spading and invoices and fertilizer and equipment design and interpersonal management.

And then he'll ask me, "and what did you do today?"

And I'll think to myself, now there's a good question.  What did I do today??  "Laundry," I might answer - usually a safe guess - or, "cooked supper" which is also nearly always true.  But the day is many hours long, is it not?  I'm pretty sure I didn't spend all of them doing laundry or cooking supper.  What, then, did I do??

So one day last week, after my Farmer waved goodbye from the Box (our Scion xB) as he turned out the driveway, I grabbed a nice long receipt from Kmart, and turned it over to keep tally on the back.  I was determined to find out just what I did do all day.

I got as far as 1:30pm.  Here's what my research found:

5:34 (I had to think back a bit from when I started writing around 7:30) - hit snooze on alarm
5:38 - hit snooze again
5:42 - hit snooze, roll over, turn alarm off and get up.  Shower, contacts, dress.
6:10 - check email & facebook while making coffee, read Bible
6:40 - make eggs for my Farmer & me; eat together and chat about our week

7:15 - 9:00 - a bit of a blur as the children come down for hugs & get their breakfast ready, put away dishes, feed cats, etc.  I get Lil' Snip up, change his diaper, spoon oatmeal into his mouth while he distracts himself with Legos, dress him, tell everyone the agenda for the day (we're on spring break, so no schoolwork - hurray!! - just housework and play plans).  Somewhere in there my Farmer kisses us all and goes to work, I start some laundry, oversee the girls' morning chores, take some clothes to the attic for yardsaling next month, and play Legos with Lil' Snip and Nice.

9 - 10 - put Lil' Snip in his crib for some morning quiet time, work on the budget, place an Amazon order, continue to oversee the girls' chores, and then bring Lil' Snip back down to play.

10 - 10:30 - comparison shop on Amazon for purses I will probably never buy.

10:30 - 11 - brief phone call from a new friend, business call to the dentist to make appointments and inquire about getting a crown (ugh), switch the laundry over to the dryer, make up some baking soda shampoo, and take the mail out to the mailbox.

11 - 1 - play Legos, start beans for supper, experiment with neodymium magnets and duct tape, look for my crab soup recipe, clean recipe box, fold laundry, try (and, largely, fail) to find out online whether it's better economy to buy new or refilled HP ink cartridges, read the grocery flyer and make up my list, during lunch when Victoria Falls comes up in conversation look up and admire video footage of the falls on youtube and possible origins on wikipedia, take photos of Sugar's birthday duds, load photos onto the computer and send them to my sister-in-law, read to Lil' Snip & put him down for his nap.

1 - 1:30 - read to Sugar, Spice, and Nice from Those Happy Golden Years, send them upstairs for quiet reading time, and work on my homework for the Bible study we're doing in our moms' group.

At which point I evidently abandoned my receipt (which was nearly full anyway).  Let's just assume it was more of the same:  lots of unremarkable little things that end up taking all day, and don't make for very interesting conversation.

But at least now I know.

[and, for the record, writing and editing this post took me about three hours - interspersed, of course, with receiving various mysterious blanket-and-ribbon-wrapped Lego creations, charting cross-stitch on graph paper & counselling a frustrated stitcher, putting down Lil' Snip and getting him up from his nap, receiving a ten-I-mean-40-minute phone call from a friend, getting everyone outside and then getting distracted and accidentally weeding three flowerbeds, coming inside for a pruners and seeing that it's time to make lunch ....]

happily hating my sofa

Fourteen and a half years ago, my Farmer and I, flush with wedding gift money, set out to buy a sofa for our little apartment.  We wanted something well-made, durable to withstand the years, and Scotch-guarded to withstand the children we were sure to have.

In the second store, we found what we were looking for - a classic design, of sturdy construction, long and deep enough for even my six-foot-one Farmer to nap on comfortably.

We decided to place an order, with a wing chair on the side, and were presented with the upholstery book.

We flipped through the samples, trying to recall our research:  olefin wears better than cotton, a pattern hides dirt better than solid, blue fades first.  I admired my mother-in-law's sofa, and looked for something similar, a neutral background with a small embroidered pattern.  There was nothing quite like it in the book, but we found something not too dissimilar, in colors we liked, and placed our order.  There were three swatches of the sample, a small pattern, a medium, and a large.

I assumed the small pattern would dominate.

A few weeks later, the sofa was delivered.  I stared in amazement.  The lines of the sofa were familiar, certainly, but had we really chosen this upholstery??  Large, bold flowers?!  Prominent vertical bars and a diamond crisscross of vines?  Where was the discreet pattern of small flowers and dots?!

I looked closer.  There, on the very tips of the cushions, was my small pattern.  But the entire piece of furniture was dominated by leafy vines, framed by loud flowers the size of my hand.  What had we done??

And it was made to last.

Sigh.

Well, fourteen years, two moves, three daughters and a son later, and I'm glad I'm not in love with my sofa, for it surely will not last the lifetime we expected.  There is a definite sag under our favorite end by the lamp, and the {admittedly pale} neutral background has, er, developed a bit of a patina from all the Farmer naps and bare-footed children.

Should I have told them to keep their feet off the sofa?  Banned all bare skin or unclean clothing to spare the upholstery?  Kept jumpers on the trampoline and builders restricted to Lincoln Logs?

I used to feel a little guilty that I let my children jump on the sofa (up till age 3 is the house rule), build forts with the cushions, and gallop around the house using cushions for horses.  Sort of like I was lacking in the responsibility department of parenthood.  But I have fond memories of doing the same, and after all, childhood is short ....

... and the upholstery is ugly.

theological quips

Lil' Snip is playing Tinker Toys with Nice.  He sidles up to me with a "tower" and confides, loudly, "Jesus has a s'prise for me!"  [I'm not sure how it's possible, but sadly, I forgot the rest of this intriguing conversation.]

Later, I overhear Nice informing Lil' Snip firmly, "God doesn't like Satan."

Sugar overheard it, too, and brings it up at the table while we're eating supper.  "Mommy, [Nice] told [Lil' Snip] that God doesn't like Satan.  I thought God loves Satan but is disappointed in him."

Hmmm ...

Lil' Snip, sensing the conversation turning philosophical, contributes an important tidbit:  "Jesus keeps his salt in the refrigerator."


It's so nice to know they're picking up on the important things we teach them ....

quips

Until I have something of substance to say (or at least have the guts to write out my substance-less thoughts; the well is still so dry), I give you my children's words:


Lil' Snip, watching me dose our ancient bathtub drain with baking soda & vinegar:  "It's simmering!"


Nice, eating candy hearts left over from Valentine's Day:  "Mmmmm!  The green ones taste like leaves! .... April Fools!!!"


"Pine cones!!!" cries Lil' Snip exultantly, holding up an alphabet puzzle piece of three ice cream cones.  "You can have one.  I get two."

snapshot

It's a lazy morning, overcast & mellow; I am too sleepy {thank you, Downton Abbey} to think of anything more productive to do than write for my blog.  Lucky you.

I hear .... the humidifier, the pellet stove, the clicking of my fingers on the keyboard, Nice saying the letters of the alphabet to herself as she does a dot-to-dot, Lil' Snip asking random questions to whoever might be listening, the arrhythmic thumping of Nice's feet on the floor, the faint strains of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos playing from the kitchen.

I smell .... the clean scent of a white jar candle burning off to my right.

I am waiting for ... 11:30, when I will blow the clay bird whistle I bought in Antigua to summon my little lunch-makers in from their mysterious outdoor play.

On the bookshelf .... lies Flabbergasted, which I am still reading, wondering if it will turn out to have any deeper meaning or remain pure fluff; Love & War, which I haven't picked up in a few days, but saw my Farmer had been reading while I napped on Sunday; and The Contemplative Mom, for which I had great hopes, but stalled out in the first chapter, when it became apparent that one needs to already have made space for contemplation in order to make the most of this book teaching moms how to make space for contemplation .... Maybe I need to write "The Wanna-be Contemplative Mom."

On my desk .... oh yeah, I have a desk!  I'd forgotten about it, since I haven't used it ever since we got wireless internet almost year ago ... but the only reception was in a back corner of the kitchen, where my laptop was promptly relocated.  My daughters now use my desk more than I do:  "Sugar, could you go get me some stamps?"  .... "Spice, can you grab me the scissors?"  .... "Nice, could you bring me the stapler, please?"  (Nice:  "What's a stapler?")

Projects pending .... bedroom curtains (one was made, months ago, out of five needed); painting the cellar steps; painting a final coat on the bathroom floor, then sprinkling silver glitter and top-coating with boat varnish; crocheting a shawl ... and that's just what comes immediately to mind!

Projects permanently shelved ... hand-quilting the comforter I made; designing new storage for the Back Kitchen; painting the door (& screen) to the backyard, as well as painting the garage door and its wooden framing, at least until warmer weather.

Plans for the rest of the day ... a nap, right after lunch & a story for the girls; some schoolwork with Sugar & Spice and then a supper of black beans and rice; and finally - the high point of my day - coffee with my cousin and a snuggle with my Farmer before falling asleep!

How 'bout you?  What does it sound / smell / look like around you today?

separated? never!

It had been one of those days:  Sugar, Spice, and Everything Nice at each other's throats like wild dogs, bickering and blaming and outright brawling, and under and around and through it all, Lil' Snip's grating whine - when did he become a whiner?! - insisting that someone hold him, that someone read to him, read to him, read to him, again!, that someone play with him - nooooo, this way!!

I was ready to die.  [sorry, I know it's dramatic, but that's the way it was.]  Actually - by God's grace alone - I had died, over and over, to my self that day.  And as naptime mercifully approached, and I tucked the loudly protesting toddler under my arm and carried him, struggling violently, up to his cage, I mean crib, God shone His light on my heart, and taught me something beautiful about His own.

I still loved that Lil' Snip.  He had been purely intolerable that morning, and somehow I had not only tolerated him, but I still loved that inharmonious, recalcitrant bundle of muscled will.  All his discordant belligerence, his complete lack of courtesy and grace had done nothing - nothing - to separate him from my love for him.  I was happy to be separated from him for a few hours, it's true, but at my core, my heart still beat love, love, love, love toward him.

And that's God's heart toward me, toward you:  nothing, nothing, can separate us from His love.  Sin keeps us from intimacy from Him, but even sin does not change His love for us.

When Lil' Snip awoke, cheerful and compliant (actually, his snit lasted a few days, but let's compress that for the sake of brevity), ready again to receive my love, I forgave* him his obstinance and accepted him gladly back into my arms.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? 

Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine

or nakedness or danger or sword?

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, 

neither angels nor demons,

neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,

neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, 

will be able to separate us from the love of God 

that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

Romans 8:35, 38-39

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* a difference here is that my toddler does not confess his sin; when we, however, "confess our sins, [God] is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (I John 1:8-10).  Needless to say, another difference is that I, unlike God, am powerless to cleanse Lil' Snip from his unrighteousness, much as I would like to be able to!

goodwill toward men

Today, I went shopping with my children - all four of them, even two- and a half-year-old Lil' Snip, whose strong opinions are not always welcome on outings.

We went to the discount grocery store, and the health food store, and the post office, and the little country store (for specialty cocoa, therefore "the cocoa store" according to the aforementioned toddler), and the library (& its used bookstore), and the big grocery store, and the burger joint.

[I do not, for obvious reasons, attempt this kind of excursion with any regularity!!]

And you know what I discovered, shepherding all four children through seven destinations in the thick of the holiday season?

I live in a friendly town.

People smiled at us.  Held the door.  Wished us a Merry Christmas.  Laughed across the checkout lines.  Offered my children lollipops.  Complimented my handmade scarf.  Let us go first at intersections.  Made jokes with my children.  Struck up conversations about whatever was right in front of us, just out of sheer goodwill.

We were not perfectly behaved.  Spice and Nice were a bit spicy (& not-nicey) at times.  Lil' Snip was singing that famous toddler song that sounds suspiciously like whining, a few times when lunchtime loomed a little too near.

Why was an outing that could have been a challenge, a blessing instead?

Maybe it was Christmas cheer.  

Maybe it was happenstance.  

Maybe it was purely a gift from God.  

I'm tempted to think that it was because I was in a good mood, and did a better job than usual at using my pleasant voice, no matter what.  But I think I'll let the analysis go, for once, and just accept the gift.

I live in a friendly town, where folks, given half a chance, are chatty and helpful - and so, I'll bet, do you.

: : :

Merry Christmas!

my pieces

Motherhood, someone said, is having your heart walk around outside your body, a piece in each of your children.

I watched my pieces tonight.

One of them, we won't say who (winkwink), got his hair cut, and squirmed such exquisitely-timed squirms that you would almost think he tried it.  And then, when it was over, and his parents had reconciled, and the helpers (one to hold a bowl for the hair and one to provide commentary for the laptop tractor video that his father couldn't see because the haircutter's arm was blocking his view) had dispersed, and his mother was sprawled in a lawnchair to recover, then he came over with his charmingest smile, put his head in my lap, and said "more haircut?" so winsomely that I almost thought he meant it.  But then I saw the twinkle.

That boy is solid twinkle.  (Although sometimes the twinkle is temporarily obscured by certain other traits!)

Another of my pieces followed her biking sisters on her trike, down the grass, down past the house, down the treacherous-to-tricycles hill, but got distracted by the possibility of ripening red raspberries and never made it to the end of the lawn.  She found three that were red enough, and promptly ran back to the porch to give one each to my Farmer and me.

Generous to the core, that piece.

The oldest piece taught the twinkly-trouble piece how to go "wheeeeeeeee!!" down the little hill on a mini Big Wheel.  He laughed his head off and repeated it over and over, stopping only to offer his teacher a turn.

And where, we wondered suddenly, was the middle piece?  Off riding bike by herself, it turned out, and I remembered how, as a crawling baby, she would bore of the toys (or was it the company?) in the room we occupied, and strike out on her own for new territory.  I'm glad that her current explorations are still limited to what's within sight of the house, mostly, and that she still cherishes my company, at least when I'm tucking her into bed at night.

We took some pictures of the newly-shorn one, and tucked him giggling into his crib.  Sat dumbfounded on the porch a bit, dazed still by the speed with which life rushes past, and finally called the others in as dusk fell, to popsicles and prayers and praise.

Having my heart in pieces means more heartache, it's true, but there is more fullness, too.  We used to have that now-illusive "peace & quiet", true, but not nearly so much laughter.

It's a good trade.