The mother muddle



While it would be wonderful to have each day present itself as a perfect one, that’s just not reality.  No matter who you are or what you do.  Even the best laid plans often fall to ruins at our feet.  More days than I might care to admit, I don’t amaze myself at how nicely everything went and how well I did at my list of tasks.  Instead I see roadblocks and obstacles stacked up one after another and somehow we all still made it through the day

This week it was me, really super sick for the first time since Christmas.  So instead of diving into science and history in the calculated ways I’d planned, I let the kids catch bugs and line my kitchen counter with jars and bags of creatures.  Instead of cleaning my kitchen, I found myself laying on the couch waiting for my ear to explode while the kids watched their little insects, drew pictures of them and talked up a storm about bug life.

Instead of making it to appointments and playdates, the kids helped an extra lot around the house.  They emptied dishwasher loads, cleaned off eggs from the chickens, fed pets, cleaned up more than usual and served their sick mama who had spent the last two weeks caring for sick kids.

While we didn’t get to ‘science projects’ from our book, there are dissected bumble bees all over the counter right now.  There is a friendly caterpillar who’s become my 2 year olds’ best buddy in three days.

With me coaching from the couch how to make the mac and cheese that Kyler was determined to fix, he watched as the boiling water, noodles and cheese sauce made an overflowing, orange mess.   I rallied myself up and  smiled at him as I dumped it out and started another pot for him.  He got it all perfect the second time.  And he received grace and a second chance, which was (and is) precisely what his tender heart needs more times that I give it.

What I could have deemed a disaster but instead labeled a ‘field trip’ to the doctor’s office became an adventure.  The kids all squeezed into the little room and waited with me to have my ears checked for a half an hour.  They donned gloves and pretended to care for sick people.  They found the little doctor light and figured out how to raise and lower the table.  They delighted in every minute and I was too sick to argue.

The thing I’m just beginning to learn and appreciate is that in this ‘muddle-through’ way that we often make it through days raising little kids is that much of it is more beautiful than I realized.  And the plans that fall apart can, if I let them, lead to better things even more lovely than I expected.

Embracing the ways the days begin, unfold and finish is opening a door for me.  One to less disappointment and more joy.  If I could just keep going and walk on through, I’m quite certain we will all be better for it.

Three months later

It’s been just over three months.

Three months since my husbands’ dad didn’t return from a hunting trip.

Three months since he hopped into his car to go join the search crew.

Three months since my pregnant sister came in the dark of night to lay in my bed with me and wait.

Three months since I dropped the phone on the floor and screamed when the text came.

Just four words.   But they said everything.

The rest of the world moved on.  Life crawled forward.  Each of us is processing differently.  Very differently.

One wants to talk.  Another doesn’t.  One cries.  One doesn’t.

The covering of sadness still rests here regardless of the joy we have experienced in the meantime.

I have no idea how long it will stay.  I think for a while longer.  But there is no manual for this.  No map of what is ahead.  Just one day after one day after one day.

We can choose to remember or we can choose to forget.

We can choose hardness and anger or we can choose tender softness even though it hurts more.

We can choose to turn inward or outward and let someone hold our hand.

We can fuss and fret over small stuff or we can let things go and be thankful for what we’ve been given.

Life.  Health.  Beauty.  Love.

Seems to me that we are in a constant state of choosing.

Just when I think the kids don’t think about it….one who’s only 3 prays at the dinner table “please God, let Grammy live forever, don’t let her die too”….or I find the kids in the family room “playing funeral Mama, I’m pretending my baby son died”.   I let them be.  We have not forced anything with them.   We have offered space to process and feel in all our different ways.  Just listened and loved and answered question after question as they walk the path with us.

One sure thing is we aren’t the same.  We won’t be the same.  Love and loss leave a mark.

I think it’s largely up to us to choose what kind of mark.  One mark of bitterness or one of grace.

The thing about women

…is that we often don’t mean what we say.  Or say what we mean to.  Which leads to not taking what other women say at face value.  It’s part of our highly relational, complicated nature.  It’s something that throws a major wrench in marital communication – at least in my experience.  I’m guilty too often of agreeing to something that I didn’t really want to do but said was fine, or saying I didn’t care about something when actually I cared a lot.

Rylee recently heard me say I liked something and then asked me later if I really liked it.  I tried to navigate my way through explaining the need for honesty and for respecting other people’s opinions about things.  It’s a fine line and one that as it came out of my mouth made less sense than before.

So last night, as I headed to Costco with only one kids while the others were out with dad, I sent a text to a good friend who I know has been really sick all week with flu/migraine yucky stuff.  I asked if I could pick anything up for her while I was there.  I purchased all my things and didn’t hear from her.  Audrey was starting to throw fits about the cart so even though she was in jammies, I let her out to walk around on the dirty concrete floor.

Then I checked my phone one last time and read this text:

Yes.
Jiff crmy p-nut btr,
yogurt,
string chease
graded chease,
cheezits
fruit snacks,
little cans of apple jce,
and hamburger buns.

R u sure u want to get all of this stuff for us its alot.

I chuckled a bit and asked the checker for another cart and ran back through the store to get her list.  I guessed on what kind of cheese and which fruit snacks but had to call about the yogurt.

“Hi, it’s me I got Yoplait is that okay for yogurt?”

“Yes, but I’m just getting out of the bath, I was trying to gear up and not throw up long enough to go up the street to the grocery store for food for the kids and I’m just reading the text you sent-” (I’m thinking that’s funny because I already received a list!) “-the kids had my phone and they texted you back, I had no idea!  I’m so sorry, I told them you must have the kids with them and that was too many things and-”

I interrupted and started laughing and told her I had it all in my cart already and I would drop it by in a bit.  We laughed and laughed and hung up and I took tantrum throwing Audrey, bribed her with chocolate-covered pomegranates, bought my second cart of stuff and high tailed it out of there.

As I got in the car I was so amused and thought about it all the way to pick the kids up.   When that text came, I was delighted, and honestly surprised that she would say yes and let me help in that way.  I am the same way, much preferring to be the one giving the help than receiving.  I’m growing and in the last 4 months I’ve had to accept more help than I can list because of the dual-kidney infection and losing Chris’ dad.

With small children it’s easy to feel like you can’t really do much to help people out but there is usually something small but significant that you actually can do.  And getting the chance to bless something by grabbing groceries or dropping off a meal is as much a gift to me as it is to the person I’m doing it for.

My friends’ teenagers saw their really sick mom, their dad was working late and they needed food for lunches.  So when they read my offer to get stuff, they didn’t filter it through the “does she really mean it or is she just offering to be nice?” filter that we as women tend to use too often.  They took me at my word, say yes please help and allowed me the gift of blessing them.

How much easier would life be if we did this all the time!?

If when my husband says “Man you look hot!” I just said thank you and smiled instead of thinking about the 20 pounds more I should lose.

If when a friend offers to bring dinner and I’m not ‘that sick’, I just say yes and thank you and trust that she’ll be blessed in blessing me.

Chris and I had a great laugh thinking about how much my friends’ kids could have milked it, I could have been asked to bring candy bars, soda or chips and since they text in the same abbreviated fashion as their mama, I’d never have questioned it.  I’d just have showed up with whatever they asked for.  I told her they were good kids to just ask for what they needed and they must have said thank you to me ten times in the five minutes I was there.

Lessons I’m learning, it’s a constant thing isn’t it?

Perfectionism’s downfall

Being a responsible first born and growing up in a family where success and ‘making a contribution’ were at the top of the importance list (which isn’t necessarily bad!), it’s no surprise to me that I’ve struggled all my life living under enormous pressure to be perfect.  Much of it I’ve heaped upon myself, all by myself.

Perfectionism is innately prideful, in my opinion, and says “I should be able to do all, and do ‘all’ well, all by myself”.  When I type it out it sounds utterly ridiculous.  But as it plays out and creeps up time and again in my life, it somehow holds tremendous weight.  I want to be independent, self-sufficient and capable enough to do the job right, whatever it may be.

Being a mother is ripping the grip of the facade of ‘perfect’ away, one painful piece at a time.  While I may have thought before I was rearing children that my life was fairly ideal and I had a pretty good grip on things, I certainly realize now that it isn’t and I don’t.

For me the great trap is believing that if I can’t do it perfect, I shouldn’t do it at all.

If I can’t work out 6 days a week at 6 AM then I shouldn’t even try.

Turns out doing a quick video workout at home is still better than nothing and my body thanks me for it.

If I can’t have a devoted and lengthy time of prayer and study then I should just forget the whole thing.

Well, to be honest I still feel like this sometimes but I’m coming to see that it’s actually a big cop-out.

If I can’t start the day with order and a somewhat clean home, then I should just forget cleaning entirely.

Despite the dread I feel waking up to a house disaster, I still am better off trying to get ahead throughout the day.

If I can’t eat foods that are more nourishing for me then I should just give up and eat cookies all day.

Turns out this mentality has kept me looking 5 months pregnant while my ‘baby’ is two years old, talk about flawed thought!

As a wise writer and speaker said so simply in January, “Work harder”.  No one else is going to exercise for me, make healthy food choices, hug my children for me, give honor to my husband or make more time for school/chores/cleaning/cooking.

Regardless of how great the mound of life is that is set before me, it is my life to live.  It is my responsibility, dare I say my privilege to live it out.  I may not feel like it today, or this month.  I may be in a bit of a funk.  I may be filled with doubt about things that I’ve always held to be true.

But if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my life it’s this:

Life isn’t all about me.

I can do everything in my power to make my children do something and sometimes they still won’t do it.  They are after all their own little persons.

I can try to impart the truths and values that are important to me and then listen as my son answers the question ‘What is Easter all about?’ tonight with these few words ‘I have no idea.’  I could have died I was so embarrassed.

Despite multiple lessons in modesty, somehow my almost 4 year old still welcomes the UPS man at the front door while wearing absolutely no clothes.

One would think with the daily dose of humility I am offered in this life with little ones that I would maybe arrive at some great place of ‘letting go’.  While I truly have let go of much, there is still so much I hold onto…and for what?  I don’t really know.

Random thoughts I know, but since I’ve been blog-quiet for so long, that’s all I have to share tonight…

Three questions I am pondering…

Who are you?

Who do you serve?

Where are you going?

These three have me thinking quite a bit, for each one is extremely significant.  I will definitely be chewing on these life impacting questions for a while.