Not the Only One

Snow Adventures

2011-11-02T12:17:00.001-06:00

Within the last eight days we've had two snowstorms here, each one dumping a good eight to twelve inches on the ground and everything else. The first snow had started out as rain, and since most of the trees still have their leaves, they froze. Then the snow weighed them down, and limbs started breaking off everywhere! And just when that snow had melted, and everyone had barely gotten all the fallen branches cleared from their yards, another snowstorn hit last night, making everything look like a cake with extra thick icing on it.

The boys, of course, have been thrilled by all the snow, as all kids are. But for adults snow tends to be frowned upon as problematic. It keeps us from all the things we have to do, creates more work, makes driving anywhere take longer, sometimes even causes power outages. I refuse to fall into that category! I will always love the snow!

That's why last week when it snowed, I put the baby down for a nap, got everyone bundled up in their snow gear, including myself, and we all went out and built a snowman. We even took the day off from homeschooling! And that's why today, when I had to go to the bank I decided to drive by Glenmere Park to see what it looked like covered in all that gorgeous white stuff. When we got there, I couldn't resist! I pulled the van over and we all got out (except Lily) and went tromping through the piles of wintery wonderfulness. It was so much fun! Then we quickly had to get back in the van because the boys were cold and we weren't really dressed for playing in a foot of snow because I thought we were just going to the bank, not going on an arctic expedition.

For me, it was a much needed moment of letting go. Going through the daily grind, doing what needs done, and trying to keep the peace, I sometimes feel like I have lost the fun-loving girl of pre-mommyhood. I find myself barking orders, feeling stressed out, losing patience, and sometimes even wanting to go hide in a hole, far too often. I'd love to be that mom that embraces the chaos, but most the time I feel more like some kind of grouchy dictator, a happiness Nazi, if you will. Then God gives me these rare moments where I just forget all the "shoulds" and I just enjoy life with my kids. It's like sunshine breaking through the clouds, beautiful and warm.

Izzy's Puppet Show

2011-10-15T15:00:00.001-06:00

My four year old decided to put on a puppet show for me while I was sitting down nursing the baby this afternoon. His puppet was a crazy haired head cut out of blue foam with wiggly eyes and a pom-pom nose on top of a popsicle stick. He had a captive audience ;)

Izzy (as the puppet): What's the question?
Me: What's your name?
Izzy: Mr. Choo Choos.
Me: Do you like trains?
Izzy: No! I like helicopters.
Me: Can you fly a helicopter?
Izzy: Yes.
Me: Who taught you to fly helicopters?
Izzy: The soldiers.
Me: Oh, are you a soldier?
Izzy: Uh-huh.
Me: How long have you been a helicopter pilot?
Izzy: Thirty years ago.
Me: Oh, you're not a pilot anymore?
Izzy:No.
Me: Why not?
Izzy: They shot me down!

(Pause)

Izzy: Okay, you want me to do a new show?
Me: Sure!

(New Show)

Izzy: What's the question?
Me: What are you doing?
Izzy: Once I was in the Army and I got killed.
Me: Oh no! What happened?
Izzy: The doctors fixed me up.
Me: Did they have to resuscitate you?
Izzy: No, they had to shoot me down!

(I laugh and tell Aaron what he said)

Izzy: Want me to do a new show?
Me:Okay.

(New Show)

Izzy: What's the question?
Me: How do you bake a blueberry pie?
Izzy: No, ask something more sensible!
Me: Okay...what should we do about the deterioration of our economy?
Izzy: Punch each other in the face!
Me (laughing): Oh, so you believe that boxing is the key to economic recovery?

Izzy just giggles, he has no idea what I just said :)

Everyday

2011-10-11T00:19:00.001-06:00

I struggle sometimes with the "everydayness" of every day. After a while, it all starts to look the same. Yesterday was the same as today, which is the same as tomorrow. My husband goes to work, my kids wake up earlier than I'd like them to, we eat, we homeschool, change diapers, play, eat homeschool, change diapers, play, sleep...an endless cycle. It's not exciting. It seems like there's not much to look forward to. And on the surface, maybe there isn't.

I have to remind myself to hold on to the little things, the "moments".

I hold on to the few minutes spent in the van on the way home from buying groceries that Aaron and I get a chance to talk to each other--before the kids are in bed!

I hold on to the three minutes of listening to a song together that says exactly how we feel about each other before we are home and have to begin the process of bringing groceries in, getting kids to bed and putting everything in it's place.

I hold on to the precious moments when, after screaming in a way that only a baby can, Lily is soothed by Mommy and smiles at me like I gave her the world.

I hold on to how impatient I feel waiting for Malachi to cut something out for school when it would have only taken me five seconds, knowing that this moment is important too, because he's learning how to use scissors, and I'm learning to let him do it himself (though no matter how hard I try, I can't always resist trimming the edges, I confess!).

When I think about these things, it makes me smile, and it makes me feel like I do have something to look forward to tomorrow after all.

I look forward to seeing what funny thing Izzy might do, or finding out that Simeon knows morer than I realized.

I look forward to finding a way to spend time with Aaron, and a way to make the evening fun for the whole family (except maybe Lily, who doesn't really care about "family time" right now--she'd much prefer to have Mommy to herself) even if we just stay home and do normal stuff.

I look forward to what God might do tomorrow that I'm not expecting, how He might speak something to me, or use me to show His love to my kids.

Maybe "everydayness" isn't so bad after all.

Into the Unknown

2011-08-05T22:32:00.000-06:00

Currently, I am planning on homeschooling Malachi this year. I am getting a late start looking into everything because first of all, I am a terrible procrastinator, and secondly, I just had a baby in May so it's been a little crazy. Things are finally starting to feel somewhat balanced again, so now I am finally doing what ought to have been done months ago, which is looking into curriculum and making a plan.

Right now, since we are in the early stages of education, I could probably just sort of wing it and do my own thing, but I feel like I need a curriculum that will help me to be structured, since on my own I'd probably end up being really anal and overwhelmed about the whole thing and having a meltdown. Self-motivation isn't necessarily my strong point unless I'm really excited and confident about what I'm going to be doing. At this point, I am more like semi-excited, somewhat doubtful, and nervous. Not promising.

I've been looking into a curriculum called Sonlight, and from what I saw on the website, I think it could really be a good fit for me. It sounds like it takes care of a lot of the planning, but is very involving when it comes to actually interacting with your children. I find that very appealing because I tend to not want things very involving, and it will be a stretch for me. But when it comes to the kids, it's the kind of stretching that is good for me, you know?

I believe that this is definitely where God is leading me, us, our family...which, as usual, feels a lot to me like how Abraham must have felt leaving everything he knew to wander around in the desert looking for the promised land: expecting and believing for great things but also feeling a little bit like, "Oh crap what have I gotten myself into?" and basically knowing that God has to come through for you or it will all fall apart. But I like that. I want to live my life in such a way that I need God. I don't want to be able to do it all on my own.

So I go forward into this with much trepidation, but also much expectation and hope.

Mini Road Trip

2011-07-15T12:41:00.000-06:00

Last night Aaron had the idea to take a road trip to a small town and find a little diner or cafe to eat dinner. We all piled into the van and proceeded to drive all the way to Eaton (which is roughly nine miles from where we live).

We weren't sure what was there, so we continued on to Ault, which is an exciting distance of four miles from Eaton. Unfortunately, we had gotten a late start, and small towns being small towns, all the cute little diners and cafes in Ault were closed.

We then proceeded to traverse the grueling four miles back to Eaton, and soon settled on eating at a little place called "Steven's Grill", which has been there, apparently, since Aaron was a kid.

We ordered up burgers and fries and cheddar potato soup because it was on special, and all sat around a small metal table together. Malachi took to the soup, Sima just wanted crackers and the french fries from my plate, even though I did give him his own, and Izzy was mostly preoccupied with mixing together ketchup and mustard for his fries. Aaron and I ate as quickly as possible, as we have learned that once the kids are done eating, it's best to make a quick escape before they start wreaking havoc upon the restaurant. The food was actually really good--I'd take it over McDonald's any day.

When we were all done, we went across the street to Eat'n Ice Cream and had dessert. We sat outside at wrought-iron tables and chairs and ate our ice cream, enjoying the quietness of the small town and marveling that the main street of Eaton was less busy than the street we live on in Greeley. At one point, three teenage girls were riding their bikes right down the middle of the road, not a single car in sight. If our boys tried that, they'd be in big trouble, because there is really no time of day that our road is without cars.

We walked around the block afterward, and the boys managed to find an anthill, which we quickly removed them from so they wouldn't get bitten. It was beginning to get dark, so we headed back to the van to go home. By the time we had them all in their seats, it was a quarter to nine, and the quiet and peaceful part of the evening was over. Simeon was crying because an ant bit him, Malachi was crying because his toe mysteriously hurt, and Lily was crying because she's an infant and that's what she does. Izzy was the only one not crying, probably because he was too busy adding to the problem by pinching Malachi and bugging him, as only a little brother can.

Nine miles seems a lot longer when you have a van full of crying children.

The funny part was when I realized that Simeon was crying mostly because Malachi was crying. He would repeat everything he said, even that Izzy pinched him, which I knew wasn't true since Izzy couldn't reach him. I held his hand and sang to him, which miraculously quieted him and everyone else down for about three minutes. And then they all started up again.

By then we were back in Greeley, and soon home, so it was all right.

All in all, it was a really great night together...but I am glad we were only nine miles from home.

What I Would Like

2011-07-13T12:40:00.001-06:00

Growing up, whenever I would complain about anything, my mom would say, "Well, life isn't fair." I would often get mad at her for not sympathizing over my teenage woes, but as an adult, I realize more and more that it's true; we don't always get what we want. Sometimes I am reconciled to that fact, but at others it is a slap in the face and everything in between. Since I have this nifty blog, I thought that today I would make use of it, and put down on record how I'd like for things to be.

I'd really like to not have to get up at 5:30 and change a dirty diaper.

I'd like to be able to sit and eat a bowl of cereal without someone thinking I should share it with them.

I'd like it if when I took the time to make eggs, the kids would all actually eat them.

I'd like to be able to sit and hold my baby for as long as I need to, without anyone asking me for juice or a snack, even though they just ate twenty minutes ago.

I'd like it if I could put Lily in her swing without worrying that one of the boys was going to climb into it with her.

I'd like a little more privacy.

I'd like it if I didn't feel like I was speaking a foreign language to my children since they so often seem to not even hear what I'm saying.

I'd like it if I could feel like I knew what I was doing.

I'd like a lot of things, but as I mentioned before, we don't always get what we want. And that isn't necessarily bad. It helps me to learn to "be content in all things", and it forces me to stare my lack in the face, and recognize that I need God. Because there's just no other way I can get through life on my own. I am desperately in need of His grace and peace. All the time.

And what I would really like most of all? I'd like to learn to rely on Him, instead of constantly trying to do it all myself.

A Slice of Life

2011-07-11T13:55:00.001-06:00

I have four children. Sometimes I hear myself say this and it surprises me. My oldest two will turn six and four this weekend.

Malachi is ready to be six. He's ready for anything. He's getting tall like his Daddy, and also like his Daddy, he will talk to anyone. He is conversationally fearless! He's really into pirates right now, so he has his sword at the ready while he watches Muppet Treasure Island and Pirates of the Caribbean. My mom and niece made a treasure map and sent it to him in the mail. I'm pretty sure he has it stowed away in his bed somewhere, as though the map itself was buried treasure.

Israel (a.k.a. Izzy, Iz Niz, Zoo Bear, and the Spiceman) is also getting tall. In fact, I am a little worried that one day he will be taller than Malachi. This will be great for him, but will drive Malachi crazy. At almost four, he is on the precipice of being potty trained. What that means is that he can go potty just fine on his own when it strikes his fancy, but most often he can't be bothered with it. This morning it struck him as a good idea, so he went. Then he called me in to help him wipe, only to refuse to let me do it, so I stood by watching as he insisted on tearing the toilet paper into individual pieces. It was a severe test of patience, let me tell you! And no one can test my patience like Izzy can. Sometimes he is as immoveable as a mountain. He also makes me laugh the most, though, like when he was going around the house singing, "Oooh, you and me, and our smock-atility vehicle." It was supposed to be "sports utility". We can thank Veggie Tales for the reason he was singing about a sports utility vehicle in the first place.

Simeon is my baby boy, although, he's actually pretty big. He just turned two at the end of March, and he's really starting to talk now. For a long time, he would repeat things we said without really knowing what he was saying. Now he is responding instead of just repeating. A great example of this happened the other day when he tried to ride Chi's bike. When I told him it was too big for him, he said, "No, it's mine!" "I'm pretty sure it's Malachi's," I told him. I thought he was just going to repeat me at first, but instead he declared quite decidedly, "Pretty sure it's Sima's."

Lily is the real baby, and the only girl. She will be two months old tomorrow. For a while it seemed like all she did was sleep, eat, and cry, but now she is becoming more interactive. She likes when I sit down and talk to her. I hold her in my arms and we have a little conversation. She smiles at me a lot, and sometimes she will try to join in with a little "Coo" or "Aah". Think what you want, but I know she's talking to me. She has the most beautiful blue eyes, and I am crossing my fingers that they will stay that color! My dad has blue eyes, so it's possible, even though her Mommy and Daddy have brown and hazel, that her eyes could be blue too.

All of this is just a glimpse, just a sliver out of our lives. Lily is so small now, but before I know it, she'll be the one asserting her independance over what belongs to her, and Simeon will be the one meticulously separating toilet paper. Izzy will be starting school, and Malachi will be...well, I don't know yet. I do know that I don't want to forget what this moment, what this day is like. It seems like I should remember all these little details forever, but I am already surprised by the things I forget.

Little Plants

2011-04-29T09:59:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I was talking with a friend about my middle child, Israel. I'm not sure if it's his age or his personality, or that infamous "middle-child syndrome", but I tend to have more trouble with him than I did with Malachi. Israel has made more messes, gotten in more trouble, and been more stubborn about the simplest things. He also makes me laugh more, is cuddly and sweet, and still sucks his thumb when he is feeling insecure.

As I was describing some of the trouble I have had with him, I mentioned that usually if I can take a little extra time and have a little extra patience that things go better, but that there are also times when I can tell that I'm going to have to spank him and that's just all there is to it. She told me, "That's right; he wants to know, 'Do you love me enough to enforce the boundaries?'"

For some reason, what she said struck me. I already knew that children do bad things sometimes to get attention, and that we discipline the because we love them, but for some reason, something just clicked when she said that, and it made me see things more clearly. So many times, I don't spank him or delay spanking because I love him and I feel like I want him to have a chance to just be a good boy and obey without that. I don't like spanking him, so I often don't want to. And right now, being largely pregnant as I am, sometimes I don't feel like I have the energy.

I realized, however, that if I love him, I will spank him. First of all, he isn't old enough to be given the responsibility of "just being a good boy because". Secondly, he needs to know I love him enough to do what I say I'm going to do, to enforce the consequences of his actions, and to set boundaries. As strange as it sounds, I believe those spankings sometimes say "I love you" more clearly than any words or hugs or second chances ever could.

I was talking to Aaron this morning, and he compared having children to having a garden. Our children are like plants we have planted in a garden. We know how to garden, we know what we need to do to keep those plants healthy and make them grow. The question is, are we willing to get our hands dirty? Are we willing to actually pick up the shovel or the hoe and dig in the dirt? Are we willing to grab ahold of those weeds and pull them out?

Many times, I feel like I am sitting by that garden in a lawnchair with my iced tea, and it's hot and the sun is beating down, and I think, "I don't feel like pulling those weeds today. I don't feel like geting my hands dirty. It's too much work." I want my plants to grow. I want them to be healthy plants, and thrive. I want them to reach their full potential and produce big, ripe juicy tomatoes, or strawberries, or green beans, or whatever it is that God made them to produce. But I want that to somehow just happen without my having to put effort into it. However, as with so many things in life, that isn't possible. Those plants need care, they need work. Just like children.

Now I am not saying that it will always be hard or unpleasant, because there will be many days that cultivating those little "plants" will be enjoyable. There will be many days when just seeing how they've grown and improved will be a joy. There will be days when it's bright and breezy and the weeds are all easy to pull.

But there will also be days when I won't feel like doing it and it will be an effort that feels like too much. There will be days when I feel frusterated because even though I've been putting in a lot of time and energy, it looks like my little plants are not growing at all, in fact they may even look a little worse.

There will be days when I come away with blisters and achy hands from pulling all those stubborn and deep-rooted weeds, days when I am pierced by thorns. And there will be days when there are thunderstorms and rain, and I will worry about my little plants. I will wonder if they are going to survive the storm, and there won't be anything I can do to help them except pray.

In the end, whether you are gardening or raising children, it comes down to trusting God. Our efforts are important, and when we put in the work, it makes a difference. Yet there will always be things they need that only God can provide, and we can only trust Him and pray.

Wait for the Wind

2011-04-01T10:22:00.001-06:00

Recently we bought a kite for the boys at Sam's Club. It's this great big kite that looks like a robot, and the boys were brimming with excitement. All we had to do was wait for the right day with some wind.

One evening after Aaron got home we decided to go for it. We weren't sure if the wind would be strong enough or not, but we had to try! Malachi was especially looking forward to it.

We drove over to Bittersweet Park, where there is plenty of room for kite flying. The flags at the monument were waving bravely in the wind, and we hoped that meant good things for our endeavour. We warned the boys that there might not be enough wind, but that we would try.

We released the kite from its box and put it together. Aaron tried first to see if he could get it into the air. Time and time again, it would fly for a minute or two and then come crashing down. There was wind, but not quite enough to keep it alfoat for a long period of time.

After several of these tries, Aaron decided there was not enough wind and we took the boys over to the playground. Izzy and Simeon were perfectly fine with this turn of events, but Malachi was heartbroken. He so wanted to fly that kite! We tried to explain that there just wsn't enough wind, but he desperately wanted to have a turn flying it. Finally Aaron went back out in the open field with him and tried to give a few short-lived turns with the flying robot.

Before long it began to get cold and the sun began to set and we were getting hungry; it was time to go. Even though Aaron had tried to accomodate Chi, he was still very disappointed with how things had gone. He had been able to fly the kite a few times, but it just wasn't quite enough for him. What's more, he blamed Aaron for all of it. Somehow it was Daddy's fault that the kite would not fly. As we pulled out of the parking lot, he was in tears, and nothing we said, from comforting words to telling him to just be thankful for what he got, could help.

Today Aaron and I were talking about it again, and it struck me how similarly we act with God sometimes. We have a beautiful new kite and we want to fly it. We want to fly it now! So we take it to the park and we try our best, but there isn't enough wind. And we blame God. Nevermind that we are attempting to fly the kite in the wrong conditions, somehow it is God's fault. We want what we want, and we want it now, and God should just make the wind happen when we want it to, we shouldn't have to wait until the right time...right?

How often do we blame God for situations that we have gotten ourselves into? We didn't ask Him for guidance, or if we did, we didn't wait for an answer. Or maybe we got an answer, "There's not enough wind right now, you need to wait," and we didn't like it, so we did what we wanted anyway.

This hits home for me. This is one of those moments when my children exasperate me with how they act and then I realize that I do the same thing. It's rather humbling. There have been many times when I wanted it my way and didn't care if it was the right time or not. But if I would have waited, I might have found my kite flying high instead of crashing to the ground. I might have found the result to be joy instead of tears and frustration.

In the end, I'm encouraged. I'm encouraged to trust Him, and to be thankful for what I have, even if it isn't always exactly what I want.

I Live in His Grace

2011-01-31T20:11:00.001-07:00

"For He has delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, and my feet from falling."

Psalm 116:8

Last night before I went to sleep, the crazy notion entered my brain to read my Bible. I saw it sitting there on the dresser, and thought that maybe for once, instead of reading a novel or my baby names book before I go to bed, I ought to read the Word of God.

I'm sure that most of you reading this, being the excellent and super-amazing Christians that you are, read your Bible every day anyway. But I will be honest and say that I don't.

At one time, I did. Back when I was single, going to school, and had very few responsibilities. I read it then. I read it a lot then. And now I am so glad I did, because it is all still there in my heart, and the Holy Spirit reminds me of what I've learned and what I've read, and it feeds me. It was feasting time then; now it is famine.

For these days, these crazy days of screaming children and messes, bills, dirty dishes, and dirtier diapers, these days it is rare to have enough time to even settle my mind enough to have a "quiet time" with God.

These days, I live on His grace and His goodness. And I have found that He meets me right where I am.

In the same way that my husband and I now have to schedule an actual date night, and take the few minute snatches of time to talk and reconnect instead of spending hours and hours together every day, I have found my brief meetings and dates with God to be so much more special and meaningful now than ever before.

So last night, when I read this verse, I knew He was speaking to me. He was telling me that He has me.

There is an anguish of the soul that can feel like death, but I need not fear it. He has delivered me from it.

And all those tears I have cried feeling like I can never be enough or do enough, that I am a failure? He has delivered me from those as well.

All the times I stumble and fall, when I mess up and I cringe because I did the wrong thing again? He's got it covered.

Yes, I live in His grace--and His grace is sufficient.

Severe Lack of Inspiration

2011-01-06T11:11:00.000-07:00

I fully intended to revisit my New Year's Resolution of 2010 and write a blog every day. Yet here I find myself six days into 2011, and I am just now writing my first blog. So much for good intentions.

Right now I am suffering from a severe lack of inspiration. I am not inspired to write something amazing, charming, or perhaps even particularly interesting. There are stories I could tell about the kids, about the holidays, about my trip to Ohio to visit my family and my trip to Michigan to go to a friend's wedding. But, to be honest, I just don't feel like it.

My lack of inspiration isn't limited to writing either. I'm also having trouble with what I should make for dinner later, in spite of having a whole list of potential meals on my fridge which I planned at the beginning of this week. Nothing sounds good, nothing sounds right.

Of course, it doesn't help that I am constantly being bombarded with requests, "I need a snack, I need a drink, I need a paper plane...I need, I need, I need....Mommy, he hit me, Mommy, he stinks, Mommy, he took my paper plane!" It just never ends.

Some days things like that, while frusterating, just seem like part of the day and I deal with it and move on. Other days, like today, I find these constant conflicts and demands to be epecially wearisome. Today is a day where I need some extra grace...and a nap probably wouldn't hurt either!

Don't get me wrong, being a mom is great, and I love it, and I know it's exactly what I'm supposed to be doing with my life right now. It's also repetitive and tiring and hard sometimes. That's life. Despite what the movies tell us, life isn't always fun and sometimes the happy ending are few and far between, or if nothing else, the really good moments are the really small ones, not big, climactic ones. Some people have this figured out and they sort of take life by the horns. Then there are people like me who have to keep reminding themselves that this is real life, that it isn't nearly as ideal as they thought it was going to be, and that it's okay.

I'd like to end on a deep and philosophical note, but I just don't have it in me. However, I do hope my lack of inspiration has been inspiring to you :)

We're Having A....

2010-12-21T18:11:00.000-07:00

Due to many difficulties with the computers we have at home, I have not been writing my blog consistently, or really writing at all in the last few months. But, we found out some news yesterday that I think is worth taking a little time to write via the library's internet.

Yesterday, we had the infamous ultrasound, and to our utter surprise and shock (I'm still a bit in shock) we were told that we are having a GIRL! "Really? Are you sure?" That was my first reaction. The ultrasound technician seemed very certain, and since she was right about all our boys, I'm going to trust her on this.

We are all very excited, including the boys, or maybe especially the boys. Malachi was always referred to the baby as "she", and Izzy told me that we should have a baby sister because we already had a baby brother and didn't need one of those (a clue to how he REALLY feels about Simeon maybe? ha ha ha). I am finally allowing my self to think pink and look at all the cute little girl clothes at the store.

What an adventure! Three boys and a girl!

Stomach Bugs, Ear Confections, Adoption and Waiting

2010-11-18T14:53:00.001-07:00

The last few weeks have been very.....full, to put it gently. One week we had a stomach flu bug, which seemed very unfair since I was just getting over having morning sickness and thought I was going to be done with nausea and vomiting. No such luck.

The following week we all had colds and I lost my voice for two days, which made being a stay at home mom just a little more challenging than usual.

This week we started off with going to the doctor, where it was discovered that Simeon has a sinus infection and Israel has an ear infection, which he called an "itchy ear confection" and made me laugh.

Now that we are all loaded up with antibiotics, cough medicine, tylenol, and/or ricola cough drops, I think we are getting better. Hopefully we can put all this sickness behind us!

Other than that, this week Aaron and I also surprisingly found ourselves at an informational meeting about adoption at our church. Adoption is not something I have really wanted to do in the past, but it seems like God has been doing something in my heart, and Aaron's, in the last year or so, even in the last month or so.

At this point, Aaron is a little more enthusiastic than I am since I am pregnant, and my main thought is "One kid at a time please!" It's hard to think about bringing home a child to adopt when I already know I'll be bringing home a newborn this May.

In any case, it is something we're looking into and praying about. We always knew that we wanted to have a big family, and up until now, I had always considered that I would be bringing all of those children into the world myself. Now I am considering that God may have other plans for us.

There are a lot of different routes to take when considering adoption, and it can be very expensive, so one thing that is absolutely certain is that we need God's guidance and direction on this, as well as His provision.

Normally, I wouldn't blog about something like this. When I feel God stirring us to something, I like to keep it close to my heart. I might tell a few close friends, but not tell the entire world (so to speak). However, in this particular case, I feel like this is the beginning of a journey and that maybe there are people who need to read about it along the way.

This may be something that happens a year from now, or it could be ten years from now. I really don't know. I do know that when it happens, it will be God's perfect timing, and I trust Him to show us exactly when that is.

In the meantime, we will gather information, we will wait, and we will pray. Most of the time, that seems like all you can do with any situation: wait, and pray.

Give Me Jesus

2010-10-27T10:52:00.001-06:00

Give me Jesus

You can have all this world

But give me Jesus

Today I feel the words of this song. I feel the need for Him. I think that's a good thing. It means my ears are ready to hear, my heart is ready to mold. On a day like this, God can speak to me. On a day like this, God can change me.

The funny thing is that I don't feel great today. I'm tired and emotional. It's sunny out, but I feel like the skies are gray. Yet somehow, I think it is on a day like this that God can do the most in me.

On the days when I feel great, it's easy for me to forget how much I really need Him. But today my need is staring me in the face. And I love it.

I love the days when my soul is crying out to God, when I feel that thirst for Him. It is beautiful. It reminds me that He is what I want most in this whole world. It is so easy to be distracted by other things--husband, kids, life, problems, family, friends, neighbors, church, TV...the list goes on. But on a day like today, all of those things seem to sort of fade into the background, and I remember what is really important.

A day like today might start out being not so great. But it has the potential of being one of the best days, depending on whether I choose to rely on Him or on myself. When I feel low, or sad, or frustrated, I have the choice of continuing in that, or of trusting Him and asking Him for help. Most of the time, that doesn't mean I will spend an hour in prayer or that I will read eight chapters of Bible. No, it's nothing nearly so "super-spiritual". Not that it would be a bad thing for me to do, but let's face it, I don't have enough time (or peace and quiet!) for that.

It might simply mean that I take one minute to stop and say, "Lord, I need your help," or "God, please give me patience." It might mean that I stop to remember a verse like James 1:5, "If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him." Or Philippians 4:6-7, "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

Sometimes that is all I can do. In those times, I know God meets me right where I am. In those brief moments, I sometimes see God more clearly than in any worship service. In those moments, I know the truth of Psalm 91:2 in ways I never could on days when I feel just fine. "I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust'."

To Eat or Not to Eat

2010-10-26T11:04:00.000-06:00

Here's what's tough about writing a blog every day: sometimes the most exciting thing you could write about is a play-by-play of the food you eat.

So far I have consumed two frozen waffles, a mug of chai spice tea, and a grilled ham, egg and cheese sandwich.

Normally, when I'm not pregnant, I eat about every four hours or so, which is pretty normal for most people, I think. Now, at 13 weeks pregnant, I try to eat every couple hours. Not huge meals, just little ones. If I don't do it that way, I start feeling sick and miserable.

I read once that a pregnant woman's body, particularly in the beginning of the pregnancy, is working as hard as a regular woman's body when she's climbing a mountain. When you look at it that way, it makes sense that not eating would make you feel sick. It takes a lot of energy to climb a mountain.

It might sound fun to have an excuse to eat all the time, and sometimes it is. What isn't fun is having to find foods that sound good. Everyone talks about having cravings during pregnancy, but what they don't talk about is aversions. I really don't have very many cravings, but I seem to have more and more aversions to foods.

Every since I was pregnant with Malachi, I have a hard time eating spaghetti--even when I'm not pregnant! Especially if it's my own spaghetti. I really don't like my own spaghetti. The only spaghetti I like to eat is my mother-in-law's. I don't know how she makes it (I'm not sure even she knows quite how she makes it!) but it's good. Still, even when I have her spaghetti, I cannot eat any leftovers of it.

Right now, I also have a hard time with Mexican food; which is tragic because normally I love it! I am hoping that as I go along and get into the second and third trimester I'll be able to eat it again. I really miss it, especially the salsa. And I know Aaron misses it too. We used to eat Mexican probably several times a week. Now, nothing. Chili's is about as close as we get to it (which really isn't very close--although they do have good salsa--if I could eat it).

I have also developed a rocky relationship with pizza. This is especially weird because in every other pregnancy, pizza was one thing I could always eat and enjoy.

A few other things I have a hard time eating now that usually wouldn't bother me: bread crusts, the cereal I used to eat every morning, some pot roasts, and chili, among other random foods that just don't sound good in the moment.

Well, as much fun as it has been writing about all the things I can't eat, I think it is about time for me to think about what I can eat next. Maybe some Ramen noodles. Of all things, those actually sound good to me! Too bad they don't have more nutritional value.

I hope I don't sound like I'm complaining. I'm not. Well, maybe just a little:) Mostly, I look at it as a mystery. I'm curious why certain foods I love suddenly become unappealing, while others sound great that normally wouldn't be anything special, like McDonald's chicken nuggets. Whatever the reason, I guess it all just part of the ups and downs of the pregnancy roller coaster.

Lately

2010-10-25T11:58:00.001-06:00

It has been so long since I have kept up with my blog that I am having a hard time deciding what to write about.

I could write about how Izzy dumped chocolate cake mix on the kitchen floor and how he and Malachi then proceeded to play "hockey" in it, thus scattering it everywhere and resulting in me having to get down on my hands and knees with the shop vac to clean it up while I felt very much like puking because of my morning sickness.

I could write about how Aaron took the boys in the bike trailer to pick up some pizza from Blackjack one night, and how while he was inside getting the pizza, Malachi decided to ride his bike down the middle of 16th St. And how Izzy decided to chase him, so they were both in the road. And how once they were all back in their proper places, Simeon decided that he didn't like hot boxes of pizza and cinnabread on his lap and shoved them off on to the sidewalk, causing them to drag and eventually get run over, so that when we opened the cinnabread the icing was all stuck to the top and there was a bike tire track running down the middle.

I could write about how one morning the doorbell rang and when I answered it was two policemen who came because someone had called and told them that there were no parents at home here. This came as a surprise to me since I hadn't even left the house that day. I later figured out through questioning Malachi that he had talked to someone passing by in the alley behind our backyard and when they asked him where I was he said I wasn't there. Only I suspect that they may have said something like, "Can you go get your Mommy or should I call the police?" Well, guess which one my five-year-old picked!

I could write about how Simeon finally decided to start walking on his own at eighteen months of age, officially making him the child that started walking the latest in our family, and how he was almost beat to it by his cousin who is not even a year old yet!

I could write about how one morning my children got into the closet with all of our games and took several outside to scatter the cards and pieces to the four corners of the yard, and how the ones they didn't take out got dumped on the floor of the closet, those being Life and Monopoly which both have lots of small pieces to lose. I had so much fun cleaning that up.

I guess there are a lot of things I could write about, but I really can't decide....

The Hero

2010-09-19T17:05:00.000-06:00

He is the Hero who saves us;
The Hero who made us.
We are not forgotten.
In our desperate situation,
The Hero has come.
The Hero has won.
We are free!

Many choose not to see
That their chains have been broken.
They've rejected the Hero;
Didn't like how He looked,
Didn't want to hear what He said:
His words of freedom
Were distasteful to them.
Though they bemoan their slavish existence,
They won't be set free,
For they have called the Hero their enemy.

There is a Hero who loves us.
He has come and will come again.
The Hero always rescues.
The Hero always wins.
No Villain can defeat Him,
Or take what belongs to Him.
But the Hero never forces the one He rescues to be free.
They come willingly;
All but those who have fallen in love with their captivity
Instead of their Hero.

We need a Hero to save us.
We need a Hero to change us.
The Hero shows us ordinary becoming extraordinary
And vice versa.
We too become something more than we have been:

Loved,
Valued,
Worth Saving.
We have purpose.
We mean something to Someone--
The Hero who made us
And the Hero who saves us.

The Hero never abandons what belongs to Him.
Nothing will stop Him from reaching the one He loves.
He will go through fire and water,
Through pain and death,
Through the depths of hell itself,
To reach us--
To reach you.

You are the one He's coming for.
Look for your Hero!
He is mighty to save.
Look for your Hero!
He is here; He has come

FOR YOU

TV Show Addict

2010-09-15T11:33:00.000-06:00

With each child we've had, I seem to end up spending a lot of time on the couch, whether because I am feeling sick, or tired during the pregnancy, or because I am taking the time to feed the baby after he is born. As a result of all the couch time, with every baby I have also become obsessed with a different TV show. Usually it's one I have never watched before and has been on TV for a while already.

When I had Malachi, it seemed like I was always on the couch either feeding him, pumping milk, or holding him while he fell asleep. It's hard to read a book while doing any of those things, so I watched movies. A friend of mine had the first three seasons of Alias on DVD. I had never watched it before, and skeptically watched the first episode. That was all it took--from that point on, I was hooked.

I had a miserable pregancy with Israel, so I especially looked forward to the time of day when Malachi would take his afternoon nap and I could rest. During that time, I decided to to try out the show 24. Everyone seemed to think it was great, so I ordered it from Blockbuster Online. It didn't take long before I was completely addicted. Every day at nap time I would try to squeeze in as many episodes as I could. I just had to see what happened next in Jack Bauer's day!

When Simeon was born, my parents came to visit. My mom and I were watching TV and the show House was on. The funny thing was, even though I didn't normally watch the show, I had seen that particular episode before. However, I had never seen how it ended. I programmed our DVR to record it, and since that particular channel was showing all the reruns, I soon had a plethora of episodes to choose from. I would watch every chance I got. If the boys went outside to play, I would try to sneak and watch part of an episode while they were out and I was feeding Simeon.

Now I have only even known we were going to have a baby for about two weeks, but I can already tell you what my new TV addiction is going to be. A friend of mine has been telling me for long time about the show Friday Night Lights. It's about football, which I am not a fan of watching, so I couldn't imagine how a show about it could be so great. I do like movies about football, like Remember the Titans, but I didn't think I'd want to watch hour after hour of it.

Recently, ABC Family picked up the show and starting airing it from the very beginning, so I decided to give it a try. As the first episode began, I was doubtful, but by the end I found I had been pleasantly surprised. I am now officially hooked on it. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, my watching is being regulated by the fact that I only get one show a day--unless I don't watch for a while and let the episodes build up, but who wants to do that? And yes, I know I could probably watch them online, but since I can't watch it on my laptop, I'd have to sit in our somewhat uncomfortable computer chair for long periods of time. If I was feeling normal, I might do it, but lately I have not been feeling great. And we no longer have Blockbuster or Netflix coming to our door, so that's out. Still, I look forward to enjoying my new TV show obsession, even if I do it slowly:)

Worth It

2010-09-13T20:17:00.000-06:00

Lately I have spent a lot of time navigating the waters, so to speak, of being pregnant again. For me, the first trimester usually includes "morning sickness" which doesn't actually only come in the morning. It's more like "all day" sickness.

So far I haven't actually been throwing up at all, just feeling nauseated all the time. Today was hard, not because I felt so terrible, but because I knew I might be feeling a lot worse in the future. I've been fighting a lot of anxiety about that.

I try to remind myself that at the end of it all, I get a baby. I'm looking forward to that! Also, I've been trying to remind myself that I went through all of this with the three boys I already have, and that I definitely feel it was worth it. I just have to look forward to the end result, which is a beautiful, brand new, baby. Maybe even a girl this time! But it is hard, knowing that nine long months are stretching out ahead of me and I will only be getting more and more uncomfortable.

For now, though, I just get to experience the paradox of looking at food and thinking how good it is, while at the same time being somewhat repulsed by it. Ah, the joys of expectant motherhood!

Baby Boom

2010-09-08T18:28:00.000-06:00

A new adventure is beginning for us! In the not too distant future, we will be adding to our family.

A few weeks ago, my body began behaving strangely. I noticed odd little things that usually only happen when I'm pregnant, such as heartburn. I was very suspicious.

Finally, last week, we aquired the infamous pregnancy tester to find out if I was right. Aaron got a fancy digital one, apparently putting more trust in a more expensive tester. As a result, instead of a mere plus sign, we got to see an actual "YES" in the results box. How fun!

I am now about six weeks along, which means, according to a baby website I have been looking at, that the baby is about the size of a lentil bean right now. Last week it said the baby was only the size of a sesame seed, so that's a considerable amount of growth for one week, if you think about it.

The same website also calculated that I will be due May4, but since my children seem to enjoy showing up fashionably late, it will probably be closer to May 14.

We are all hoping for a girl this time. Malachi refers to the baby as "baby sister". I don't think it would be too bad to have another boy though; we already have three, after all--what's one more? And boys are a lot of fun. They get into a lot of trouble, but they're a lot of fun.

So that is our exciting news, which most of you who read my blog already knew about, but I felt that I ought to write something "official" about it:)

Here's to number four!

Park Days

2010-09-06T15:06:00.001-06:00

This summer was really hot, but as the days have been cooling down, we've been going to the park a lot. What's almost more fun than the park for me, is getting some great pictures of the boys....

Simeon

Israel

Malachi

We even tried a couple of parks we've never been to before in Loveland. One was a park with a kid-sized train that they could takes rides on.

Simeon is at an age where it is more fun to eat sand than ride a train:)

A Change in Strands

2010-09-06T11:19:00.003-06:00

For quite a while, I have been growing my hair out. I thought this was a great idea, until I realized how long the "awkward in-between stage" was lasting, and how much longer it was going to last, and added the fact that I will probably end up just wearing my hair in a ponytail most of the time. I began to wonder, "Why am I going through all of this just so I can wear my hair in a ponytail? I could cut it and it could look really cute without me having to do very much at all." So that is what I did.

Here is me before the haircut.

And here is my hair now!

Name That Tree

2010-09-01T21:50:00.000-06:00

This week has been very unusual so far. Well, unusual is pretty usual for us, but this week has been extra-special in that department.

I went to the bathroom and my two lovely oldest boys snuck out the front door. It was almost as if they were waiting for their chance, and as soon as I closed the bathroom door they looked at each other and said, "Let's go!"

At first when I went outside I couldn't see or hear them. I even went to my neighbors house to see if they had gone over there. Finally, I walked around the side of the house and found them, sitting on the hood of our van, picking berries off of the tree by our driveway. I shooed them heartily into the house and tried to explain the dangers of eating unidentified berries. Then I called Poison Control.

They told me to try to identify the tree to see if it was poisonous. They said to take a branch to a nursery and ask them what it was. But I have three kids and I don't want to pack them up into the van to go find a nursery, so instead I tried the internet. Let me tell you, there are a lot of websites dedicated to identifying trees. However, not one of them was able to identify my tree.

I spent a good hour and a half to two hours looking for the name of this tree, and it just was not there. Upon further questioning, the boys said that they didn't actually eat the berries. Whether they were telling the truth, I don't know, but they didn't get sick either way.

Later that night, we went to Del Taco for dinner, and as we were sitting there, Simeon, with no pre-warning at all, opens his mouth and spews out everything he just ate and drank. Then he just moved on, like it never happened. He wasn't upset or fussy or anything. Aaron was the unlucky person sitting next to him, so he got puked on. It was so bizarre. Here I have two kids who I thought ate strange, possibly poisonous berries, and they're fine, but the kid who didn't eat any berries gets sick? Life just doesn't make any sense sometimes.

We took the kid home, bathed him, gave him pedialyte (which he didn't like at first, but warmed up to in the end) and put him to bed. I started to wonder, "What if he did somehow eat a berry?" Back to my tree search, just in case. Still no luck.

The next day, I was stressed out trying to take care of Simeon--who woke up with diarrhea and had vomited again, so he needed another bath. The boys, I think, could sense I was stressed and reacted to it by becoming very needy and whiny, which did not help at all. As the day went on, Simeon was doing better, and eventually Aaron came home so the boys could focus their attention on him instead of me. It already feels like a long week, and it's only Wednesday.

In the midst of it all, I still cannot figure out what kind of tree we have next to our driveway. It's driving me crazy.

Honey vs Vinegar

2010-08-26T21:43:00.000-06:00

The old adage "You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar", has been proven false.

Earlier this summer, we had the misfortune of some fruit going bad. Before we realized that it was a problem, it attracted a much more annoying problem: fruit flies. Disgusted at the flies, we went on a search to see why they were here, and that was when we found that the fruit was rotten.

After throwing it away, we assumed that the fruit flies would go away as well; but it would seem that once here, they did not want to leave. Throughout the summer we have battled them, trying to keep up with the fruit and washing dishes. But if ever we slipped and left the dishes or missed a peach gone bad, there they were again.

Finally, the problem reached a peak this last weekend and we could not stand it. My nephew suggested leaving out some honey. I thought this a good idea, after all, they say you can catch more that way, right? Wrong.

I kid you not, there was not a single fly on that plate of honey. Not one. There were more flies on my poor plant in the kitchen than on that plate of honey.

So we did what any normal person would do--looked it up on the internet. We found a site that had many suggestions for getting rid of the pesky creatures, one of which was to put some apple cider vinegar in a bowl, then cover it with saran wrap and poke a few holes in it with a fork. The tiny flies will get in the holes, but will not be able to fly back out (provided the holes aren't too large). I decided to try it--and it worked! I couldn't believe it--we had actually caught more flies with vinegar than with honey!

I guess it just goes to show you can't always believe everything you hear.

Top Ten x Two and a Half

2010-08-23T11:56:00.001-06:00

Now that I've given my bad movie list, it's time for the good ones! These are some of my favorites. I tried to put them in some sort of order, but after the first six, it gets really hard to decide. And, yes, it is a very long list, but I really couldn't whittle it down any more.

1. It's A Wonderful Life

I love this movie because of George Bailey, the main character. I love that he sacrifices his own dreams to do the right thing and to help other people. In this day and age, the message is usually, "Do what makes you happy." I think there is something to be said for making a personal sacrifice that will help make a difference in other people's lives. And, of course, in the nd, he sees that his sacrifices have affected the entire town he lives in, and even beyond.

2. The Princess Bride

I shouldn't even have to explain why this is a favorite. It has so many great and quotable lines, and is just a lot of fun.

3. Empire Records

I can't explain why I like this movie, I just do.

4. The Matrix

Aside from this just being a great movie, I love the parallels to the Christian life that are in it.

5. Braveheart

If anyone doesn't like this movie, I would say that either they're head is on backwards, or they're Amish. There just is no other reasonable explanation.

6. Tombstone

This is a family favorite. Whenever we all get together, we're quoting it left and right. Doc Holiday is probably the best movie character of all time.

7. Pride and Prejudice (the old version)

So many good things to say! Yes, the actors are not as beautiful as the new version, but that is totally made up for in other ways. This version has all the good parts in it, Colin Firth is an excellent Mr. Darcy, and Elizabeth isn't so...twitchy.

8. The Mirror Has Two Faces

This movie is a bit of a backward love story since the couple gets married first and then falls in love. I like it because of the process they go through. The husband is a man who has a problem with women. He dates women he is sexually attracted to, but has no other connection with them, even though connection is what he longs for. Meanwhile, the wife has gone through life overshadowed by the beauty of her mother and sister and only gets dates with men she's not really interested in. When the two finally meet, it's because the man has decided to marry someone he isn't physically attracted to, certain that is the only way he will find true companionship. What's wonderful is watching him fall in love with who she is, and how it makes her attractive to him in a way that goes beyond mere physical appearances.

9. Good Will Hunting

In spite of having A LOT of bad language, this is just a really good movie.

10. Oceans 11 & 12

These movies are just a lot of fun. I love all the different characters with all their own little quirks and specialties.

11. The Man Who Knew Too Little

I find the idea of a man doing secret agent stuff without knowing what he's doing to be hilarious. It's ridiculous, but great.

12. Rat Race

So funny! In this movie, twelve (?) people at a casino win coins which enter them in a race for a million dollars that can be found in a locker at a train station in Silver City, New Mexico. It seems fairly simple, but the actual getting there for all of them takes some pretty hilarious turns.

13. Much Ado About Nothing

This is a very wordy movie, but if you can follow along, it's very funny.

14. Inception

I just saw this movie, and it was great! Some people have said it was confusing, but if you pay attention and follow along, it is phenominal. I love the idea of the dream world and the layers of the dream. And then the ending...but I don't want to give anything away.

15. While You Were Sleeping

This is just an all around great movie. When it comes to romantic comedies, this is probably the best of them all. I first saw this movie in the theater with my mom when I was eleven. I wasn't thrilled about it because I was young enough that I wanted to see a kid movie, not a "mom" movie. Reluctantly, I agreed, and I am so glad! My mom and I both loved it and have watched it many times since. So this movie has more attached to it for me than just being a good movie. It is something I shared with my mom, and since we live in different states now, it just makes it more special.

16. Quigley Down Under

If you like westerns, this is a must see. Even if you don't really like westerns, you will probably like this one. It takes place in Australia, is very unique, and has some really great lines.

17. Signs

If you're looking for a typical alien movie, go rent something else. What I like about this is the story of a man who loses his faith, and then gets it back through very unusual circumstances. And I love the dry humor throughout the film.

18. Dan in Real Life

I've already written an entire blog about this movie, so I don't feel the need to say more.

19. Elizabethtown

This is a very random movie, but I really like it because of that. Not to mention, the music in it is really good.

20. Lord of the Rings Trilogy

Epic movie. What more can I say, except this: the extended version is actually way better than the theatrical version.

21. Gladiator

Just an all around good movie. You love the good guy, you hate the bad guy, and have a good time watching along the way.

22. 10 Things I Hate About You

When I was a teenager, my friends and I would watch this movie almost every time we spent the night at each others' houses. There is something about this movie that is just really great. My mom even likes it!

23. The Painted Veil

I love this movie. It is about a man and woman who get married for different reasons. He loves her, but she just wants to escape the life she had. Things take an unexpected turn when her doctor husband takes her to China with him. While there, she has an affair with another man, and as a result, her husband taskes her deep into China to a small village where he works in a hospital tryign to stem a cholera epidemic. Away from everything she has known and loved, she is forced to see things differently, including her husband, and she comes to fall in love with him. It's beautiful to see a marriage that was dead come to life.

24. Catch Me If You Can

This is just a great movie. Leonardo DiCaprio is so good in this.

25. Jerry Maguire

Are you seeing a pattern here? I like movies where married people fall in love! It is the saddest thing to me when a marriage falls apart. It truly grieves my heart. So I love to watch a movie where a marriage comes together instead, like this one. Also, I love Cuba Gooding Jr. in this movie! He adds a lot of life to it.

Well, if you have managed to stick with me all the way to the end of this list, I commend you! It was a long list, and I apologize. I honestly tried to shorten it, and I just couldn't. While I was writing this I thought of several other movies I also love, but I mercifully didn't add them:) Hopefully you enjoyed reading about some of my favorites.

Bottom 10

2010-08-20T22:33:00.002-06:00

A friend of mine seems to think I like every movie I see, so I have been inspired to compile a list of the ones I don't like and why. Keep in mind these are just my opinions....

1. Seven

Usually, for me, a movie with Brad Pitt is a good thing, but this movie about a serial killer was too graphic and gruesome for me. It's number one on the list on purpose because I don't ever want to see it again.

2. You Don't Mess With the Zohan

I didn't even have to watch the entire movie to know how horrible it was. The whole thing was just really offensive and stupid.

3. Anchorman

My apologies to those who love this movie, but I actually thought it was pretty stupid. I wouldn't have even watched the entire movie except we were with some friends who loved it and I didn't want to hurt their feelings.

4. Pride and Prejudice (with Keira Knightly)

I'm just partial to the old version. This version felt too fast paced, it was missing some of my favorite parts, I didn't really like Keira Knighlty as Elizabeth Bennett, except for her looks, and the guy playing Mr. Darcy was a stick in the mud compared to Colin Firth. I give it points for good cinematography and better looking actors, but even so, I like the old version better.

5. Ghosts of Girlfriends Past

This was one of those movie where all the good parts were in the previews and the actual movie fell flat. Blah.

6. Catch and Release

I tried to like it because of Jennifer Garner, but I just couldn't. It's one of those movies that I would watch if I turned on the TV and it happened to be on, but I definitely wouldn't buy it or rent it or even get it from the library.

7. Losers

Didn't even make it through the whole movie. It was a little too overdone.

8. Scream, Scream 2, and Scream 3

For whatever reason, most likely pure curiosity, I watched all three of the Scream movies. And I distinctly remember after every one thinking, "Why did I just watch that?"

9. Jersey Girl

I'm sure it sounded good at the time, but it wasn't.

10. The Hangover

This movie is a perfect example of why it may seem that I like every movie. I know that a lot of people liked this movie. A lot of people thought it was hilarious, the most hilarious movie they've ever seen. Admittedly, there were some very funny parts to this movie, and I didn't hate it. I might even watch it again someday. But I didn't love it. If I'm talking to someone that is enthusiastic about it, I'm not going to go out of my way to say I didn't like it that much. They think it's funny, I thought it was funny, we can agree on that. Sometimes it is just not worth hurting someone's feelings or getting into a debate over. But the truth is, this movie is (obviously) not on my favorite list.

11. War of the Worlds
Nothing against Tom Cruise or Dakota Fanning, I just didn't like it.

12. The Happening
Usually I am a huge M. Night Shyamalan fan, but not this time. I thought it was a ridiculous idea, and I didn't enjoy sitting through two hours of people freakishly committing suicide.

13. Planet of the Apes
The old version of this movie just really creeps me out. When I think about it, I kind of have to shudder. Comparatively, the new version at least isn't so creepy. But I don't really like either one.

14. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
I really liked the first movie The Curse of the Black Pearl, but the second one started to go down hill, and the third was just hanging on to the other two, without any real value of it's own.

15. Star Wars: Episode II
Episode I and Episode III were not that great either, but I particularly disliked this one. There were some parts in this one that were truly outstanding in the "cheesy" department.

I think that should be enough for now. I've seen a lot of movies in my lifetime because I'm a movie person and my family growing up was a movie family. Some of those movies were great movies, some were just okay, and some I didn't like at all. I could probably sit here all night trying to remember all the movies I've seen and all the ones I disliked, but honestly, some of them are not even worth remembering.

The Cleaning Lady

2010-08-17T17:07:00.000-06:00

Somewhere deep inside, there is a woman who loves to clean: a woman who delights in washing dishes, who craves carpet cleaning, desires dusting, loves laundry, and is satisfied when scrubbing. I would like to get in touch with this woman.

Unfortunately, I think she is buried under a veritable mountain of clutter. That's not even the worst part. It wouldn't be so hard to liberate her, if only she could do it. She has the motivation for it.

Sadly, she must depend upon the whims of the woman who is not deep inside, but living quite autonomously; the one who doesn't like dishes or laundry or any of that. That woman has no pity for the cleaner buried under the clutter: she hasn't much unction to free her.

Occasionally, I am told, she will let the cleaning lady out, but only when absolutely necessary. More often than not, you would see her piling more junk on top of Cleaning Lady rather than attempting to free her with the removal of it. It is a tragic situation, and one I am sure most people are unaware of.

Cleaning Lady is allowed out of her prison of clutter just often enough to appear as though she is indeed free. Usually, just as Cleaning Lady is feeling secure in her freedom and enjoying spic-and-span feelings, she finds that a whole new load of junk has been dumped upon her, and she is once again buried.

I really don't know how she survives this way, but I must commend her on never giving up. Well, now that I've written this tribute to her, I suppose I ought to release her....

But just long enough to do the vacuuming.

Yellow Tray Toe

2010-08-16T14:03:00.000-06:00

Yesterday was Sunday, and I suppose that it ought to have been very tranquil. However, I found myself unfortunately far from being tranquil right as we were about to leave for church.

We were running late, as usual, but only by a tiny bit. It takes us maybe two minutes to drive to church, so I had high hopes that we wouldn't miss very much. Everyone was dressed and ready to go, but we developed one significant problem: we could not find Malachi's shoes.

We looked high and low, inside and outside, in the house and in the van, and there was not one pair of shoes to be found. We found shoes that were too small for him, and we found one shoe out of a pair that weren't too small. But of the three pairs he has right now that fit him well; his sandals, his sneakers and his "blue suede shoes"; they were nowhere to be found. I found myself growing angrier as the minutes ticked by us. It was clear we would not be finding his shoes in time. He would have to go barefoot.

Aaron was making one last round upstairs when my anger got the better of me and I kicked a plastic yellow kid tray that was on the floor. I kicked it hard. I kicked it wearing flip flops. Flip flops are not made for kicking plastic trays across the room, and therefore, this foolish action resulted in tearing part of my toenail. It didn't come off, but it was definitely bleeding. I just have to add here, that if anyone thinks that having a nail break isn't that bad, I submit to you that in some places they torture people by ripping off their fingernails, and there are times when breaking a nail isn't too much different. This, of course, just made me more upset.

I was angry that were late, I was mad at myself for being stupid and ripping my toenail, and I was not too happy with Malachi for losing his shoes. I really wanted to go to Zoe's, which is our church's off site campus/coffee shop, but by the time we gave up the search for the shoes, it was a good fifteen minutes after church had started, and I was very depressed. Fortunately, the main church starts fifteen minutes later and is even closer to our house than Zoe's. I ought to have been happy about that, but at the time, of course, I wasn't. Aaron suggested going there, and I grudgingly agreed.

Once we got there and got all the children put in their respective classes, I felt myself settling down some. Drinking three cups of water and admitting my tray-kicking folly to Aaron also helped my anger to subside, and I had to laugh at myself.

I find it very ironic that as a mother I am always trying to get my boys to control their temper, and then I go and kick a tray because I can't find shoes. I guess I'm not as grown-up as I might have thought. I probably should have given myself a time-out.

Malachi's Turn

2010-08-10T10:17:00.001-06:00

I was thinking yesterday after I wrote about Izzy, and I realized that I rarely write about Malachi. I think this is partly because he is older now and isn't saying as many funny things. I know he did say funny things when he was younger though, and I just happened not to have a blog that I was writing then. So, I decided to look in my journal from when he was smaller and see if I had written anything down that he said. Here are a few that I found from when Malachi was around two and a half years old....

When he would swing on the swings, he would say, "Yook Mommy, I finging!"

When someone would knock on the front door, he would say, "Who's dat body?"

Once when I was making him pancakes he told me, "Mommy, you're perfect." Before I could fully bask in the compliment though, he followed up with, "Mommy, you're crazy."

Once he had a cup of milk and was looking in it saying "Dad?" I asked him if he was looking for Aaron and he said, pointing to his milk, "Yeh, I yookin fo Daddy. Is he in 'ere?"

Aaron taught Malachi to clink glasses and say "Salute!" Instead, Malachi would say "Sanoot!"

Once when Aaron had to take his work truck to the mechanic, Malachi said, "Daddy take the big white truck to the doctor." As a mother, I find myself repeating what they say in the form of a question quite a lot. "He took it to the doctor?" I asked. "He took it to the Doctor Seuss," he told me.

He used to call the movie The Fox and the Hound, "Fox and the Shoes".

Once he told my sister when she was visiting that "The chicken melts in the water."

Pictures of Malachi at 2 and 1/2

Pancakes are Fruits

2010-08-09T11:21:00.001-06:00

I haven't written about Izzy for a while, so here are some his funny sayings I've been stockpiling....

"What's this?" I said to Izzy, trying to poke his bellybutton. He had his shirt off, so it was an easy target. "Don't touch it it's lhuchky," he told me. "It's yucky?" I asked, attempting to clarify. "No!" he told me, "I didn't tell you that word because I'm shy!"

Putting Izzy to bed one day, I told him, "I'll see you tomorrow Izzy." As I closed the door to his room, he called out, "How 'bout Saturday? How 'bout Someday, Mom?"

One night we were at a park and I got some slurpees from 7-11. Izzy was drinking a blue raspberry flavored one and he came up to me smiling a blue smile and said, "It tastes like strawberry cocanilla!"

A while ago we took the boys to the fairgrounds to see all the animals.

"What is this place?" Chi asked when we pulled into the parking lot.

"It's a miracle!" Izzy answered him.

Regarding a cup of soda, Izzy told Chi, "You can't have too much or you'll get a tummy egg."

Izzy has been saying "hink" instead of "think". For example, today Izzy was giving me advice about what we should eat. "I 'hink we should have pancakes and popsicles," he suggested. "Pancakes are fruits."

Dust

2010-08-09T08:26:00.001-06:00

If we could only see the end result of the things we are doing right now--not just the result, but the direct cause and effect. What would we do differently?

There is no way for us to know that, but God does know. We can only rely on Him and trust him to reveal the things that need to change. More than that, we must rely on Him for that change to come about. We cannot change our own hearts. Only the Holy Spirit can change a heart.

It is the great miracle of salvation--the greatest miracle of all. It is a thing which cannot be accomplished by human effort. We can change our actions, but what good is that if our hearts are unchanged? Does God look at only our actions, or at our hearts? If we look good on the outside, is that enough for Him? No.

We will never change ourselves, but God will change us. We have no power to alter our course. We have only the power to trust, to believe. And we have the power to surrender. The power to surrender! How amazing is God that He is willing to do all the work?! He knows we can't do it. He always knew. He took on all the responsibility--for paying for our sin, for changing our hearts, for everything. The only thing we are capable of is giving ourselves to Him, surrendering to Him, being willing to change...or at least, being willing to be made willing.

How weak, how frail we are! We think we're capable and strong, but in reality, we are only dust. And what can dust do? Nothing at all! Not on it's own, anyway. But in the right hands--the Right Hands--dust comes alive. It lives. It breathes. It becomes a thing of beauty.

Oh, how our very lives are a miracle and we don't even see it! How arrogant we are to think we hold any power of our own! All we have is that which has been given to us. We are dust. We are only dust. He is the life, and only He can make us alive.

Whatever we become, whatever legacy we leave behind, will be only by the grace of God and proportional to our surrender to Him. We are nothing. He is God.

Give Him Some Credit

2010-08-04T08:47:00.001-06:00

There have been things in my life that God has asked me to do, and I've done them, only to wonder "why?" later. I would wonder why He would ask me to do something, knowing how ill-equipped I was. "Shouldn't You have picked someone else?" I would repeatedly say to Him. Lately, I've begun to realize that He picked me exactly because I'm ill-equipped. If I were perfectly able to do the task on my own, I could take credit for myself. I'd probably end up feeling very proud and thinking how wonderful I am for my accomplishments.

My whole life, I've heard the answer to the question, "Why are we here?" as "To bring God glory." I don't think I ever really understood what that meant until now. I used to mentally shrug at that answer, not certain of how that applied to my life. It seemed such a vague statement. I think if you exchange the word "glory" for the word "value", though, it makes more sense. It's not that we can somehow cause God to have more value, but we can cause people to see His value, the value that is already there.

If I were entirely able to do what God asked on my own, how would that show anyone God's value? My accomplishments would be credited only to me. But when I find myself in a place of reliance on Him, the results belong entirely to Him, not me.

I've mentioned this in other blogs, but I go back to it because it is one of those memories that I always return to, "threading the beads of detail into an eternal loop, a rosary to be fingered for a lifetime" (from the book Atonement by Ian McEwen--I love that quote).

It was my Senior year of High School, and up until that point I had always gone to a Christian school. That year, however, I believed God was telling me to go to public school instead. I had grand aspirations to tell everyone about Jesus, be a friend to the friendless, sit with the kid who was all alone at the lunch table, and just generally "be a light", to use a familiar "Christianese" term. It all sounded really good beforehand. Actually being there turned out to be very different from what I expected.

I've always been a quiet person, but in Junior High and High School, I was dreadfully shy. It was very hard for me to talk to new people. The first half of that year, I literally dreaded going to school. I don't think I had any conversations about Jesus. I was happy if I could just have a conversation at all, about anything, without feeling horribly nervous.

I would walk to the library after school to wait for my mom, and I would have conversations with God that went something like, "What were You thinking, asking me to come here? It makes no sense. You know how bad I am at this." I felt pretty much like a failure. Not just while I was there, but for a long time after I had graduated, I would still look back and wonder why I was there.

I am seeing now that my inadequacies, failures, and weaknesses all served a purpose: to give God the credit. If there is even one person who came to Christ because of me being there, I can say with all certainty that it wasn't because of anything I said or did. It was all God. I was there and I was willing...and that's about it.

This all relates directly to where I am right now in my life. I am a mother. It sounds so simple. Especially to people who have no children. To those people, I am "just a mother." Instead of "doing something with my life" I "just" got married and had kids. What a waste, right? It's the kind of thing people shake their heads over. "She's already got three kids, and she's only 26." And I want to have more. This is what God asked me to do. So I'm doing it.

But it's anything but simple. I had beautiful pictures painted in my head of how wonderful it was going to be, and how I was going to "raise up a Godly generation". Well, now that I'm here, I can honestly say that most of the time I don't know what the hell I'm doing. I'm pretty sure that's exactly where God wants me, that place where I realize I'm not going to even make it through the day if He doesn't help me, let alone, "raise up a Godly generation" all on my own.

At this point, all I can do is be here, and be willing. If these boys turn out well, you better believe that I'm giving God all the credit! And that is exactly what He wants.

One of Those Days

2010-07-27T11:13:00.000-06:00

Today is one of those days. My morning was early, my temper is short, my patience is thin, my house is hot, and my kids seem intent on making messes. It's one of those days when I question the sanity of having kids at all, and I am certainly not my best mom version. It's one of those days where I know the only way I'm going to get through it is by relying heavily on the grace of God.

Recently, I have been realizing more and more that relying on Him is the ONLY way I will be the kind of wife or mother or even just the kind of person, that I want to be--the kind I'm meant to be. There is something both freeing and terrifying about that. And today I'm finding that it's far more difficult, almost even painful, to be in that position of total reliance on God.

I'd like to think of myself as being capable. I'd like to be one of those sweet, even-tempered mothers who never yells at her kids. I'd like to have some of those sweet-tempered children who need nothing more than a look for them to obey (do those kids really exist?). I'd like to be patient, not just the kind of patient that makes it possible to deal with kids who have to be told something twenty times before they do it, but the kind of patient that makes it easy to sit on the floor and play cars, or build a train track, or get out the finger paints (I wince slightly at the thought of finger paints, which I feel certain will end up on my walls instead of on paper). I'd really like to just naturally be a great mom, a fun mom, a sweet mom. And some days, I come close.

Other days, like today, I feel very inadequate. And when I feel inadequate, I feel like giving up. The catch is that this isn't some ordinary job that I can just turn in my two weeks notice for. This is the un-quittable job. It's mine until the day I stop breathing. I will always be a mother, whether I like it or not.

What's more is that I know that God has called me to be a mother. And if God calls you to something, it's usually best to go along with it, whether you like it or not. Unless, of course, you enjoy spending time in the belly of a giant fish. For me, that doesn't seem like the best alternative.

So here I am, doing what I'm called to do, what I have to do, what I need to do, sometimes what I love to do. Am I qualified? Probably not. I'm quite certain there are others who have much better resumes for this job.

Actually, I feel like this is more like being recruited for an army rather than applying for a job. I hear God saying, "I want YOU!" and pointing a finger at me like the Uncle Sam poster. My impulse is to look behind me and see if maybe He's pointing at someone else. He's not. Then I want to try some excuses for why I can't possibly. Unfortunately the good ones have all been taken, and there still hasn't been one that He didn't completely override.

I like the story of Gideon. God says, "Hello, you mighty man of valor!" and Gideon says, "Are you sure you have the right guy?" Then there is a series of tests and signs that they have to go through before Gideon is REALLY sure that this is God and that he's supposed to lead an army. I can relate to that. A lot.

It's nice to feel qualified, to feel capable and independant. It's far more difficult to have to stare straight in the face of my own weakness and admit that I need help. And God is the only one who is available to me for that help 24/7. I tell Him, "I'm not good at this." He says, "Yep. Do it anyway. I'll help you--I've got patience to spare."

I have come to see that everything that happens is for God's glory. It isn't about me. It isn't about my abilities, or lack thereof. It's about Him. It's about God letting me see something amazing happen, and me knowing that I couldn't have done it without Him.

Birthday

2010-07-15T22:10:00.000-06:00

Last night we had a birthday celebration extravaganza for Malachi and Israel, which included Blackjack Pizza, TWO cakes, homemade ice cream, and spiderman suits.

Yes, after a long wait, both boys now each have their very own Spidey suits, complete with masks.

One suit is the standard red and blue, the other is the black one, which could either be Spidey's alter ego or the bad guy, Venom. Now at least when they hit each other they'll have a good reason. Spiderman's gotta fight the bad guys right? And the bad guy has to fight back. Superhero 101.

The catch is that my two little Spidermen will not take off their suits. They eat in them. They sleep in them. They play in them. If I let them, they would bathe in them. If they continue this way, that may be the only way to get both them and the suits clean all at one time.

I know that eventually, I am going to have to take away their suits and hide them in a secret place for another time. I know they will, in their quest to be just like Spiderman, probably fight with each other more often. There will be yelling and kicking and hitting and crying. And there is a good chance that they will, at some point, fight over the suits, who gets black and who gets red. But for now, they are just happy, and that makes me happy.

Following

2010-07-08T12:12:00.000-06:00

It struck me this morning that being a mom is a lot like playing "Follow the Leader". I went down to the basement to put a load of clothes in the dryer and Malachi and Israel came trickling down after me. While there I realized that my washer was becoming dirt encrusted around the top, so I went upstairs to get a paper towel.

"She's going upstairs!" said Israel, and they trooped right after me up to the kitchen.

Then I turned around and took the paper towel back down to the basement, where they of course followed me again.

This morning I got plenty of enjoyment out of them following me up and down repeatedly, especially sicne it takes them longer to get up the stairs, only to find when they got there that I was going back down. I had to chuckle inwardly about that one.

This kind of thing happens a lot. If I got to the bathroom, they want to come too. If I lock them out of the bathroom, they sometimes beat on the door and wail for me to let them in. If I go upstairs, they are sure to follow, unless they are distracted. Even then it is only a matter of time. If I'm gone for more than a few minutes, they want to know what I'm doing.

Sometimes even Aaron will follow me around the house when he's home. That part is kind of cute, actually. It lets me know that he still likes being around me, even after six years.

In a way, I guess it lets me know that they all like me, and they just want to be with me, which is nice. It's encouraging, especially when I know that at times I'm probably not so nice to be around. Sometimes I lose my temper with the boys, and more often, they lose their temper about every little thing that doesn't go their way. Between me yelling at them, and them screaming at me, it could become difficult to tell whether we like each other at all. And then they follow me, up and down, down and up, up and down. That's as good as an "I love you" for me.

What a Day

2010-07-06T22:50:00.000-06:00

I find it interesting, for lack of a better word, the way that life can go from normal to freaky in a split second. I doubt I ever noticed it before I became a mother, but I seem to have an over-abundance of opportunities now.

I've written previously of some of my other experiences, which have included steak knives being smuggled to the park, a bloody nose at McDonald's, and being screamed at by a stranger. I have to say that what happened today outreaches them all on my own personal thermometer of difficult days.

This morning I had a meeting at ten o'clock, so afterward I decided to just take the boys over to Burger King and get some lunch. I had my friend Hannah with me because she babysat the kids that were at the meeting and I had given her a ride.

We were having a nice time at the playplace; nobody was kicking anyone else in the face or hitting other kids. I was alternating between eating, talking to Hannah, trying to feed Simeon who was tired and a little testy, and governing the other other boys.

Suddenly, a horrific scene played out before my eyes. It was one of those moments when I could see what was going to happen, and there was no way for me to change it. It played out in slow-motion before me, and yet I could never have moved fast enough to stop it.

Izzy had decided to give Simeon a ride in his high chair. In theory, this wasn't a bad thing. At McDonald's the high chairs have wheels and it is very easy for the older boys to push Simeon around in them. The Burger King high chairs, however, do not have wheels. On some other occasion, Izzy might have tried the same thing, and it might have worked, but today the odds were against him.

He pushed Simeon about three feet before I even knew what he was doing. I just happened to look over at them at the exact moment that Israel pushed on the high chair and instead of gliding forward, it toppled right over. And Simeon hit the floor face first. Or I should say, mouth first.

Hannah and I both immediately ran over to him, but she was closest and quickly got him upright. I am pretty sure that she was thinking more clearly than I was, in spite of the fact that she is only sixteen, and I'm sure she was probably somewhat horrified at the whole situation.

Simeon's mouth was bleeding profusely. It's not a sight I could ever have prepared for. I grabbed some napkins and tried to keep him from bleeding everywhere. Hannah, fortunately mentioned his teeth to me or I probably wouldn't have thought to check them.

His front teeth had been knocked loose and were shoved back. Hannah's mom, Renee, who is also a friend of mine, had mentioned not too long ago that if a child gets a tooth knocked loose or knocked out that you should put it back right away and the gums will swell around it and hold it in place so they won't lose it.

I had no other option but to reach into his mouth and move his teeth back into the correct position before the swelling started. It was something that I had hoped I would never have to do. I really had no idea whether I had put them back the right way or not, because there was so much blood I couldn't see.

A Burger King lady rushed in with napkins and ice and said something about filling out a form. We cleaned him up as best we could and I tried to put the ice on his mouth, but he wouldn't have it.

Finally, I picked him up and just held him. Dn't ask me why I didn't do that in the first place. I have no idea. Now it seems obvious that I should have held him immediately and to hell with worrying about all the blood. That's just not what happened.

I sat with him and waited for the BK lady to come back with whatever form she was talking about while I tried to comfort my poor little boy. His teeth had stopped bleeding, but he had a nasty gash or two on his bottom lip from his teeth when he hit the floor. After a few minutes I realized how stupid it was to be waiting for a form when my baby was bleeding and upset, and decided to just leave.

Hannah had a dental appointment, so I dropped her off at her grandma's, who lives not far from where she needed to go. Then I went over to her parents' house because last week I lost my cell phone, and therefore had no way to call anyone when this happened. I cannot even adequately describe the frustrating helpless feeling of not being able to call anyone.

When I got to their house, another friend was there too, and I was mildly comforted by the thought of having two other moms to consult with on the situation. The older boys went off to play, and I took Simeon inside. Renee gave me a cold washcloth to see if we could clean him up and get a better look, and then got some infant tylenol to give to him. He didn't like having the medicine administered, so I just held him for a while and he started to fall asleep.

The general consensus was that I probably didn't need to take him to the doctor, so after that I just called Aaron to tell him what had happened. I had held it together pretty well up to that point, but of course, I cried when I told him what had happened.

I stayed at their house for a little while, but I knew I had to go home sometime. I laid Simeon, sleeping, on the couch, and gathered the big boys into the van to go home. Renee was kind enough to let me borrow her cell phone since I lost mine, and since I don't have any other phone at home.

I took them all home and got Simeon settled into his crib, then put the other boys down for a nap as well. After that, I called our doctor's office, just to make sure I shouldn't take him in.

Normally, I'm not a person who likes to go to the doctor over everything, but seeing him bleed like that caused me to think twice. To my relief, they let me talk to a nurse right away, and she reassured me that I had done everything right and told me to try to put some ice on it or let him eat a posicle or ice cream cone to help the swelling go down. It seemed like he would be fine, and I was very relieved about that, but I also felt very shaky, and emotionally I was completely drained.

Later, after he woke up from his nap I gave him a dose of ibuprofen and cut up a strawberry popsicle (okay, it was two strawberry popsicles) for him, which he thoroughly enjoyed. Between the popsicles and the ibuprofen, he was almost his normal happy self, aside from his poor little fat lip.

We ended the night with a bath--he was all sticky from the popsicles and a vanilla milkshake that he drank some of, but mostly dumped on himself. I realize that it sounds horrible that I gave my child popsicles and a milkshake for dinner, but they seemed like good options for a kid whose mouth is all busted up. The rest of us had breakfast for dinner--egg and cheese bagels with blueberry muffins.

Tomorrow I have the option of going to a park with some other moms...but at this point I'm not sure I dare to leave my house.

No Fireworks For You

2010-07-05T08:44:00.000-06:00

Aaron and I will have been married for six years this month, and until last night have never gone to see fireworks on the fourth of July. In fact, even before we got married we didn't go see them.

Last night, for the first time, we actually planned on seeing them. We went over to a friend's house because you can see the Country Club fireworks from his backyard. We took all the boys with us, along with a pack-n-play so Simeon could go to sleep. We had hamburgers and brats, and put Spiderman on to keep the little guys from destroying the house we were visiting (they don't have any kids yet, so everything was very "in place"). Aaron's brother and his wife and their baby came too.

It's been very hot lately, but suddenly yesterday it turned cold and rainy. Still, we had high hopes that the rain would subside and there would still be fireworks. We hung out and talked and waited for them to start.

While we waited, we would occasionally hear firecrackers or see one or two fireworks set off by neighbors. The boys were very excited. We had ice cream (even though we were cold) and waited for the big show. We finished our ice cream and waited even longer. We waited until almost 11 pm, but the fireworks never came. It was very disappointing.

Malachi couldn't figure out why there weren't any big fireworks. He didn't seem to think rain should have any affect on whether or not there was a big fireworks show. We gathered all our little people and took them home to their beds, shrugging and saying, "Well, we tried."

I am beginning to wonder if for some bizarre reason, I am not meant to see a fireworks show on the fourth of July.

Step

2010-07-04T16:12:00.002-06:00

On the edge of knowing
On the verge of being
Uncertain of the ground that's showing
Can I take a step?
Or when I place my foot
And try to stand
Will I find myself in sinking sand
Sucking me under
Into a dark oblivion?

In between
Who I was
And who I will be
The question must be asked
Who am I right now?

The Wire

2010-07-01T21:36:00.000-06:00

Life can seem like a high-wire act at times. We are up in the air doing a balancing act on this thin wire, hoping we don't fall.

When it comes to God, I sometimes tend to view Him as a sort of safety net. I'm on the wire, I'm balancing my life, and it's always nice to know that if I should fail in that balance, there's God, my safety net, ready and waiting to catch me so I don't splatter on the ground.

Lately, though, I feel like God wants to be more than just "there" somewhere in the back of my mind, more than something to fall back on when I lose my balance. More than just a safety net.

He wants to be the wire.

He wants to be the thing that my entire life is balanced upon; not a fall-back, but a life-line.

He wants me to know that He is everything that I need. Nothing else will do and no one else can be to me everything that I need.

The answer to my fear, my weakness, my doubt, my insecurity, my stupidity and my pride is entirely found in Him.

This is something I know in my head. I've known it for a long time. But I have trouble knowing it as more than a fact. I have trouble really believing it. He wants me to believe it. He wants me to more than just believe it. He wants me to live it and breathe it. He wants that knowledge to become as much a part of me as my own flesh and blood, maybe even more so.

He wants to be the wire that I stand on.

Trust or Torment

2010-07-01T11:27:00.000-06:00

In a Bible study I've been doing, the question was asked, "What situation most recently tempted you toward mental torment?" My answer came from something that had been bothering me within the last week or so, but as we talked about this question in my discussion group, I began to remember other situations. One, in particular stood out to me.

Not too long ago we were at Wal-Mart getting groceries. When we got to the check-out, we realized that Izzy wasn't with us. Aaron went to look for him while I continued tranferring the groceries from the cart to the check-out. That particular time was a big shopping trip, and we had a lot of stuff. As the cart began to empty, I was waiting for them to come back. But they didn't. It was taking a long time, it seemed, for Aaron to find him.

Scenarios began to run through my mind. What if he went outside? What if he was lost? What if someone took him? What if someone hurts him?

With all the horrible stories of children being abducted and the things that can happen, my heart quailed at the idea of something like that happening to him. "Not my son!" I thought with anguish. And then I heard God speak to me. "No, MY son," is what He said. "Don't you think I will take care of him? Don't you know I love him more than you do?"

At that moment, I felt peace in my heart. God was reminding me that Israel doesn't belong to me. He belongs to Him, and He will take care of him, because He loves him more than I am even capable of doing.

I can't be with my kids all the time to protect them from life or from pain. In fact, even when I am with them, I can't always keep them from being hurt. But I know that God is with them all the time. They belong to Him, and He will take care of them.

I have done a few different Bible studies in the last year or so on different books of the Bible, and there is one mesage that has come through very clearly to me: GOD IS IN CONTROL. He knows what's going to happen. He isn't surprised. And no matter what is going on, even if it seems bad, even if it seems terrible, even downright evil--in the end, HIS purpose will be accomplished.

What is required of me, is trust.

Eclipse and Stand-Up Comedy

2010-06-29T11:26:00.001-06:00

I am not sure how it happened, but tonight I am going to do something very non-motherish. I am going to the midnight showing of Eclipse with a teenage friend who goes to a lot of midnight showings of movies. I don't think I would have gone along except a lot of her friends that would normally go with her are on a youth retreat this week.

Well, I suppose that's not the only reason. I'm kind of still a teenager at heart. I never wanted to age past seventeen. It was such a great age! Alas, I have now aged almost ten years past seventeen, and I am married with three small children. For the most part, I don't do anything especially exciting.

Occasionally though, it is still nice to do something that I would have done as a teenager. Like see two movies at the theater in one night, or go see the midnight showing of a movie. Actually, I never did either of those things when I was a teenager. I would have wanted to, but I either wouldn't have had the money or my parents wouldn't have let me. My mom is more of a practical person, and I can see her thinking that going to a midnight showing is ridiculous. I think my mom skipped being a teenager.

When I was seventeen, I stayed up late all the time. If I spent the night at a friends house, sometimes we would stay up all night. It wasn't a big deal then. I didn't have to get up in the morning and take care of anyone. Now, I go to this movie knowing that I will probably only get four hours of sleep and that I will be paying more of a price than just the cost of the movie.

I asked my mother-in-law if she could keep my older boys overnight, that way I could sleep in the next morning. We tentatively planned on that, but they suddenly decided to go to Kansas and are leaving this afternoon. Pretty suspicous, right? Actually, they have family out there, so it isn't as strange as it sounds. And they are taking Malachi, so that does help a little. More than a little, actually, because Malachi is the early bird around here.

I am now trying to figure out the point of writing all of this, and I've decided there isn't one. It's just what was on my mind, and I haven't written in a couple of days, even though I'm supposed to write every day. It was either this, or I try writing comedy. I've been watching Last Comic Standing and it makes me want to be a stand-up comedian. I just really have my doubts that I am funny enough for that. I can see myself standing on the stage making jokes that only I am laughing at, while everyone else is just sort of chuckling nervously and hoping that at some point I'll get funnier. More funny. Funnier. Whatever.

Road Trip

2010-06-26T00:24:00.002-06:00

If I could be doing anything right now...well, I would sleep, actually...but if I could be doing anything else, I think it would be fun to take a road trip to California. I'd like to drive out to California, and start at the bottom and just work my way to the top. I'd like to drive for as long as I wanted, with no pressure to "make good time", and the ability to stop at any place that looked interesting.

For this trip, I would need unlimited cash, or at least enough to make me feel like it was unlimited. I would also need either a convertible or a VW bus. It just wouldn't be the same with any other vehicle.

Oh, and let's not forget, I would need a sidekick/navigator person, who of course would be terrible with directions and frequently get us lost. I would always forgive them though, because they would also have an ipod with like 4,000 songs on it, and the capability of hooking it up to listen to on the car radio.

We would drive through California and try to find at least one movie star's house. In fact, we would not leave California without at least seeing a movie star shopping or something.

When we're done with that, we would just keep going up through Oregon and Washington. We would stop in every little town and visit at least one locally owned shop and purchase a soveneir. Maybe we would buy a postcard from every town also and send it off our friends back home, just to make them say, "Where?" and annoy them.

We would definitely go to Seattle to see if it was raining like it's supposed to, and we would buy really extravagant umbrellas there. And we would drink coffee, even though I hate coffee (and I'm sure my sidekick navigator does too). I'm pretty sure there's something about Seattle and coffee.

Most likely we would have to visit the town of Forks, to see if they really have vampires, werewolves and a police chief named Charlie.

After all that, we would drive back home across Idaho, and down through Montana and Wyoming. We would not bother with Utah and its salty lakes and mormons (obviously, we drove through Arizona to get to California, since we had to start at the bottom, and also to see the Grand Canyon).

Finally, we would return home weary, but joyous from our road trip adventure.

THAT is what I'd like to be doing.

Futon

2010-06-24T18:10:00.001-06:00

My nephew Josh is staying with us for the summer. He's seventeen, and he just graduated. We are sort of like his "backpacking through Europe" experience, just not nearly as cool...or expensive. He's staying in our spare bedroom, which happens to be right by the kitchen and dining room, and isn't really great for allowing a guest to be secluded from the noise and goings-on in the house.

Partly for that reason we were/are thinking about trying to turn part of our basement into a room of sorts for him. Our basement is by no means finished, and at this time has a bunch of storage containers, boxes, and odds and ends in it (the nice way of saying it's full of junk). Also, the stairs are a bit rickety and narrow and the door is kinda short. I said all this to say that getting the queen mattress from our guest bed down there is highly unlikely.

Therefore, we decided to look into getting a futon. I know the right thing is for me to want to be frugal, but deep down, I like to buy new things. Aaron, on the other hand really is frugal, and he wanted to look on craigslist. So, I did. I found a futon that looked decent and affordable and contacted the seller via e-mail. He wrote back and gave his phone number, then we called him, went to look at it, and so on.

After looking at it, we thought we would probably buy it. However, a few things came up and we changed our minds about it because we didn't feel good about spending the money on it right now. Then yesterday or the day before I got an e-mail from the guy asking if we were still interested. He said he had a couple other offers, but was holding it for us. I wrote back and explained that we weren't able to afford it right now, but that we might be able to in the next few weeks. I told him that if he had other offers and needed to get rid of it not to hold back on our account.

Today I received this response from him, "Thanks for having me contact you regarding this. I have just lost 2 opportunities to sell it. I wont sell it to you so please don't contact me anymore."

I think I going through some kind of weird emotional thing, because it almost made me cry. I mean, it was definitely not nice, but not really worth crying over. I was really shocked that he would be so rude to someone over a futon.

Then, after I got over wanting to cry and being shocked, I felt angry. I felt like writing back to him something like, "Dear Sir, thank you for informing me that your futon is now unavailable to us. After your last e-mail, I would just like to say that I wouldn't buy your futon if it was the only futon on the planet, that I don't want to so much as look at your futon, and you can shove your stupid futon where the sun doesn't shine." Among other things.

Fortunately, I didn't do that. In fact I haven't written back anything at all. Partly because I am afraid I would write something like that, and then regret it later, and partly because he specifically asked me not to contact him.

Later, when I told Aaron about it, he wasn't completely surprised, because it turns out that Aaron told the man (before the other stuff came up) that we were planning on buying it, which I didn't know.

Knowing that now, I at least understand why he was upset. However, I don't think he needed to resort to meanness. Also, if you are mad at someone for not buying your futon, presumably it is because A. you need to get rid of it, or B. you need the money, or C. both. I really think that telling someone that you flat out won't sell it to them is not the way to meet those goals. Particularly because it's not as though we just decided to buy another futon instead of his, we just felt we couldn't afford it right now. Excuse me for not wanting to go into debt over a futon!

I feel very frustrated by this, obviously, and also a little amazed that within one month's time I have had two different men be mean to me, which is more than I've had probably the whole rest of my life. It bothers me.

Much Ado About Nothing

2010-06-22T21:41:00.001-06:00

This week the two older boys have been going to VBS. This is the first time they are both old enough to go, and I am really enjoying having a couple hours to myself while they are gone in the morning. However, yesterday as we were leaving VBS, Malachi decided it would be a good idea to stick a pebble up his nose. I thought he had actually put two in, because I thought one had already come out. He kept saying there was one in his nose and it was hurting him. I wasn't sure if there was really one in his nose or if it just hurt from the other one that came out. I told him to just calm down, that it was okay, and I would look at it when we got home.

Once home I tried looking in his nose several times with different lights, but I couldn't see anything. I decided to call a friend of mine who has eleven kids. I though, surely she has had this happen and will know what to do.

Not only has she not had this happen, but the other two moms with her hadn't either. They put me on speaker phone and all listened to my problem. After much deliberating they agreed that the best thing was for me to call the doctor and see what he said about it.

This was unfortunate news for me because I generally hate calling the doctor with questions. I usually get some kind of ridiculous answer like, "Well, if you're concerned and you think you should bring him in, then you should." If I thought I should bring him in, I wouldn't be calling to ask them about it, I would just bring him in! I really get so annoyed about that.

In spite of that, I did what my panel of moms suggested and called the doctor's office. The receptionist took a message and said they'd call me back. Which they did, finally, around five or so. I have to give my doctor points for calling me back himself. Also, he is a different doctor than we've seen in the past, and seems to be capable of giving an answer. He asked a lot of questions, and finally decided he should probably have a look at it, just in case. I was just happy to hear such a definite answer, and gladly made an appointment.

So today, at three forty-five, Aaron came home early and took him to the doctor.

Where they found absolutely nothing.

Opposites

2010-06-21T10:20:00.002-06:00

Being inside and outside

At the same time

Is painful

Those opposites

Don't go well

Together

Like feeling alone

In the middle of a crowd

To be two things at once

Is wearing and sad

It's confusing

To be both up

And down

To be loved

And ignored

To be a friend

And an outsider

Like the moon

Circling the earth

But always

At a distance

My Funeral

2010-06-21T00:01:00.000-06:00

I am not sure why, but this morning I was thinking about what I'd want my funeral to be like.

I don't really care whether I'm cremated or buried--whichever feels like the right thing to the people left behind. Well, I guess to be honest, I would rather be buried. But if it's easier to cremate me, I say go ahead. I'm not going to care at that point.

I don't want anyone to wear black to my funeral. I want it to be like one of those old-fashioned wakes where there is lots of food and people laughing and remembering my life, not my death.

And I want The Princess Bride to be playing in the background, because it is pretty much the best movie ever and I can almost quote every line from it.

I want the funeral programs to have two Bible verses on it. The first is 1 Thessalonians 4:12 & 13, "But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus." When I die, I will be with Jesus. Nothing sad about that.

The second verse is Psalm 63:1, "Oh God, You are my God; early will I seek You; my soul thirsts for You; my flesh longs for You in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water." This is my life verse, and it defines the core of who I am. God is as much a part of me as the heart that beats in my chest. I take Him for granted sometimes, just like I take my heart for granted, but the reality is that I know I can't live without Him. Trust me when I say I have no wish to die, but I know that when I do, that will be the day I thirst no more.

I realize this may seem a bit morbid to some; a twenty-six year-old writing about her funeral is a wee bit creepy, I'll admit. Well, all I can say is don't read too much into it. I don't have a fatal illness or even some sort of strange premonition. I just think about weird stuff.

Sublime Aquaintance

2010-06-18T15:24:00.000-06:00

We're friends that are more like strangers

Sun and moon aquaintances

Politely sharing orbit

We smile and nod

                 smile and nod

                           smile and nod

As we pass by with all the niceties observed

And cordial phrases uttered at timely moments

Oh, what a lovely game of pretend

Like little girls sitting down to a tea party

But the tea is only water

For we couldn't handle anything stronger

Or we might break

I could say that I adore you

I only wish I didn't find you

           so profoundly inaccessible

We have everything in common

And nothing to talk about

It's fortunate we are forced to share the sky

Else we might never be friends

For now you can just be

My sublime aquaintance

Just a Day

2010-06-17T23:55:00.000-06:00

Here I am writing at 11:30 pm, just barely meeting the daily requirement. How procrastinatory of me. No, that's not a real word.

I don't know what I did today, really. It's all a blur. I woke up with a very stiff neck after not sleeping well, and it hasn't gone away all day. I keep thinking of how God would call the Israelites a "stiff-necked people". At least I think He did. I think what He meant was they were a pain in the neck, what with all that wandering around and grumbling. It makes me wonder if I wander around grumbling too. It's highly probable.

Simeon had an eventful day. First, he got hit in the head with a toy truck by his habitually violent brother, Israel. It actually bled, which slightly freaked me out, but I put a cold washcloth on it and it stopped. Of course, it was just a tiny little scratch, completely disproportionate to the amount of blood that came out of it.

After that he discovered a baby swing, which he is almost too big for, that he never liked when he was a baby. Now that he is heading out of babyhood and into toddlerhood, he thinks it's great, and happily sat in it for like ten minutes.

He also fed himself with a fork, a great accomplishment. I did help him out by getting the food on the fork, but then I would hand it to him. He is always very deliberate. He would hold the fork and just look at it for a minute, like he was studying it and calculating the trajectory or something. Then he would open his mouth really wide and sloooowly put the food in his mouth, and then close it. It was quite an adorable process. I was so proud.

The best part of my day was not having any company at my house finally after six days of family visiting. Not that I didn't enjoy having my family here. I enjoyed it a lot. But I am the kind of person who needs a little quiet time to herself to recharge, and I wasn't getting that. Of course, my nephew Josh was here with us, but I don't consider him company since he will be here for the summer. I see him more as my fourth son. Or fifth, depending on how you look at it.

Now here I am eating Doritos even though I know it is so bad for me. I was sure there was "nothing" else to eat until after I ate them and then realized that I really could have had fruit or cheese or even a glass of milk and it would have been much more wholesome for me. Oh well. Maybe next time.

I'm Back Now

2010-06-16T11:27:00.000-06:00

Okay, so you may have noticed that I haven't been writing anything for the last week or so. The contributing factors to this were numerous.

Last week we were getting ready for my parents to come for a visit, and for my 17-year-old nephew to come for an extended visit. At the same time, the internet stopped working. Actually, I only thought it stopped working. In reality, the internet search engine "Google Chrome" stopped working. I finally figured that out, and went back to "Internet Explorer", which is unfortunate because I like the other one better.

By then my parents had already arrived. We spent most of the day on Friday at Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs (which is THE coolest zoo and I HIGHLY recommend it).

Then on Saturday my mom and went out to lunch and shopping for a little mother-daughter quality time.

Sunday we had church and dedicated all three of our boys. Later that night we introduced my parents to The Rio, which I have come to love, and I think they do too now.

Monday, I went up to Estes Park (they like to pronouce it "Estees" because they are from Ohio).

Tuesday we had a big cookout, and today they are flying home.

Meanwhile, my niece, nephew, brother-in-law and his dad also arrived Friday night, and they also left today, except for my nephew who is staying the rest of the summer. I'm happy he's staying, although I'm sure it will be a change to have a teenager around here all the time.

I was sad to see my niece leave, though. She is basically my twin. It is almost scary how much alike we are, especially since we live in different states and see each other less than once a year. I really enjoyed having her around the last few days. Maybe in a year or two she will be the one staying for the summer.

So that is basically what has been going on around here lately. Now that things are semi-back-to-normal, hopefully I will get back to writing every day like I'm supposed to.

Smuggler

2010-06-06T15:59:00.001-06:00

So, I have a confession. I am a smuggler. And I am proud of being a smuggler.

What do I smuggle you ask? Food. I smuggle food into the movie theater. And on Friday night, I achieved what I consider my greatest feat of smuggling yet.

Friday night I had a little girls night out. I met my sister-in-law to shop for matching outfits for all of our boys, but she had to go home right after. Since I had the most horrendous week, Aaron said to go ahead and just have a night to myself. In fact he encouraged it.

I decided to go see the movie Letters to Juliet, which started at 7:25 pm. When I left Target, it was about 7:15. I really wanted to go, but I also hadn't eaten dinner yet and I knew I couldn't wait 'til after the movie. Since I wasn't about to pay the exorbitant prices for movie theater food, I opted to get Del Taco and smuggle it in.

I have a big purse, so the food is not a problem. The drink was the tricky part. If I would have had more time, I would have gone and bought a bottled drink somewhere. Instead, I tried my hand at smuggling it in a regular cup with a lid on it. I am happy to report that it worked. I successfully got the drink into the theater, without it spilling all over the inside of my purse!

I feel that this opens a whole new world of possibilities for me when it comes to eating at the movies. At least until they start searching everyone's bags, which I am sure will happen somewhere in the future. Then I will have to find other ways to sneak the food. That's right, I am a dedicated smuggler. I won't give up easily.

I am sure there are people who would view my smuggling as being wrong, but I view myself as a sort of Robin Hood, fighting against an unjust system that robs the people of their right to eat cheap food. You know, it's an act of protest, sort of like those people who tie themselves to trees they don't want to be cut down.

(Oh, and as a side note, I absolutely loved the movie.)

Before and After

2010-06-05T14:56:00.002-06:00

Before I became a mom, if someone had told me about all the things that would happen to me after I became a mom, I really don't know if I would have still wanted to have kids.

I mean when you look at it from an objective standpoint, it just doesn't sound too good. Think about it.

These have been my experiences as a mom so far: long, miserable pregnancy, swollen feet, heartburn, painful labor, painful childbirth (hey, those are just given), waking up repeatedly in the middle of the night, getting up way earlier than I would ever choose to since I am just going to stay at home anyway, cleaning up food spills, poo, vomit, dirt and various other things, painful breastfeeding, screaming toddlers, whining, children who run away at the park, and at home, children who kick other kids in the face, little boys who start fighting with each other almost as soon as they wake up, crying, arguing, demands which they expect to be met immediately even if I don't have the juice that they seem to so desperately need, refusal to play outside, break-downs because they have to stay inside, bath times where more water ends up on the floor than in the tub, mountains of laundry, a house that is never clean, and increasingly smaller amounts of time to myself. I could probably go on, but I think you get the picture.

I said earlier that if someone had told me all that before I became a mom, I might have second thoughts. There's a good chance that in my youthful naiveté, I would have laughed it off and thought, "Oh it can't really be all that bad." Well, it can be that bad. And it can be worse.

Now here is the mystery of it all. After going through all of that and actually being a mom, if someone gave me a chance to go back and do it over, if I had a chance to change my mind and do something else instead of being a mom, you'd think I would jump at the chance. But I wouldn't.

I wouldn't trade those wonderfully wild little creatures that are my children for anything in the world. Don't get me wrong, there are moments when I could just about give them away to passing stranger ("Take them! Take them! They're driving me insane!") But when it's all said and done, I love them so fiercely and so much, I would never let them go. It makes no sense. But there you have it. God gave them to me, and I want to keep them. And I want more! Because those kids have been the cause of some of the worst moments of my entire life, and they bring out the worst in me too. But those kids are also the cause of the best moments of my life, and I know that God uses them to shape me into the woman He's made me to be.

Playtime Nightmare

2010-06-01T15:59:00.001-06:00

Usually when I have a crazy experience someplace, I call it an adventure, and later I can see some humor in it. Today was not an adventure. It was more like a nightmare. And it was not funny.

I decided to take the boys with me to Big Lots today, and then go eat at McDonald's afterward and let them play. I felt really good about it, and was looking forward to passing the afternoon that way. They did pretty good at Big Lots, had a little trouble listening, but not too much. And even McDonald's was okay until the very end.

Malachi was pushing Simeon around in the high chair, giving him a ride, and Izzy was playing in the tubes with the other kids. I was talking to my nephew on the phone.

Suddenly, I hear a man yell, "HEY!" So I look over and there's this guy standing by the slide with his daughter. "YOU NEED TO GET YOUR BOY!" he yelled at me, "HE JUST KICKED MY GIRL IN THE FACE!"

I immediately told my nephew I had to go and hung up as the man continued to scream at me, "THIS IS BULL****! IT'S PRETTY SAD THAT YOU LET YOUR KID KICK GIRLS IN THE FACE!" At that point, I had zero reaction, but later as I was mulling it over, I thought, I "let" my kid kick a girl in the face? Like I had been standing over Izzy cheering him on, "Go Izzy! Kick that girl in the face! Yeah, that's right! Get her!" Now that is bull****.

Not to mention, the guy could have just as easily walked over to me and talked to me about what happened instead of screaming at me.

I immediately climbed up in the tubes looking for Izzy, who of course climbed out of the tubes while I was up in them. Frustrated by not finding him, and finally reacting to having a stranger scream at me in McDonald's, I started crying. I absolutely hate crying in front of people, especially people I don't know. But I couldn't stop myself. I have never liked being yelled at, and it hasn't happened in a long time. Tears are a pretty standard reaction.

I climbed back down and the family whose daughter got kicked was walking past to leave. "I'm sorry," I told the mother, "he's only two."

Let me just say, I am not one of those moms who thinks that their little angel would never harm a soul. I had no doubt that Izzy did it. And there was no doubt that he shouldn't have.

I ran it all through my mind, looking for where I went wrong. Maybe I shouldn't have been talking on the phone. Maybe that makes me a bad parent. I don't know. But I realized something: there was no way I could have stopped Izzy from kicking that girl.

Even if had been climbing around in the tubes following him wherever he went (oh, and toting Simeon along too, cuz I can't just leave him sitting at the table all alone while I scramble after Izzy in the tubes, right?)--which, by the way, I haven't seen any other parents doing--I still couldn't necessarily have stopped him in that moment.

Actually when you consider how much faster he would be than me since I would also have Simeon and I am not a spry little child anymore, I know I couldn't have stopped him. Things like that happen fast, and you can't really predict what a two or three year old is going to do.

I think I pretty much freaked out my kids because I was crying so much and yelling at them. Honestly, I don't know if I was yelling or if my voice just had no other option but to come out as a screech since I was so upset. I think it would have come out that way even if I had attempted to keep my voice normal.

It is very humiliating to have a stranger scream at you. I hope not to ever experience it again. Even now I am having a hard time keeping calm and not crying all over again when I think about it. I wished so much that there had been someone there with me, someone on my side. Like Aaron. But I realized that this would have never happened if Aaron had been with me.

First of all, the boys tend to behave better when Daddy is around.

Second, I wouldn't have been talking on the phone, I would have been talking to Aaron, and yes, we probably would have been more vigilant. Maybe there had been some behavior that I just didn't catch earlier and if I had he would have kicked her, I don't know.

And thirdly, there is no way in hell, heaven, or anywhere else that the guy would have yelled at me with my husband sitting right there. I don't think too many guys mess with other men's wives when they're sitting right next to them.

If there's any "modern women" reading this who think the idea of your husband being a covering or protection for you is old fashioned, sexist, or ridiculous, chew on that one for a while.

To sum it all up, it was a really horrible experience. Just when I think there can't be anything worse, my boys find new ways of making my day turn out freaky. I doubt I'll be going to McDonald's for a while. At least not by myself.

The Fun Never Stops

2010-05-27T14:48:00.001-06:00

Yesterday I had a little adventure. I seem to have a lot of little adventures these days. I was going to meet some friends at a park at 11:30. To save time and effort, I went to Burger King for lunch instead of making something at home to bring with us. I went through the drive through, ordered my food, and as I proceeded to the window, I discovered that I did not have my wallet, and thus did not have any money to buy the food.

I had already had somewhat of a frustrating morning, maybe because I was a little tired, or because the boys were running around wild and excited after they found out we were going to a park. The whole wallet thing just did me in.

I called Aaron tearfully and told him what had happened as I drove home to look for it. He suggested that I call Lowe's to see if I left it there when we went the night before. For some reason, I was convinced it was at home, not at Lowe's. So, I drove all the way home, which was on the opposite side of town. I looked all over the house, and the backyard because Izzy, trying to be helpful but not really having a clue, told me that it was somewhere in the backyard. I was obviously not thinking clearly.

Finally I looked up Lowe's number and called. They had it. So we drove all the way to Lowe's which is back on the other side of town again, picked up the wallet, went semi-shamefully through the line at Burger King for the second time, and FINALLY got to the park, almost exactly one hour later than I was supposed to.

The funny part is that while we were driving home the boys wanted to know why we didn't get any food. I told them I didn't have my wallet. Then I said, "And if either of you took it, you're getting the biggest spanking EVER!" Even as I said it, the logical part of me acknowledged how lame that was. I might as well have said, "You can't come to my birthday party!" Even mommies can be childish sometimes.

Sayings

2010-05-25T21:47:00.002-06:00

Here is some more good stuff from Izzy. He is just in a stage right now where he says really funny things.

When we had to leave Jumpin' to go back home, he said, "I don't like our house. I hate it! Bad guys are gonna throw it in the trash can and it will break!"

Talking about Simeon, I said, "He's so serious with those chubby cheeks. Like Winston Churchhill." Izzy promptly shouted out, "Don't say that! Simmy's not a church!" in a tone that clearly said, "You're so silly, Mommy."

Upon entering my room one morning, Izzy announced, "There's some little bad guys downstairs. But they're sleeping." That was a little weird.

His explanation one night of why he got out of bed went something like this, "A toy fell behind my bed. Some things fell behind my bed. I need you to get them out or my bed will crack!"

A random comment, "Simmy can't jump, Dad! He can't jump cuz he's too little and strong!"

Izzy recently informed me that he was not going to be my girlfriend anymore.

When our neighbor and his friend were working on the swing set, Izzy told them, "My brother loves me a whole lot! But not too much."

And here is my personal favorite:

Referring to a cookie, he said to Aaron, "Give me another one, Dad." Aaron asked him, "What do you say?" Izzy replied, "Because I'm so proud of you. I'm so proud of you, Dad."

Malachi will still, on occasion, say something goofy. Here is one that made me laugh:

After being told to be quiet, he said, "I can't make my voice quieter. See my tummy? It pouts down when I do that."

Messy Ever After

2010-05-21T11:26:00.000-06:00

Not long ago I wrote optimistically of how certain I was that my messy days were diminishing. Well, I think I spoke a little too soon.

My problem, I think, is that I underestimated my son's ability to stay out of things and not make a mess. And then I overestimated the ability of the apple juice lid to stay on the bottle and hold in the apple juice. I also failed to factor in the circumstances of making eggs and talking on the phone at the same time, thus rendering me too distracted to get Israel his juice before a disaster struck. Therefore, a disaster did strike.

Now, of course, in the grand scheme of things, this was nothing. Compared to the entire world and the events of the entire world, and hurricanes and tornadoes and war and poverty and AIDS epidemics, this was basically a nonevent. But in my world, my small, everyday, mommy world, this definitely qualifies as a event.

You see what happened was that Israel tried to pick up the juice container, one of those big Wal-Mart apple juices, which was about three quarters full. Obviously, it was very heavy for an almost three year old, which resulted in him dropping it. That's when, somehow or other, the lid must've hit the floor, and it broke.

And that is when half of the apple juiced poured out onto the kitchen floor.

And that's when I almost burned the eggs because I was trying frantically to mop up the juice.

And while I was keeping the eggs from burning, Izzy decided to squeeze out the paper towels that had soaked up the juice all over the floor. As if there wasn't enough juice on the floor already.

And that is when I considered tearing out my hair.

Third Time's A Charm

2010-05-20T22:55:00.003-06:00

So, this is my tribute to my third baby boy....

Simeon, my third son. By now it would seem I have seen it all, there is nothing new. I have seen all the firsts twice over. But the third time's a charm. And I am charmed by him. There is something special about him, beautiful and buoyant. His eyes have so much life it brings tears to mine. Eyes so deep and mossy green, but bright, shining, reflecting. His eyes tell me he knows a good secret. If only he had words to tell me. He smiles as though I have just told him a good joke.

Around Christmastime, I was really struggling to be "merry". I usually love Christmas, but this past year was hard. I was homesick and feeling low, and Malachi was SO excited that I felt that I couldn't possibly be excited too or the world would implode or something. We were short on money, so I knew I wouldn't be getting a whole lot, and I have to confess, I LOVE PRESENTS! I love giving them and I love getting them. As a Christian, I feel like confessing this is tantamount to saying I am secretly a kleptomaniac or a compulsive liar, or even something worse. You know, we're supposed to be all about giving and not care if we get anything. Well, I care. There I said it.

Anyway, whatever the reason, I was bummed. And I remember one night, I was sitting in my bedroom on my bed holding Simeon in my arms, and I thought, "This is the best gift I could ever receive." I knew that even if I got nothing else, I had the most precious gift in my arms.

I really do feel delighted by him. And lately, I feel like God has helped me to delight in all my boys more. It is too easy to get caught up in everything and forget to really enjoy them. I ask God to help me all the time with that. And He does.

Playhouse Process

2010-05-20T00:56:00.001-06:00

Many thanks to Sam's Club for having a good deal, Noble Energy for overtime, and our neighbor and his friend who built pretty much all of this.

7 Significant Events

2010-05-18T15:51:00.000-06:00

Seven recent significant events:

1. We bought a really cool playset/fort thing for the boys at Sam's Club.

2. Aaron's mom had gall bladder surgery, which is normally a quick in an out procedure, but she had some complications so they had to go back in to do another surgery, and she is still in the hospital, but she's doing good.

3. Many times as a parent, it is hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel when it comes to discipline and good behavior, but on Saturday we went out to eat at Cracker Barrel and the coolest thing happened. We were sitting there eating those delicious biscuits waiting for our food, and a woman came up to us and said she wanted to thank us because our kids were so well behaved and were sitting there quietly, and she thanked the boys too and said she really appreciated how good they were. After she left, I looked at Aaron and said, laughing, "Well, that's never happened before!" I have noticed that Malachi especially is getting better at listening and obeying, and Izzy isn't doing too bad either. It's nice to have someone else notice too, for a change!

4. After that lovely experience, we went out to our van and discovered that the keys were locked inside. We had to call a locksmith. I tried to take the boys for a walk to one of the outlet stores while we waited, only to find after carrying my purse, the diaper bag, and Simeon (which probably adds up to about 40 lbs all together), that the store was closed because it was after eight.

5. With everything going on, plus the half rainy half sunny days we've had, it had been really hard to even start putting the playset together. It turns out that our next door neighbor is a carpenter, and he offered to help Aaron. When I say help what I mean is that he is pretty much building the whole thing for us. And he refuses to take any money for it. Even though he is taking up a lot of time on his days off to do it. With Aaron working so many hours at his job, it is the biggest blessing for him to do that for us. I have to give many thanks to God for providing someone to help us when we needed it.

6. I don't know how significant this is, but yesterday Izzy was eating a lifesaver, and all of a sudden I heard a choke/cough. I looked over to make sure he was okay, and he was crying, but he was breathing, so I felt relieved. Then he came over to me with crocodile tears in his eyes and said forlornly, "Candy gone!" like it had died or something and he was mourning it. Then he gagged and threw up, narrowly missing me. And there was the candy, amongst other foods he had ingested. It is a testimony to the good frame of mind I was in that I found this really, really funny instead of really, really horrible. I just laughed and tried to keep everyone clear of the puke while I cleaned it up.

7. Today I took the boys to McDonald's for lunch since they have to stay out of the backyard while Bill is building the playground. I decided that since I was neither pregnant nor watching over an infant, I would go play in the play tubes with them. The one we went to has giant tubes and even says on the sign that parents are welcome to play too. So I took Sim, and we climbed all over that thing, which was a little scary. I wasn't sure I would ever do it again, but when I went down the big tube slide with Sima he just laughed and laughed. After that it was worth it to me to do it again. I love hearing my babies laugh.

Human House

2010-05-16T15:31:00.000-06:00

If you think about it, people are kind of like houses. When looking for a house, there are things that are more important than how it looks on the outside.

Say you go looking for a house to buy, and you find one that appears to be absolutely gorgeous. It has lush green grass in the front yard, it has mature trees, the house is freshly painted in the exact right color, everything looks nice and new and clean. You think, Ah, now this is my kind of house!

Then you go inside.

You notice that there are holes in the wall. The paint is peeling. The floors have nasty carpet from some long ago era, and it smells like some animals have been using it for something other than just walking on. Aside from cosmetics, you then find that the furnace is busted and needs a replacement, the water heater is shot, and the electrical wiring is outdated and hazardous. If that wasn't enough, the foundation is crumbling, and water leaks into the basement.

At this point you have to decided if you're willing to pay the price to have all that fixed. And here is where houses and humans deviate. What if it weren't possible to have all that fixed? What if you had to take the house as is or not at all?

That's how it is with people. That's how it is with you. You can look nice on the outside, but, as it has been said many times, it's the inside that counts.

So, if you're looking for a friend or a spouse or someone you can trust, you have to look past the outside. Some of those people may have patchy grass, so to speak, or a sagging porch or peeling paint. But that's only the outside. When you go inside you find a place that's clean and dry and warm, a place you can rest and be safe. Those are the people you want to choose, because if you choose someone who is only nice on the outside and think you can change the inside to be more to your liking, you'll be disappointed. Only God can change people's insides. The rest of us have to take each other as is.

My husband is the perfect example of this. He is a little rough around the edges. He looks a bit scruffy sometimes, and he says and does some things that are, well, for lack of a better word, weird. But that is only the outer facade. Inside, he is far more than he appears to be. I compare him to a treasure chest. The chest might look like an ordinary wooden box. But when you open it up, when you look deep inside, you will be amazed at the treasure you find. I have been. I still am. A lot of people are like that.

You know the funny thing too, is that some people can only be fixed up inside after you accept them just as they are. Sometimes that's exactly what they need.

Food Fight

2010-05-14T16:01:00.000-06:00

I have a confession. I hate feeding my kids. Okay, maybe hate is too strong a word. But I do find it to be one of the more frustrating things about my life right now.

As newborns, they're hungry all the time. You might as well just find a cozy spot on the couch and park there for the next three months, 'cause all they'll be doing is eating and they take forever to do it. Which I wouldn't really mind if I didn't have myself and other people to take care of as well.

Next they get bigger, and eat faster, and eat more. But they have no teeth and can't use utensils, so the challenge is to find food that is soft, but not too soft, and healthy, and filling, that they can pick up themselves or will allow you to feed to them.

Then comes a switch. They become toddlers. Suddenly, nothing you give them is right. You gave them spaghetti last night and they ate every bite and loved it, but today they will not touch it with a ten foot pole. "I hate spaghetti!" they say. "No you don't, you just had it last night and you loved it!" They insist, "No, I hate it!" And, instead of eating their food, they will pick at it and end up spreading it all over the table or high chair tray, and probably get some on the floor too while they're at it. There's no winning with toddlers.

What really gets me is that even though they may not eat hardly anything you set in front of them, causing you to wonder how they even survive on such a meager diet, you don't have the option of not feeding them. You have to feed them. Well, you have to try, anyway. And if, for one day, you decided to take a break from trying to force feed the little guys, they would probably wail all day long that they're hungry. It is a toddler's nature to be contrary.

I am just waiting for the day when their little boy appetites kick in. Of course, then I will probably complain that they are always eating and I can't find enough food or variety of foods to keep up with the massive quantity of their consumption.

The positive is that eventually they will be able to feed themselves, which will include making their own food occasionally. But that also means I have to teach them how to cook, and keep them from eating something I was saving for a particular meal. It also means buying a lot more groceries to keep up with three growing boys. And that doesn't even factor in the possibility of us having more children in the future!

Little did I know, back when I was a single girl dreaming of getting married and having kids, that food would be such a point of contention and turmoil!

Messes, or the Lack Thereof

2010-05-12T21:55:00.000-06:00

It is so strange to have snow in May. Only in Colorado could this even be possible. Well, I take that back. There are countries on the other side of the world who have their winter during our summer and summer during our winter, and it's very possible that they get snow in May.

In any case, I was not expecting snow. I was expecting it to keep getting warmer. I was imagining many future blissful days where the boys could play outside and not tear apart my house and run circles around me (they do, literally, run circles around me sometimes).

Now, last summer, they played outside a lot, but they would also sneak back into the kitchen and get destructive with my eggs or my salt or whatever else they could get their hands on...like the steak knives. This summer though, things will be different. This time I've got them beat. Two words: child locks. There's one on the fridge AND on all cabinets containing food or anything else that they shouldn't have. And the wooden block that holds the knives is now on top of the fridge.

I feel very optimistic about this whole thing. Not that I expect there to never be messes. There will be messes. First of all, because I sometimes forget to lock the locks. Second, because my children are devious and will find ways around my preventative measures. Third, because even though the older boys are getting to the point that they know what they should and shouldn't do, Simeon is coming up on the age where he will want to push the limits, whether he knows what they are or not. So, yes, there will be many more messes in the future. But with any luck, fewer involving my spices.

Just Laugh it Off

2010-05-11T23:15:00.001-06:00

Around the age of thirteen or so, I was not particularly graceful. I was thin and probably a little gangly, and I was always tripping over something--my own two feet if nothing else. At the time, I was extremely embarrassed by my klutziness, and I could imagine nothing worse than having someone witness it

Now that I'm older, I can't say that I'm a whole lot more graceful. I still trip and fall over things. I've even fallen up the stairs (yes, UP) a time or two. The difference is I'm not so embarrassed anymore. I realize how funny it must look, so I laugh (well, I laugh as long as I don't hurt myself). It's to the point that if I am going to trip and fall, I kind of hope someone is there to see it, that way if it makes them laugh, at least I didn't go down in vain. I've been there for a few spectacular falls with a few of my friends, and I can say wholeheartedly that if it were me, I would want them to see it, because it was REALLY funny. Just thinking about it can still make me laugh.

At Bible school I had these shoes that were always making me fall. I don't know if they weren't the right size or if I didn't strap them tight enough, but they were not safe to walk on. There were two times in particular that I fell wearing those shoes, and no one saw either one, but if they had they would have laughed their socks off.

The first time, I was leaving class and going back to my dorm room when I suddenly misstepped and fell into some bushes. There was a whole crowd of people nearby, but when I looked back, not one person was looking my direction.

The second time, I was up in the balcony and was walking down the stairs when one of my shoes mutinied once again and I did this crazy spin-turn-fall. And yet again, no one was around, no one saw. That I know of! There could very well be a person out there who still laughs thinking about the girl who fell into the bushes.

Is there a moral to this story? Possibly. Do I know what it is? No. Let's try something like this: Learn to laugh at yourself. Or how about, "Embrace your inner klutz." Or outer klutz, in my case.

Only You

2010-05-09T21:18:00.002-06:00

Where is my passion?

Where did it go?

The depths of my heart have closed.

And only the shallows exposed.

The passion is there I know

Somewhere in the deep it flows.

I can't seem to let it out

I begin to doubt that I can

I can't

Only You can free me

In all the ways I need freedom

I don't want to be locked away

I want to be free

I want to let go

Let go of control

And fear

Fear of unknown

Fear of being known

I want to be known by You

I am Your love, Your servant, Your Bride

I belong to You

Only You

This morning, I was inspired to write this poem because of the song "Worlds Apart" by Jars of Clay, which we sang today in church. Here are some of the lyrics that particularly stand out to me:

I look beyond the empty cross

forgetting what my life has cost

and wipe away the crimson stains

and dull the nails that still remain

More and more I need you now,

I owe you more each passing hour
the battle between grace and pride
I gave up not so long ago
So steal my heart and take the pain
and wash the feet and cleanse my pride
take the selfish, take the weak,
and all the things I cannot hide
take the beauty, take my tears
the sin-soaked heart and make it yours
take my world all apart
take it now, take it now
and serve the ones that I despise
speak the words I can't deny
watch the world I used to love
fall to dust and thrown away
I look beyond the empty cross
forgetting what my life has cost
so wipe away the crimson stains
and dull the nails that still remain
so steal my heart and take the pain
take the selfish, take the weak
and all the things I cannot hide
take the beauty, take my tears
take my world apart, take my world apart
I pray, I pray, I pray
take my world apart

To love You - take my world apart
To need You - I am on my knees
To love You - take my world apart
To need You - broken on my knees

It's a song I have heard many times before, but it meant something new to me today. It's amazing how God can take anything and make it new to use for His purposes. Even me:)

Seven (But Not the Deadly Sins)

2010-05-06T15:15:00.003-06:00

In honor of my niece, Mackenzie, here are seven things you may or may not know about me.

1. I have an extreme capacity for not getting tired of things. I will get obsessed with something, like a TV show or a book series, and I will watch it or read it until there is nothing more to watch or read, and I won't get sick of it. I could probably sit and watch endless hours of a TV marathon and be perfectly happy. At the end, I will be sad there isn't more, and sad that I now have to find something else equally interesting. When I finally read the Harry Potter series (with skepticism) and discovered how good the books were, and I read them non-stop. Then I read The Tales of Beedle the Bard, which is connected. Then I also watched all the movies. Then I read Looking for God in Harry Potter. I pretty much exhausted the resources. When I was in kindergarden, I loved the John Wayne movie Rio Lobo. For a long time I watched it every day after school, until I finally had the whole thing memorized. I really get a lot of enjoyment out of having a good obsession now and then.

2. When I was twelve, I thought it sounded like fun to run away from home. I was very practical about it and planned that I would need to save about $3000 and I was going to wait til I was around sixteen years old. I am not entirely sure what my thinking was behind wanting to do that. I guess I thought it sounded nice to just leave, you know, just go wherever I wanted, without having a plan. Then, of course, I planned it all out and that must have taken all the fun out of it for me because obviously I never did it.

3. When I was sixteen I went on a mission trip to Toronto, Canada to reach out to the homeless. The first day we were there we all went to exchange our money and then walked around downtown a bit. My friend Scott and I decided to go up on this walkway and see if there were any homeless people up there. I told my friend Angie where we were going, but when we came back down our group was nowhere in sight. We were completely and utterly lost in this huge foreign city (I say foreign because we had never been there before, not because it was in Canada--even though Canada technically is foreign, I guess). We tried asking a few people for directions, but no one seemed to have heard of the Neill-Wycik, where we were staying. Fortunately for us, there were a bunch of moose statues all around the city, and we basically followed the ones we recognized to get back to where we needed to be. It was really hot, and we were so hungry, and probably a little scared. The crazy thing is that when we got back, no one seemed to have noticed that we were gone--not even Angie!

4. The first year I was at Christ For the Nations they had a big ice storm. The school is in Dallas, Texas. Dallas is usually very hot, and in the winter it might get a little snow, but an ice storm was quite out of the ordinary. Everything was covered in ice, the grass, the trees, the roads, the sidewalks...and the concrete slanting down from the freeway to the off-ramp. It was probablly the most reckless and dangerous thing I've ever done, but some friends and I went sledding down it. It really didn't seem dangerous at the time, because, as I mentioned, snow and ice were oddities in Dallas, which means that the drivers were all terrified, and there were only a few people even out driving. The ones that were out braving the cold and ice were driving so slow that a turtle could have started crossing the road when a car got off onto the ramp, and safely get all the way to the other side before the car ever got there. Still, it's the kind of thing most parents would not want their child doing, even if their child is nineteen years old. Later, after Aaron and I were together, I found out that he had driven past us on the way to work and thought something along the lines of "Look at those idiots!"

5. After watching a comedy video of Anita Renfroe talking about how her grandma kept all the stuff she needed in her bra instead of a purse, I am semi-seriously considering going this route. Without a purse, I'd have one less thing to carry, I wouldn't have to spend money on a new one, and everything I need would be close at hand all the time. Not to mention, I'd get to see the looks on people's faces when I pull money out of my bra.

6. If I ask people for money, they usually give it to me. Not a lot of money, but small amounts. In sixth grade I bought a snickers bar every day after school from the concession stand and if I didn't have the money, I would ask for it from someone else. In eighth grade I would ask the school principal sometimes for quarters so I could get a drink out of the pop machine and he would usually give them to me. So I guess that makes me a bum. But a successful one :) Now that I've written this people will probably never give me money anymore. There's something to be said for not giving away all your secrets.

7. I love sarcasm and wordplay, and just words in general. I even like cheesy puns that have a double meaning, like this one, "I've been to the dentist a thousand time so I know the drill." My most favorite movies are ones that have great lines you can quote. I love the show House because of his sarcasm, even though I know if someone actually said to me the things he says I would hate it. But it's funny because it's happening to someone else. I love the silly wordy humor of Mad Libs, and I love Scrabble and crossword puzzles (just not the really hard ones!) and I like the way words sound sometimes, like "cruciverbalist" (which means "a designer or aficionado of crossword puzzles").

Rescue

2010-05-05T23:29:00.001-06:00

Because of a recommendation, I recently bought The Jesus Storybook Bible for the kids. The woman who recommended it said that she would read to her daughter, but was often touched by what she read herself. I experienced that tonight, reading the story of Daniel to Malachi and Israel. It's called "The Jesus Storybook Bible" because every story is written in such a way that shows how the whole Bible is really about Jesus, and every story leads back to Him.

At the end of the story about Daniel and the lions' den, in reference to God rescuing Daniel from the mouths of the lions, it says this, "God would keep on rescuing His people. And the time was coming when God would send another brave Hero, like Daniel, would would love God and do what God said -- whatever it cost him, even if it meant he would die. And together they would pull off the Greatest Rescue the world has ever known."

When I finished reading, I asked the boys, "Do you know who that brave Hero is? It's Jesus." And then I told them how the Bible says that the devil is like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour, and that Jesus saved us from that roaring lion, just like he saved Daniel from the lions in the den.

I have to say at this point, that I think that little revelation meant a lot more to me than it did to them. For one thing, right as I was trying to tell them about it, a spider went crawling across the ceiling, and Malachi was so worried about it that he could not sit still. He wouldn't rest until Aaron took my shoe and squashed it.

I felt more than a little frustrated at being upstaged by a spider, but I had to just shrug it off, and pray silently that the truth would sink into their hearts for later. They are so little. They can only take in and process so much at a time. But I know this won't be the last time we talk about all of this, and my hope is that tonight would be a building block for those conversations in the future.

I want them to know that Jesus is the Ultimate Hero. I want them to experience being rescued by Him for themselves. But important things take time. You can't go out into any random field and stick a seed in the ground and expect to see a plant pop up immediately. First, the field has to be cleared. Then, it has to be plowed. And even then, there is so much more to do than just planting. Cultivating. Fertilizing. Weeding. Watering. Sunshine. Waiting. Time. Finally, a plant. And then, even after all that, it is just a little plant at first. It takes even more of all of that for it to grow into a fully matured plant.

When it comes to my boys, it may be a long time before I see that little plant come up. And it may be even longer before it matures into a healthy full-grown plant. In the meantime, I have to keep working, sometimes without knowing for certain if what I'm doing will yield the desired results. That's when I have to trust God. He knows. And He wants them to know Him even more than I do.

I am just so glad He rescued me.

Two Different Days

2010-05-04T17:51:00.001-06:00

It's amazing how different each day can be. Yesterday was a horrible day for me. I was tired. The boys were tired. Malachi was whiny because Israel got to wear a Spiderman suit we borrowed from friends. I tried to get them to go outside so I could write an important letter and finish my Bible Study lesson, but they seemed to feel that being exiled to the horror of the backyard was just too torturous. Who wants to go outside and play on a nice day when you could stay inside and drive your mom crazy?

Malachi was obsessed with watching Astro Boy and that's all he wanted to do. Izzy just wanted to be near me, I guess, especially after I had to take away the Spiderman suit from both of them. It seems like he would be mad at me, but I think he was just kind of sad. He was so determined not to go outside that he actually was willing to sit buckled into a highchair in our movie room by himself without anything on the TV to watch. It's hard when they need to be near you and you need them to be...somewhere else.

One way or another, I did get them outside for a while, and I at least finished my letter. The Bible study took the rest of the day because I had to work on it in increments whenever I got the chance. When it was finally time for their nap, I thought they'd sleep for an extra long time. Their eyes were so droopy, I could tell they really needed sleep.

But, to my great misfortune and distress, they didn't sleep even as long as they normally do. It was a day of frustration.

I'm sorry to say, I don't think I was quite a top notch Mommy yesterday. By the time Aaron called to say he was coming home, I was pretty much in tears.

Today, however, was a totally different story. The boys weren't whiny. We got to go to MOPS, which they like. For once I actually left the house early, and didn't have to rush around like a madwoman trying to find them clean socks and where on earth did their shoes go?

Afterward we went to Burger King, where by some miracle, no one spilled anything, had a dirty diaper or ran away from me. Then we went home, I put them all down for naps...and they slept. It was glorious. The whole day was just so much more peaceful, and I have to thank God for that.

This is My Call

2010-05-02T15:36:00.001-06:00

This morning at church, this question was asked, "Where and to whom is God's calling taking you right now?"

This is my answer.

Where is God's calling taking me? It is taking me to my own home. And to whom? To my own family; my husband, my children. It is so simple, and yet it is the hardest thing I have ever done.

It is harder than going to a new school. Harder than moving to a new town. It's harder than talking to homeless strangers on the streets of Toronto or trying to show God's love to other students in a public school. It's harder than learning a dance and a drama as a means of sharing Christ in a foreign country.

All those things I have done, and all of them were difficult in some way or another. They all challenged me and stretched the limits of what I was comfortable with.

None of those things, however, has been as challenging as being a mom. Anyone can be a mother. It takes no special skill for a woman to carry and give birth to a child. Women's bodies are essentially designed for it.

But to be a mom, to care for and love, and pour your life into your children, and show them Who Christ is, that is a different thing entirely. And that is what I'm called to do.

Being responsible for other lives is at times overwhelming. I often feel at a loss. I don't know exactly what to do all the time. I am in unfamilair territory, leading these little children through life's jungles and just hoping, hoping and praying that I am going the right way.

It is harder than anything else I've ever done in response to the call of God because everything I do directly affects them. These little people see me every day. They see me when I'm tired, sick, and angry. They see me when I'm happy, sad, and depressed. They see me lonely, scared, and frusterated. They see my selfishness, and they see me when I hold them at night after a bad dream. They see everything. Even if they don't understand it, they see it, they feel it.

There is nowhere for me to hide. My life is bared before my family, and because of that I am constantly in need of the grace of God in my life. I am constantly running to Jesus for the strength I need to make it through the day, and to be the woman I am called to be. How like God to ask of me something that I so often feel utterly incapable and inadequate of doing. It forces me to look straight into the face of my need for Him.