Taking care of Mama – Mom Heart Conference!

Taking care of everyone else in this house takes up most of my time.  When the day is done and everyone else is bathed, fed and full of new information and ideas….I am often spent and empty.

I don’t do a great job at factoring in margin for myself.  With Chris gone as much as he is, my little coffee shop getaways and afternoons spent browsing the thrift store are a distant memory (at least in frequency).  When I get away, it’s to meal plan, get school/craft supplies, fix the car, go to a mtg,  get a gift for someone or simply shop for groceries.  I feel like I’m always on a mission for something and don’t really even possess the ability to take my guard down and relax.

This has all sorts of ramifications but the most obvious are things like the  old adage that goes something like “When mama ain’t happy, nobody ain’t happy”.  My lack of care for myself, my lack of time spent in stillness (which is a huge matter of discipline for me, one I’m utterly failing in at present) and my lack of rest/sleep in general impact the very core of our home in a monumental way.

I hate that.  At least today I do.  I can go months and feel like I’m dealing all right with the burden of responsibility on my shoulders but then comes a few things that put me over the top.  Extra challenging behavior from a child.  Another’s sleep habits reverting back to newborn baby style sleep.  Bad manners from my kids one too many times at the dinner table.  Am I raising children or farm animals I wondered one night this week?

So when I get in a funk and struggle to see beyond the momentary mishaps of life, everybody else seems to join me there.  Then we’re just a ball of fun to be with

That doesn’t seem fair to me.  But nobody asked me unfortunately.  God gifted me with these little people and chose me above anyone else to be their mother.  He has proven His goodness to me for decades and has never left me alone in the desert.

But sometimes I still question.  I still dare to wonder why.  And my wondering never takes me anywhere but right back to what I know to be true.

God is His infinite faithfulness and love for me, will walk with me and carry me along on the journey even when I feel like I can’t take another step.

One way I’m working on taking care of me is planning to attend a conference in January put on by the author of my favorite books on being a mom.  Every book of hers I’ve read has ministered to my heart.  And I know that spending two days hearing her speak will be even better.

Sally Clarkson and her husband have a ministry together that brings a bold message of God’s truth to parents today.  I wrote a review here a while back about the last book of hers I read.

If you are a mom and there is any way you can attend one of her conferences I am sure you will be blessed by being there.  I am attending the one in Denver in January and can hardly wait.

In the meantime, I’m heading to Arizona for a week with all four little ones to visit a dear friend and her three kids.  Should be an adventure and I’m sure the sunshine and the friendship will be good for all of us!

Where our toys come from…

If you would rather not think about it, feel free to move on to another happier post.  This one isn’t meant to be a downer and I’m by no means an expert on the matter.  I own my fair share of made in China clothes and toys.  I get excited when I find a shirt on sale at Old Navy for $.97.  But when I pause and think, as my sister reminded me the day I bought that shirt, about the conditions of where that shirt was made and how much someone got paid to make it.  The reality is they were probably less than ideal and their wages were likely next to nothing.  I know one could argue that it’s just the way the world works but when you stop and think about it, it isn’t very wonderful.

During the gift-giving time of year that is soon to come, I think more about this issue than I do the rest of the year.  It doesn’t take a genious to figure out that it costs more money to buy something made in America than something made in China.  There are complicated, involved and overwhelming details that give reason to that fact.

Last year we tried to make a shift to simpler, more handmade gifts.  I shopped garage sales and thrift stores and discovered the lovely land of Etsy.  Instead of filling stockings with toys from the dollar store that were cheap, plastic, junky things that would end up in our trash in a few days, we bought small books from a used book store and I sewed up some simple projects for each of the kids.

I also tracked down a couple things we were looking for on Craigslist that were almost new – the kids never knew they’d been played with already and if they had I’m not sure they would even care.

As I sat with Rylee this week and looked for baby dolls for Audrey for Christmas online, she said “Why aren’t we looking at the plastic ones like my old baby?”.  I decided to broach the topic with her and we had a long talk about how (and where) some toys are made and that some are made by children her age in countries where most people are poor and no one takes a stand to make sure everyone is treated fairly while they work.

There are gads of newspaper articles and forums online and groups that lobby for human rights.  In reading them, here is one quote from a Washington Post article:

In the city of Dongguan in southern Guangdong province, where Wal-Mart suppliers are concentrated, a 27-year-old worker who gave her name as Miss Qin complained that she can rarely afford meat with her $75-per-month wages at Kaida Toy Co. “Every day we eat vegetables, mostly we eat vegetables,” she said, leaning over a plate of fried carrots in a dingy restaurant.

Qin helps make plastic toy trains for Wal-Mart, but says she cannot afford to buy toys for her 9-year-old son. “In four years, they haven’t increased the salary,” she said.

It is so much easier to turn a blind eye to this that it is to give it a second thought.

I would have rather not talked about that with my 6 1/2  year old but I really believe that she is old enough to understand.  I want to do my best to raise children who dare to ask questions, who are willing to do things differently even if it’s not the status quo and who have the courage to stand up for justice whether it’s cool or not.

So little conversations like these, in my own opinion, help us live that out with our kids.

Rylee helped me choose a lovely hand crafted, locally made baby doll for Audrey for Christmas.  It is unique and beautiful in it’s own handmade kind of way.  It was obviously more expensive than a baby doll from Target.  But it will be her only gift this year, instead of several cheaper things that would end up broken or given away in a month or two.

There are still some things I’ll buy from Amazon and of course we’ll pick up some Legos for the boys but in general, we’re working hard to buy local, handmade items even though that means less bang for the buck.  I’ll put together my favorite kid gifts for the year in case you are interested in any ideas…

Fall family fun

We’ve enjoyed getting pumpkins and celebrating fall with my sister Danielle for several years (here is my post from last October)  and this year – for the first time – our other sister now graduated from college, was able to join us.  It was a muddy, perfect, beautiful, cold day.  Upon peeking outside at the weather, I grabbed my bulky old Minolta SLR for the adventure.  The pictures I get on that camera are always better than the ones from our little digital pocket camera so I decided it was worth the hassle for this lovely day:

If you’ve made it this far, bravo!  Here are my top two reasons for busting out my old 35 mm camera:

Those eyes melt my heart.  All four of them.

I love this boy.

What is Christmas about?

It’s a question I know the answer to but one I’m asking myself every day around this time of year.  As the kids are growing, my heart wants so much to keep the craziness out of the season and to welcome a sense of peace and awe instead.

The simple story of Christmas is so profound, so beautiful and so humbling.

And it’s often so absent from the holiday entirely.

Before I say ’so’ again, I just wanted to share a few ways we are trying to be deliberate about keeping the focus on the Gift that was given and hope that you will share any ways you’ve done the same!

1. Last year we hosted an Operation Christmas Child shoebox filling party.  It was last minute, thrown together and small.  But as we sat and watched the DVD they sent us of children in poverty around the world opening their Christmas boxes filled with the simplest things – it was precious.  We were all blessed and it was a poignant reminder that even though many in our country have less than we’re used to, we still live in great abundance.
2. We participate in an Adopt-a-Family program where we have gift specifics for a family in our community who can’t manage the basics of Christmas gifts.  The last two years Rylee and I have delivered these gifts together.
3. We do the bulk of gift opening on various nights with family before Christmas and keep Christmas day sacred and simple.  There is no gift opening frenzy but there are new toys around.  I’ll write another post about this day specifically.
4. With no TV, our kids don’t really know what they want.  When I asked them to help me with a list for them, honestly they had trouble.  They aren’t saints, they simply play with what they have, don’t go to toy stores and don’t see commercials every day for the latest thing.  While you could argue they are deprived, we’d disagree and say that it works for us!
5. To make room for new things and to maintain the ‘others mentality’, we have the kids choose one thing each (at least) to give away to someone who would enjoy it.  Something cool and in good shape, not something destined for the trash.

If you have time and want to participate, the Operation Christmas Child organization is wonderful.  With one click on their website you can order a ‘party pack’ (mailed to you for free!) with all sorts of fun supplies, including a very moving DVD, coloring sheets, stickers and pictures of kids with their boxes.

I also read this post on simplemom that had some great ideas on helping your kids focus outward during Christmas.

These are some favorite books that have helped us to focus and mold our own traditions for Christmas as we have established our family.

• The ADVENTure of Christmas by Lisa Whelchel
• Treasuring God in our Traditions by Noel Piper
• The Story of St Nicholas by Cheryl Odden (a book for children that tells the actual story of St. Nick)
• The Crippled Lamb by Max Lucado (we have the DVD of this, there is a book as well, very sweet story)
• Frank Peretti’s Wild and Wacky Bible Stories Christmas audio CD (we have this book and it is very captivating if you can deal with the superfluous text that makes it more story like-I have heard awesome things about this CD series)

Any ideas or traditions or books you would be willing to share on this topic?

According to the dig

If hundreds of years passed and our house was buried under dirt and rocks and archaeologists came to discover about the ancient Strovas civilization by carefully roping off quadrants and sifting through the rubble piece by piece, then these are the findings they would report (according the our mock bean box dig and study of archaeology/history this afternoon!):

They knew how to can their food.

They played baseball.

They could build things with their toys.

They could buy stuff.

They could cut things.

They could keep themselves clean and clip their nails.

They could drive or play with cars.

They had a baby with hair that needed to be in clips.

They could write.

They had electricity and could call people.

They had garbage.

They could cook and eat.

They had tools.

They drank beer.

(smile)

I love this.