waiting to be seen, waiting to be counted, waiting to be thanked

May 312011
 

Don’t look now, but it’s been three weeks since I’ve been chronicling gifts.  I’m not sure where the time went.  Or what I have to show for those three weeks.  (Other than a lot of laundry).

I am fairly sure I’ve been perpetually tired—and almost as frequently overwhelmed.  Which is why blog posts have been at a minimum around here.

But if all the blessings below can be remembered in mere minutes, then these past three weeks have been filled with a lot of gifts, as well as a lot of laundry.  I’m afraid I’ve been looking too much at all I have to do, all I haven’t done—instead of all that He has done.

I haven’t been looking as carefully as I should for the multitude of gifts. Obviously, they are right there, just waiting to be seen, waiting to be counted.  And He is just waiting to be thanked.

Thank You, Lord, for Your patience with me…and for showering me with gifts, even when I’m not looking.

251. Those who gave their lives so that I can live and worship freely in this land.

252. The ability to start each day anew.

253. $2 Frappucinos at Safeway Starbucks yesterday.

254. Getting out of the house.

255. Looking forward to Wednesday with our mother’s helper here.

256. Spring rain, spring storms.

257. Church potlucks.

258. Memories of other Memorial Day weekends.

259. A quiet date with my husband—with the baby sleeping through to the close of the meal.

260. Celebrating 5 years of marriage!

261. Quiet.

262. Watching the alfalfa grow so tall.

263. Designing a new website.

264. A phone call from a friend.

265. A new wireless mouse that works not only on my desk, but on our kitchen table.

266. Big sister playing with little brother.

267. Family barbecues.

268. My brother graduating Salutatorian from law school.

269. A plane ticket that shows my sister is really coming.

270. Scrambled, farm-fresh eggs, with pepperjack cheese and bok choy for breakfast.

271. The bittersweet joy that is there when life and death are so closely intermingled.

272.  A good night’s sleep behind me as I faced a Monday full of unknowns—and a known to-do list that was much too long!

273. Seeing Jesus in a friend’s testimony of trust in His goodness.

274. Curling up with my husband to watch an episode of “Sue Thomas: F.B. Eye.”

275. Peanut butter oatmeal chocolate chip cookies for breakfast.

276. Jeans that fit.

277. A dear lady at church telling me she prays for us every day.

five years of being his

May 272011
 

wedding photos by John Feldschau

Dearest,

Sometimes, I awake in the middle of the night from dreaming of you.  I think to myself, I haven’t written Merritt in forever—or called him, or anything!  I miss him!  And then I remember—I’m married to you!  You are sleeping right next to me! 

It washes over me anew then, as I snuggle up to your sleeping, snoring frame—the wonder, the delight, the joy of being married to my best friend.  It’s the wonder of our wedding day, magnified ten-fold, because I am married to you and I know how wonderful it is.

I don’t ever want to forget that feeling.  We may be old married people now, celebrating five years today.  But five years and three children later, I only love you more.  And while some days are crazy, some days are chaotic, it’s still and always a joy being yours. 

And when we share those long slow kisses in the middle of the kitchen, the crying children and the unwashed laundry and dishes fade out of the scene for a moment, and we’re newlyweds once more.  When we come back to reality, it’s with the reminder that we don’t ever want to forget the way it felt that day five years ago; we don’t ever want to stop acting like newlyweds even though we might really be old married people.

I love you, handsome husband of mine.  Thank you for the five best years of my life.  Here’s to many more, with God’s help.

Love always,
your wife

[P.S. Five years can’t be summed up in just five minutes—but I almost did it.]

blog posts?

May 242011
 

Blog posts?  What are those?  I’ve been so overwhelmed with business projects that needed to be done, like, yesterday—not to mention laundry from an influx of spitting up and cooking that must-needs be done if we’re to eat—that I seem to have completely forgotten about blog posts.

Or rather, not completely, because if you could read all the posts I mentally write while nursing, this blog would be overflowing with new posts.  Almost makes a girl wish for voice recognition software.  Though I’m not sure I could write “out loud.”

I even have the cutest 1,000 Words picture—but I have I downloaded it from my camera yet?  Of course not.

One friend finally called me yesterday because she knew that at the rate I get through my to-do list these days, she would never get a call from me.  (Which means my to-do’s are pathetically out of order of priority, let me tell you!) 

We talked about—nay, laughed about—schedules and such.  And she reminded me that the beauty of a plan, a schedule, is that if you ever stop for a moment to catch your breath, it can remind you what you should be doing that day, that moment.

Which means I should be cleaning the bathroom.  And washing the towels.  As soon as I finish the “most important tasks” of the day, which are all related to deadlines and work and emails-that-should-have-already-been-answered.

And now a little man who’s had a rough, spitting-up morning is crying for me again.  And that laundry is already begging to be done, though yesterday’s laundry hasn’t even been folded and put away.

So I’m off.  Just letting you know that I haven’t entirely forgotten what a blog post is supposed to look like.

seasons and siblings

May 202011
 

Seasons change.  Siblings grow up.  People get married.  School and jobs and marriage take siblings all around the country.

Not too long ago he was my baby brother who I took delight in dressing in different outfits and taking pictures of and having as my personal baby Jesus in the Christmas plays.  Now he’s a teenager and running marathons I don’t get to see.  While my girls name their dollies “Baby Caleb” after him, preferring to call him “Uncle Cake.”

Once she was my little sister whom I was forever babysitting and bossing around while I made dinner and trying to make her grow up too fast.  Now she’s almost sixteen but she looks at least eighteen and she knows more in her first year of high school than I ever learned.  She makes me take a nap while she fixes my dinner and promises to potty train my daughter.

with my brand new baby brother and the "David Bear" I passed on to him...Gone are the days when I was his photographer for TeenPact campaigns and senior portraits, when we best-friend siblings were mistaken for boyfriend and girlfriend, when we rode to college classes together.  Now he’s married to an amazing and articulate Southern girl, winning moot court competitions that I don’t get to see, studying for the Bar, and graduating from law school (today!) without me being there.  While I sit here doing laundry, changing diapers, and holding his first nephew—a spitting image (at least in my memory) of my chunky baby brother who stretched so far off my lap when I would get to hold him.

Siblings grow up.  And sometimes, we don’t realize how special they are until we don’t get to see them all the time.

Seasons change. And sometimes, we don’t realize how precious the last season was until we’re in the next one.

Lord, help me to live in such a way as to have no regrets when seasons change again…

Review: When God Created My Toes

May 192011
 

When I saw that Dandi Daley Mackall’s book When God Created My Toes was available for review, I ordered it for my girls.  They really liked her book God Loves Me More Than That.

However, When God Created My Toes was a big disappointment.  Not only were the pictures far from the bright, cheerful illustrations of the other book, but the theology was questionable, as well.

The book’s dedication page starts out with Psalm 139:13-16, but nowhere in the rest of the book did I find any indication that the author was using the verses as a point of reference. Instead of a little one being knit together in the womb as the Psalm asserts, the rhyme suggests being created in Heaven with an audience of angels.  The entire book is in question form: “Did we hide in cloudy skies when God created my eyes?” and I’m afraid most of the questions would actually be answered with a “no.”

It may be cute and innocent, but instead of being an accurate reflection of how new life grows within the womb (a concept my girls are asking questions about, being big sisters to a brand new baby), it gives a portrayal of creation that I’ve not read in Scripture: “How I wonder what we said when God created my head!”

I’m afraid When God Created My Toes won’t be staying on my daughters’ bookshelves.  I’d rather show them pictures of a baby’s development within the womb to display the intricate wonder of the way God created us.  And if the purpose is the child’s self esteem, as the back of the book suggests, perhaps there would be better ways to go about it than suggesting that games of peek-a-boo and Eskimo kisses with God were part of their creation.

(Thanks to Waterbrook Multnomah for the review copy.)

spring days and schedules

May 182011
 

There is sunshine streaming through my window.  I’d forgotten how much its rays lend themselves to my energy and good spirits.

As every person I meet feels necessary to remind me, I do indeed have a busy household with three little ones age three and under.  Some days I am thankful just to have survived the day without bursting into tears.  Other beautiful days—rare, but thankfully becoming more frequent—we truly thrive.  On those days, I even wonder why I think I need my sister’s help this summer.  (Until dinnertime rolls around the next day, and all is a disaster, and I feel like calling and asking her to get on a plane now.)

Usually by the time Wednesday rolls around, I’m ready for some help.  And then my blessed mother’s helper arrives.  And as she helps keep things picked up and little ones entertained, I realize anew the truth of what the other moms further along this road say: this season won’t last forever.  Soon, my girls will be doing all the little things she does.  Soon, they will be all grown up and maybe even helping other mommies, too.

Some days, there is order and even a bit of neatness.  Some days, there is chaos and crying and unfolded laundry.  On the good days, I try to take notes and figure out what works.  On the bad days, I remind myself that the naps, the teething, the lack of sleep, the sickness all do have an affect on the day which I cannot entirely control.

And in the middle of the night, when I’m struggling to keep my eyes open while nursing, I find true encouragement in what I have decided is the Pilgrim’s Progress for mothers: Elizabeth Prentiss’ Stepping Heavenward.  I know it was nothing short of a Heavenly prompting that caused me to pull it off the shelf the other night.  I hadn’t read it since long before I got married.  And oh the convicting truths, the sweet encouragement, the precious love for Jesus written in its pages!  I know that the nighttime reading of it has made my days go better, even though its pages haven’t changed (and have in fact perhaps increased?) my lack of sleep.

Then last night at the homeschool moms meeting, I asked the other moms what their best tips for surviving these days of little ones were.  Another momma—of five little girls—handed me a book she’d just finished reading: A Mother’s Rule of Life.  Written by a Catholic woman named Holly Pierlot, it already has a lot of application for this Protestant woman as well.

And to round it all out, I have Organized Simplicity on hold at the library.  Because my schedule needs some inspiration again!  Of course, when I wonder what in the world happened to my schedule, I remember that semi-bedrest and a baby happened.  But I know that it’s time to look again at my schedule, in anticipation of a busy, busy summer.  I want to fine-tune it and make it more workable, more practical, more doable—and most importantly, put more more moments of rest and peace into the middle of it somehow (that’s what A Mother’s Rule of Life is all about). 

But for the moment, one of my little ones is crying, there is still laundry to fold, and seemingly a million other tasks to do (thank you notes being at the top of that priority list!).  Yet, this blogging time was a priority, too.  Because I’ve realized that putting my fingers to the keyboard, getting my thoughts out into coherent words—this, too (along with Jesus, water, and chocolate) is one of the things that help me thrive as I get through my day.  So here I am again, stealing a few moments of the refreshment that is to be found in blogging, because as we blogging mommies know, it’s better to blog than to cry, right?  (And besides, hammering out my thoughts about my schedule might help them become reality.)

one month old

May 162011
 

one month old

Dear Daniel,

You’re going bald on the top of your head, you’re developing a double chin, and your baby acne has come out in full force.  But you’re starting to coo and even smile a time or two!  I’ve had to cut your fingernails three times now and you’re outgrowing some of your newborn outfits.  And at your one-month checkup today, you weighed a whopping 9 pounds, 5 ounces, meaning you’ve gained more than 2 pounds in the last 2 weeks!  I guess Mommy doesn’t have to be too worried about all the spitting up you’re doing—you’re obviously keeping enough down at the moment.

You like eating.  A lot.  You even try to eat Tigger’s nose if he gets too close when you are getting your pictures taken together.  And if Mommy isn’t available when you think she should be, it’s a sad moment indeed.  You get so frustrated trying to find your food source that you push it away with your hands (you’re trying hard to use them, but they get in the way sometimes, too).  And when you do finally find the nummers, you’re so relieved you suck in gulps of air trying to eat too fast.  (This is the cause of a lot of the spitting, I think.)  You just might be all boy!

Everyone says you look just like your daddy.  (He’s still not quite certain whether to take this as a compliment, but I assure him it is.)  The lady at the coffee shop, who doesn’t usually see your daddy and me together (I buy coffee from her, she buys vegetables from your daddy), took one close-up look at your face and said, “Oh, I know who his daddy is!”  People who know us better are just as convinced that you look like your daddy.  And of course, everyone who knew your daddy when he was a baby says you are the spitting image of him.  Sometimes, when you pucker up your face just right and make your cheeks quite chubby, you remind me of the way your uncle Will looked when he was a baby.  And a glimpse of your profile especially during those first weeks, sometimes resembles that of your cousin Sterling.  But you definitely look like your father’s son!

You have a strong little neck, and like to look around during your rare awake times.  You much prefer to be eating or sleeping.  You love being swaddled up, even if you do fight it and try every trick in the book to get out (such as folding up your legs so that the swaddle is loose).  The pacifier is not yet that interesting to you, so you just spit it out.  Bright-colored toys are fascinating, however, and you even tried to hit the ones on your toy gym the other day.

You detest being dressed and undressed.  The only good thing about getting undressed is it means a bath.  And how you adore your baths!  You would soak under that warm water until you were shivering if I let you.  You’re already learning that when I carry you half-naked through the house, it means you can be calm, because bathtime is approaching.  But you still don’t like getting out and getting dressed afterwards!

You strongly dislike being put in the car seat, because you have yet to discover the cause and affect meaning that a drive is ahead.  You adore driving, and it usually puts you to sleep (unless you are simply starving).  You like the singing in church, but when prayer time comes, you wake up and are hungry.  I think it’s just because it is too quiet!  You take your best naps in the middle of the living room of this noisy household.  Sound machine or no, if the noise level in the rest of the house is not constant, that’s when you awake in the midst of your naps.  In this especially, it is quite obvious you are a third child and not a first born.

You’ve caught a bit of the family’s cold, having a stuffy nose the past two weeks.  It’s worst in the early hours of the morning when you’ve been laying down so much.  Your noisy breathing keeps your daddy and me awake sometimes.  But thankfully being held upright helps a lot and you are soon relaxing and breathing more normally.  Thus, you often spend the early hours of the morning around 6 a.m. snuggled up on Mommy’s chest, where you can breathe easier.

Your big sister Ruth declared today that she could be your aunt “for fifty years”.  I explained that actually, she is your sister, and will always be your sister.  She’s now quite proud of that fact.

It’s so fun to watch you grow—literally before our eyes, with the way you’ve been gaining!  We love you so much and are so proud of the big and little strides you are making towards being a grown-up little man.  Thank you for brightening our world with the color blue!

Much love,
your mommy

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