My Happy Basket

This week I put together a “happy basket”. A little basket of things that I can easily reach for that help my happy levels.  I can keep this basket by my bed, or bring it downstairs during quiet time, and have a selection of things that just boost my mood close at hand.

I spent some time thinking about things that make me feel happier. These are often spread around my house so I don’t think about them right away when I am feeling low. Placing them all in the basket, gives me a go to spot to help my mood. I have helped my son create a “toolbox” of things that help him when he is anxious, I figure mommy can have one, too!

So what is in it? I am glad you asked!

I started with a very small basket because I wanted to be really selective of what I included. If the basket was too big, it would be tempting to fill it with just anything.

First up, of course, is my Kindle reader! I mostly read on my phone, but there is something more relaxing about my reader. It is more focused reading (read: it doesn’t have Facebook or Pinterest).

Then I added a book of 5 minute mommy meditations. This book has great tools for meditating in short times, which, honestly, is all I have!

I included a favorite candle. This one might be hard to use because kids, but just opening it and smelling it brings me joy.

There is a notepad and a colored pen. I love colored pens. A notepad is for all the ideas that pop in to my head. And for brain dumping things that need to just get out of my head!

I received a charcoal mask for Christmas, so I put that in because I know it will be relaxing and bring joy. It would never get used if left in a drawer. I think I will try to keep something like this as a “revolving” item. A little beauty product or pampering thing.

This basket also holds tissues. Because sometimes the best way back to happy is right through the middle of a solid cry. I can’t count the number of times I have held it together until naptime and then sat down and let it all out. My days can include some intense moments. Crying is just another way back to where I need to be. Then, when I am done crying, I head to the last item in the basket….

The last item might be the most important. It is a little bag that holds chocolate. But, shhh! My family doesn’t know this. I don’t open this when anyone is around. It is just a little “mommy pick me up”. Sometimes I keep a bag of M&M’s, sometime it is truffles or something else I have picked up.

This basket is just a small set of things that bring me back to a better level of happy. That add joy when I am down. That provide that little lift to keep going. A little basket of things that says life will be ok, that mommy will make it another day, that there are little bits of joy in the day. I just have to look for them…right here in my happy basket.

My Story, His Story

I was asked to speak at church last week in a series called "My Story, His Story" sharing how God has come in to my life story. There will be an audio version at some point, until then, here is the text I prepared and spoke from....

Zack told me that I was finishing out this series and, since Mother’s Day is the 3^rd highest day for church attendance each year, to not “blow it”. I do appreciate the faith that he has put in me for this morning, hopefully I can live up to that, but I am the mother of 4 kids ages 5 and under and time to prepare was hard to come by! I do feel like I am coming in with an advantage of having heard the amazing stories of others for the last few weeks.  As each person has started to speak they said they prayed and asked their spouse to pray when Zack asked them to speak. I am just going to confess that I didn’t do that! I just said YES! Then I felt really guilty as I sat  there the last few weeks, did I just fail the first test of speaking at church? But then I thought really I have been asking God for the opportunity to share my story for several years, because even as I was going through these struggles, I wanted God to use them to help others. So here I am.

Mother’s Day

And its Mother’s Day, of all days, to share my story. Just a couple warnings. One, I had a baby a little over a month ago and my emotions are a little close to the surface this morning so I may cry, and two, this isn’t your typical happy Mother’s Day story. Actually, I have learned over the last several years that for many many people, in many different walks of life, that Mother’s Day isn’t nearly as happy as Hallmark would like us to believe.

In my case, it was the path to motherhood itself that would lead me through some of the darkest days of my life, where I was journeying right through the valley of the shadow of death and clinging to the Lord when I couldn’t see the road in front of me. I learned a lot about myself and the nature of God as I walked.

A journey of faith

Long before I was thinking seriously about motherhood, God had already started me on a journey that would challenge me and build up my faith, which looking back I can see I really needed to be able to get through the last several years. Ralph Waldo Emerson once said “all I have seen teaches me to  trust the creator for all I have not seen”. We can actually church up that Emerson quote quite a bit with Hebrews 11:1 which says “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen”. God uses experiences in our lives to build up our faith and trust in him.  So I will start with a journey of faith.

Spokane to Washington, DC

This journey starts just over the mountains in Spokane, where I grew up, went to elementary, middle school, high school, and college. At Eastern Washington University, I studied economics as a social science, which is different (code for “not as useful”) than a business economics degree. My dad, being very wise, questioned what I would do with this degree. Well, graduate school, of course! And then I would probably teach. During my senior year of college I was offered a full scholarship to WSU. I took a class on leadership where we had to write about where we wanted to be in 10 years. When I wrote that paper, I could see myself living and working in Washington, DC, a city I had loved since I was 14 and had visited with my family. I also had loved local politics for years, had interned for a Congressman, and wanted to experience life “inside the beltway”.  Writing that paper, made me realize I didn’t want to wait 10 years and a graduate degree to live that life, with God’s help and faith, I realized there was a little voice in my heart saying I really didn’t want to go to school anymore right then and I was to go get a job in Washington, DC. That took a lot of faith to put in to words and share with others. It was crazy for a girl with a full scholarship to a graduate program to want to try for a job on the other side of the country. But I wasn’t just crazy, I had faith that God was in this plan….so I prayed about what to do and came back with the idea that I shouldn’t wait until I had a job, I should just move there anyway because it would be easier to look for a job in person! I should add here that my parents had moved to Florida by this time and my back up plan was just to head south to their door step if this plan didn’t work out. So I packed up my car, my cat, and a whole lot of courage and set out on a very long drive. God was faithful. My phone rang as I was driving through Indiana on a Thursday. It was someone from the United States Census Bureau calling to set up a phone interview for Monday. I said “actually I can be there in person, what’s the address?” I was hired 2 weeks later. It was a crazy plan, far from the comfort and safety of home but it was where God asked me to go and my faith grew watching His plan to give me the desires of my heart unfold.

Back to Graduate School

As I left Spokane and school behind, I promised myself, though, that I would only work for 3 years and then I would for sure go to graduate school. Living just inside the beltway I poured myself in to my job, which I loved. It was lots of numbers, a surprising amount of travel, and I was on the track to be a manager…but wait, I was supposed to go back to school and I told everyone 3 years was my limit.  At year 2 I started to work on my plan to go back to school, but I wasn’t all that excited about it. I wanted to stay and work. Work was fun. Work paid money! But I felt again that push that said “go, do this new uncomfortable thing and see what will happen”. Well, this time I had scholarships to choose from so I picked the one closest to my parents, and started graduate school at the University of Florida. I was back on track to that graduate degree.

Except that I HATED school. It was awful. I was sure I was in the very wrong place. Surely I must have misheard God because my life had pretty much taken what I thought was a VERY wrong turn. So much so that I left the University of Florida after one semester. I made plans to return to Virginia and try a different school and if that didn’t work, I was sure my job would be waiting at the Census Bureau.

I knew my job would be waiting because it had actually kind of stayed with me. When I left the Census Bureau they had a project they were willing to contract out. I was able to work part time as a contractor while I was in graduate school. This was a huge provision from God when school didn’t work out AND over the next several years as I would continue to do contract work for the government which would support my family, put my husband through college, and allow me to even have an employee for a few years.

Getting Married

Life isn’t always a struggle of faith, though, sometimes you pray and have a desire and it happens faster than you could even imagine…faster than maybe even your parents think is a good idea! And that is how I met my husband!!! The University of Florida is in a smallish college town in the middle of pretty much swamp. If you are not in school, there isn’t much to do. And I was not in school and waiting for my lease to be up, so it seemed like a good time to try online dating. In January of 2008, I saw the profile of a very good looking pilot and, as I would find out as we emailed, talked, and met over the coming weeks he was also smart, funny, and a man of God. It took me only weeks to tell my parents that this was the man I was going to marry….We started out with a long distance relationship of 200 miles. We would do a LOT of driving on the weekends. One very late night I was driving the two hours home and a panther ran in front of my car, that will tend to scare a person in the dark!! I swerved and rolled my car. I had a lot of angels that night because I was able to crawl out of the car mostly unharmed. It seemed like this was sign that long distance wasn’t going to be a good idea. We knew God was the center of our relationship and we were meant to be married so to keep everyone alive,  after dating for 3 months, we were married under a live oak tree outside the county clerks office (this is a fancy way to say “we eloped”) . God had very quickly answered my prayers for a husband and was showing me why I had felt that I needed to leave DC the year before…it wasn’t for school, it was to be within the 200 mile search radius of the man he had picked out for me, it was certainly a showing of following in faith to come to the things “not yet seen”, really, at the time I had left DC, I wasn’t even thinking of meeting my husband in Florida. God is just that good!

Wanting kids

We still had a wedding with family and friends on the beach, but since we had already done the official part, my dad could do the ceremony.  It was 9 years ago last week that Mark and I stood  on a sunny beach and vowed again to love each other through all times. We knew we wanted to have children right away, 4 of them.  Mark was 32, I was 25 and we were ready to jump right in to starting our family. I had some idea that getting pregnant might not be super easy for me since I was diagnosed with endometriosis at age 19 so when a few months went by we were already checking in with a doctor.

Infertility treatments

For the next couple years we would pursue infertility treatments that were progressively more aggressive. At first, it was take some oral medications at certain times of the month. Then we moved on to doing nightly shots, Mark worked out a system where he would get the shots ready, hand me a cookie, and then give me the shot while I was distracted. All of the treatments came invasive testing every few days or even sometimes every day. We lived 2 hours from our infertility clinic, so I would make the 4+hour trip many times in a week. I also had surgery twice to remove endometriosis and ovarian cysts. I was also diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome during this time. It was taking a whole team of doctors, a LOT of money, and so much patience with trial and error treatments to get me pregnant.

First miscarriage

But after a couple years, I finally did get pregnant and we were so excited. For a short time, and then we learned I would miscarry this baby we had prayed and worked so hard for. We were devastated. I was sad. I felt let down by God. But we kept going because one miscarriage isn’t that uncommon and we still really wanted a baby and we knew that God was faithful. I had just spent the last 4 years on a pretty big cross country journey teaching me quite a lot about how faithful God will be and I would need all that faith. At this point we were praying for a baby however God might provide one (Mark assured me that stealing wasn’t a God answer).

Second miscarriage

Another year went by and I got pregnant again. And again we were excited, a little more cautious, but it was hard to not be excited. This time I had gotten pregnant and we were not even doing infertility treatments. Surely this would be the one. Until I woke up bleeding on the 4^th of July. It was a quiet ride to the hospital, where thankfully my parents met us, and we learned I was miscarrying again. Two weeks later, my grandfather died. Two weeks after that I found out my current work contract that was supporting our family, would be cut to a third of its size. I was diagnosed with depression at this time, but a large part of my feelings was anger.  I was just flat mad and mostly at God because as I asked “why” over and over and over, I felt like all I was hearing was silence.  Which was conflicting because I also still had this faith in God that said God is good and God is faithful to us.

Emotions

One day I came up with this image…a child sitting in her father’s lap screaming and beating against his chest with her fists and her father’s arms wrapped around her. That child was so mad at her father that she wanted to hit him. BUT she also knew her father loved her so much that she knew the safest and best place to be was in her father’s arms. That was the day I started to realize that God created emotions and God meets us in our emotions. We don’t have to have only the “good” emotions with God, we can share all our emotions and He can take it.

Adoption

Well, it was after that miscarriage and a lot of testing that we learned I had a chromosome mix up that causes repeated miscarriages. And we had to grieve all over again and struggle again with God. I had wanted babies since I was little girl, this was a good desire, it is a Biblical desire, and yet, in my mind, God wasn’t answering. But we had asked him to lead our journey and we just wanted a baby however God would provide one and at this point our journey started taking us towards adoption. In adoption, God gave us an unusual charge…to adopted a child of a specific race and gender. This is unusual because when you are in the process of adopting through the U.S. private adoption system you are told to be as open as possible to race and so that more birth mother’s would see our profile. I was frustrated that God seemed to be telling us otherwise. But God met me in my frustration and said “Be still for I am God”. Over and over I heard that in my head even as it made no sense to be restrictive. Well, we were approved to adopt on November 22^nd and Isaac was born on February 22^nd…we have about the fastest adoption of anyone we have met! God asked us to be faithful and was he ever faithful in return!! We finally had our baby, the perfect baby meant for us. One more confirmation of that? The miscarriage I had the year before? Isaac was born on my due date. God is good all the time.

There are lots of emotions in adoption. God has sat with me in those emotions, too, and I pray that Isaac’s birth mother knows today that God is with her as well. I think my favorite quote to sum up the emotions of adoption is this “A child born to another woman calls me mommy. The magnitude of that tragedy and the depth of that privilege is not lost on me”. Even 5 years later, I am overwhelmed with emotions as I watch Isaac play at times and it is all I can do to cry out to God for his amazing goodness in adoption. As a side note on adoption, adoptive parents get a very unique opportunity to understand the adoption of each of us in to God’s family in a way that I truly believe can only be comprehended when you are told by a judge that this child is now and forever yours, talk about emotions that day!!

But the journey didn’t end there. I would go on to get pregnant again. And miscarry again. It was a little different because I had a baby to love and snuggle as I cried. But I was still sad and God still sat with me as I cried because I wanted this baby, too.

 Oklahoma City

At this point in the story, we took another turn. Mark was finishing his engineering degree and looking for a job. He told me about one in Oklahoma City and I said, “sure, go for it, you don’t have to take it if they offer it to you, it will be good practice, but it isn’t like we are going to just move from Florida to Oklahoma”. I think God laughed right then. Mark ended up with 2 job offers. One in Oklahoma City and one in Wichita, KS. There is nothing that makes Oklahoma City seem quite so appealing as being told your other option is Wichita. But we decided to test God and make sure this Oklahoma thing was really from him. Mark asked for a signing bonus to help pay for our move, we were told they would probably say no…and they said yes. Ok, God, thanks for the confirmation, I think. Two months later, Mark finished school and we were moving to Oklahoma and Mark would begin working for the Boeing Company. It was hard to leave my parents, and take their only grandchild that they had also hoped and prayed for, and move halfway back across the country. But again, God asked us to trust and be faithful and His plan would be good.

Joel

When Isaac was a year old, I got pregnant yet again (for the 4^th time in 4 years) but this time would be different. We prayed and hoped just as much as every other time. We had our brand new small group in Oklahoma literally stand around us in a circle and pray for this growing baby to be healthy. God said yes this time and we would see a flickering heartbeat on an ultrasound and months later bring home Joel.

Miscarriages again

After Joel was born I miscarried three more time. Each one brought a time of mourning, of questioning, of thinking we were probably crazy for continuing to try for more children, and a lot of sadness because now those babies had faces, after Joel was born I knew what our babies would look like, and I was heartbroken even as I continued to care for my sons. But God kept meeting me in those emotions and was still whispering on my heart “I am not done with you. I am not done giving you children. Watch and be faithful.”

Fourth pregnancy after Joel

The fourth time I got pregnant after Joel was born, I was not excited at all. I mostly ignored the fact. I was tired of this. And I told that to God. A lot. God I am TIRED of this cycle!! And God said “no, my grace is sufficient for you and all you have to do is hold on. I know you are tired, but I will carry you.” We went to the doctor again, and finally saw another flickering heart beat and Peter would be joining our family, but not in Oklahoma.

Leaving Oklahoma

See we really didn’t like Oklahoma all that much for a pretty good reason. Tornados are terrible weather events and we just happened to move to Moore, Oklahoma 5 months before it would be ravaged by an F5 tornado we could see from our front window. We didn’t know when we entered the shelter if our home would be standing when we came out. It was, but I think that was the day we started praying to God to help us move from Oklahoma. Later that year Mark was asked to start working for a program based in Seattle. Another year and a half later, we were still praying we could move to Seattle but our prayers were getting really intense…because by this time we had outrun a tornado in our car one evening, and other day had a tornado come straight at our house, lift back off the ground to go over it and come back down a few blocks away. While we were very thankful God was keeping us safe, we were not enjoying this way of life! Finally, after much much prayer (and hard work by Mark) we were granted the opportunity to move to Seattle. Since my parents had moved here the year before, this was an amazing chance to have our boys closer to their grandparents, and get extra help now that we had a third child on the way. Peter was born 4 months later.

Peter, Special needs

God has special plans for Peter, I know he does, because God made Peter extra special. When Peter was a month old we realized his eyes moved all the time back and forth but he didn’t look at anyone or anything. Over the next few months our hearts grew heavy as it became more evident that Peter couldn’t really see much. At his 6 month well baby check up, he failed every developmental milestone test. We already had an appointment with a pediatric ophthalmologist scheduled and we found out that his eyes were very weak. The rapid eye movement, called a nystagmus, could indicate he had a neurological defect and he needed an MRI. I cried as I watched him get put to sleep, I cried through the entire test, I prayed that he would be just fine. God heard all that, I know he did, but the answer was not what I wanted. Peter has a rare brain defect, Optic Nerve Hypoplasia, that not only means his optic nerve bundle is small, but that other parts of his brain are also underdeveloped. This condition occurs in utero and cannot be fix. It is a whole different kind of sadness and heartbreak that comes when you learn your child will potentially face a lifetime of difficulties you just can’t fix for him. I had to struggle again to remember the goodness of God. The God who made Peter, who could have made Peter whole but did not. I have to trust that God has a plan for Peter, but I don’t know what it is yet. In the meantime, I have been reminded that even on the days that I am tired of going to one more appointment at the Children’s Hospital, that I am tired of having therapists in our home 3 days a week, that I am tired of making sure Peter doesn’t hurt himself because of his low vision and lack of depth perception, that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.   

Eloise

Mark said this next part of the story is where God just shows off and I have to agree with him. When Peter was 8 months old, I got pregnant again and we DIDN’T continue the trend of miscarrying between viable pregnancies. God, in his mercies, allowed that pregnancy    to be our daughter Eloise. We finally have those 4 children we wanted so long ago…not at all the journey I would have planned or expected but it was the one where I would grow the most. I have been asked more than once how I endured all those losses and I often say “by God’s grace” because there is just no part of my human strength that could have done it alone. I believe it was also the grace of God that allowed me to have Eloise without having a miscarriage first. I can stand here today and say that God now has me on a journey of healing and God is still very good.

Challenge

I just want to give a challenge today to let God meet you in your emotions. Whatever journey you are on, whatever you are feeling, let God join you there. I want to especially talk to women for a minute. There are a lot of expectations on women, in the world it is to be “Pintrest worthy”, in the church it is to be the Proverbs 31 woman. Well, the Bible doesn’t say this, but since she was female, I am going to theorize that the Proverbs 31 woman broke down and cried more than one. But she is still in the Bible! It is ok to cry, it is ok to be angry, it is ok to just feel your feelings, but know this…God can take it. Invite him to meet you in your emotions and you will find out he is already there waiting.

Waiting mothers

And for anyone among us that is still waiting for their baby. I will be praying for you. I am super impressed you came to church on Mother’s Day. You are brave. You are showing faithfulness to God. I don’t know how your journey will go, I can’t promise you a baby (as much as I desperately want to), but I can promise that God is here, God is listening, God wants the very best for you, and God is good. All the time.

Thank you.

A Few Thoughts on Adoption

November does a lot of celebrating of adoption...World Adoption Day (today), National Adoption Day (in a few weeks), and Orphan Sunday (for you church folks)...all this month so there is a lot of talk about adoption out there for a few weeks.

One look at my family and it should be pretty obvious that this topic is near to my heart. So dear, in fact, that we don't really need November to remind us...we celebrate adoption daily.

But it never hurts to stop and share a few thoughts...so here are a few that have been floating around in my head.

First, "orphan" is not my favorite word to use in adoption. Yes, there are a LOT of orphans and many of them are adopted into homes but not all adoptees are "orphans" exactly. That implies a lack of parents. My son never lacked in parents. In fact, he has an abundance! He went from one set of loving parents to another through an amazing act of love. My point:

1. A young man walked up to my husband and me, shook our hands, and expressed his appreciation and gratitude for the journey we were about to take to raise his son.
2. A young woman with tears in her eyes transferred a tiny little baby into my arms, said "I will always love him", and turned away so she wouldn't have to watch us leave with her son in our arms.

That boy was loved by parents from his first moment. He isn't an orphan. Ok, that was sort of my soap box moment. 

Moving on.

Second, sitting in church on "Orphan Sunday", I wondered if it gets at more Christians to use that wording because of the whole idea of orphans adopted by God? I don't really know. What I would have liked to have said to our church family, and I may well ask to say at some point, is that you don't have to adopt to care for the orphans (silly idea...but you don't have to marry to care for a widow, so there). We needed (still need? may always need?) a huge amount of support to adopt. There were many places our church family at the time stepped in...financially, physically (fundraising is WORK, people!), and emotionally. In my mind these people were very involved in adoption even if they didn't take the child home (and a few probably would have!). I think a lot of Christians don't feel like they are in a position to take in a child so they do nothing but those are the extremes...just find an adopted or foster family and come alongside us. We all need it. Trust me.

Third, it isn't really possible to describe how I felt the day Isaac's adoption was finalized and he was forever a member of our family and I was forever his mom. I just can't wrap words around the impact of the judge asking if we were swearing to be this child's parents forever and then issuing the final "forever" verdict. Yet this is also what God did for us in adopting us into his family. Honestly, before  I stood before the judge on finalization day I don't think I fully grasped the implications of adoption by God. Maybe it was just me, I don't know, but I almost think there isn't any way to fully grasp the adoptive love of God without adopting a child. I know that is most likely an oversimplification, and not everyone is going to adopt, but, man, if you are considering adoption....just know that it will have some crazy profound impacts like this one that you never even considered. 

People say we changed Isaac's life, true enough, but no one gives quite enough credit to how much Isaac' changed our lives.

Taking the Cake

I could share many Isaac stories from each day, but this one from today, quite literally, takes the cake!!!

Let me back up. For Father's Day we bought a chocolate scoop cake. This is basically layers of cake, chocolate mousse, and whip cream in a container about 5 inches tall. It tastes amazing! 

Isaac seems to agree.

We decided to have the cake for our dessert after dinner and gave each boy a small bowl. Both of them finished quickly and then proceeded to eat mine. (Of course!) Mark left the cake on the counter while we ate.

And it was spaghetti night. Which means, at our house anyway, a LOT of clean up after dinner. The boys were cleaned first and headed of to play. All seemed fine.

Then Joel called for "MOM-MEEEEEEE" and since it had been a little quiet and the boys were in Joel's room I went to check. Joel was stuck trying to get to Isaac...

...and where was Isaac???...

That little sneak had snagged the entire container of cake as he left the kitchen a few minutes before!! I found him tucked between the guest bed and the wall...face first into the cake container, arms wrapped around it, going at it like, well, a kid on cake!!! Seriously just using his mouth to get as much chocolate as possible before he was caught!

And this might be where we see the parenting fail in the story...

I laughed. I laughed HARD. I tried not to. I really did, but that little brown head all tucked into that container of chocolate cake...how could I NOT laugh.

So I took the cake and told him to go wash up. Mark asked if Isaac needed to be disciplined and I said "yeah, but I already laughed!". We talked about not taking food without asking, but I doubt it sunk in much :(

Life with Isaac is always interesting...and, apparently, delicious!!

The Poop Story

Because every family with small kids needs a good poop story. Be warned, this is probably not the post to read if you don't like a crazy poop story!

Last night right after dinner Mark needed to mow the lawn. I told him the boys needed a bath and I was just about over the day.

Famous last words.

Because then...
Joel has a tendency to poop in the bathtub. I have no idea why, but we deal with this on a pretty regular basis. Which is a bigger problem than it even sounds when you have two kids bathing together. I was pretty sure we would be OK, though, because Joel had already had a dirty diaper that day.

I was wrong.

A few minutes into the bath and there is a tiny speck of poop in the water because Joel tooted. Everyone out, drain, start over. Hurry to wash everyone just in case. Isaac starts to yell. Joel is fully pooping on one of the toy boats! I quickly grab child and boat and the water remains clean for Isaac...but I have a poopy child and boat in my hands. So I try to dump the poop in the toilet but splash it on the floor as Joel jerked my arm while trying to sit down and also smears poop on the side of the tub. I can deal with this. Clean up kid. Clean up toilet enough that we can start to dry everyone off and move to the jammies stage. The rest of the bathroom bleaching can come a little later.

Get the boys in their towels and grab the first bunch of poopy towels to get to the washing machine. House is too quite. Yep, naked boys outside! I go outside to get them and Isaac said they both needed to poop so they went outside. I pointed out that we poop indoors and ushered everyone back inside.

Isaac heads for the bathroom but lets me know it is not clean enough to use. So I run in to wipe it down quickly for him. Turn around to get Joel so I can get someone, ANYONE, in clothing. No Joel. He is outside AGAIN. This time actually pooping on the patio!! And then walked through it! AHHHH!

Got Joel inside and cleaned up. Noticed poop on my jeans. The whole time I am cleaning up Joel, Isaac is yelling that he needs to poop but there is a toy in the potty! WHAT?!?!?  Yes, he chose that moment to put a matchbox car in the toilet! Feeling like some child of mine needed to be in a safe and secure spot, I put Joel in his crib. Went to the bathroom with Isaac and made him get the toy out of the toilet. Then I told him to wash up and grabbed his still naked self to get him to the sink. At which point he yells "JUST DON"T TOUCH MY BUTT!" And I look down to see that he had already started to poop...and it was on my other pant leg! Great. Now I have poop from TWO kids on me! So I get him back on the toilet and go add my jeans to the poopy laundry pile. Then I went and cleaned up the patio. Then I wiped Isaac's behind and got clothes on him.

And at that moment Mark comes back in from simply mowing the yard. And did I ever have a story for him...

As an added bonus, somewhere in that story, I hurt my ankle...no idea where, no idea how, but it hurt! Thankfully, it is getting a little better tonight.

And Then He Was Three

Three. A simple number. More than a couple, less than many.

In the world of ages, it seems to mark the separation between "baby" and "kid".

So my baby is now a kid. How did that happen?!? After the years of heartache and wondering when, how did we get all way to having a three year old?

Because God is good. God is good TO US.

I think if you ask any parent they would say that the time of the child's birthday brings back memories of when their child was born.

For me, with Isaac, this brings up a cacophony of feelings. Happiness, fear, joy, terror, love, disbelief, and so on. I can remember clearly sitting on my parent's couch the day before we flew across the county for Isaac's birth and crying... being desperately afraid that we were this.close to finally having a baby boy of our own and what if it didn't work? What if his birthmom wasn't really prepared to make this choice for her baby? And tears of joy because we were finally this.close to being parents!

There were days I felt like we were taking the low road through hell to get to a baby. And I would do it again in a heartbeat to get my precious Isaac. To be his mommy. To be his first Valentine. To be the one who dries his tears.

And because I know that God was always there. That God was in our story. That God is still in our story. That our family is exactly as it is supposed to be even though there were so many days I had no idea where the story was going. But God was faithful to us as we were faithful to Him.

The last three years have been amazing and challenging! I heard once that first children should be disposable so you can have one to learn on... that seems kind of mean... but I do have to apologize a lot as I figure out this mom thing!

And, finally, I can't write a blog post about Isaac being three without listing the wonderful things about Isaac... in no particular order....

• His intense spirit
• His contagious laugh
• His bright smile
• His beautiful brown skin
• His silly way of describing the world
• His creativity
• His love for his brother
• His happy heart
• His compassion for others

And so many more.

 

So, my baby is now three. My baby is a kid. But he will always be my baby!!!

Imperfect Progress

Imperfect Progress.

I read that phrase recently and it really stuck with me. I think a lot of progress actually works that way and it pretty much is what I am holding on to right now in my Middle Life.

I haven't had a lot to say recently. The last few weeks have been hard. Lots of thoughts in my head, but not a lot of them making even remotely close to enough sense to write down. I keep thinking "two steps forward, one step back...and I am in the one step back part."

Why? Because we lost another baby and when you get to miscarriage number six there isn't a whole lot left to say. And none of it is nice.

So I got to practice, again, focusing on the land of the living...but it was HARD. It was imperfect progress. It was crying myself to sleep, but still getting up to love on my boys. It was saying "why this AGAIN??" while still taking my little ones for a walk. It was my heart breaking for my lost baby at the same time I was smiling at my silly toddlers.

It was imperfect. But it was progress. Because I made it through. Because I didn't just say "I hate the Middle Life". Because I did my best. Each day. I know I did my best.

I actually lowered my personal expectations/plans/household chores quite a bit. I reminded myself (ok, fine, my dad reminded me) that sometimes just doing the next thing IS thriving.

Sometimes Thriving is just not giving up today.

And it is still progress. Beautiful, messy, imperfect progress. 

I love you and naps

That basically sums up my relationship with my toddlers!

Or I guess it could say "I love you and YOUR naps".

I love my boys so very much. I love being home with them very much.

But a mommy needs a break. An introvert needs a break. Even from her own precious children. There is nothing wrong with this, and if I can get on my soap box for a moment, I think other mom's might also thrive a little more if they did this. too.

So this is one of the ways I have set up my life to Thrive. Since I started Joel on a loose schedule at a few months old I focused on making sure my boys napped simultaneously each day. Yes, there are days when they are sick or something crazy happens that this doesn't happen, but 98% of the time their naps overlap.

And I am certain the very happiness of our family is dependent on this.

When Joel was taking three naps a day, Isaac joined in for the middle nap. When Joel moved to two naps, Isaac's nap moved back to match Joel's afternoon nap. Now that Joel is moving to one nap, on those days, Isaac's nap comes forward, too. When they are passed the nap stage, this will be a quiet time in our afternoon.

This is all in an attempt to give myself mommy time to refresh. Some days, probably less than half the time right now (much more when Joel was a newborn) I take a little nap. Most days, I do something that just needs doing that is hard with tiny hands around, or I blog, or do some extra reading. But mostly, I just have time to myself. I rarely even answer the phone during this hour.

Because I want to Thrive and I know that I need some quiet space in my day for that to be possible.

And when they wake up? I am happy to have my cuddly little noise makers back for the rest of the day!!

Sometimes We Need Help to THRIVE

My husband travels for work. Not a lot, so I am thankful for that. But about one week a month I am on my own with the boys.

Thriving isn't always at its best on those weeks. 

Being a SAHM (Stay At Home Mom) is my dream job, but a girl could use a break! Many days, especially as Isaac gets closer to 3, I look forward to the amazing Daddy returning from work at 5pm each night.

And then we get to the travel weeks. And I need a lot more chocolate and deep breaths!

And help.

This week a friend offered to watch my boys one evening. Not only watch them, pick them up, feed them, and return them worn out just in time for bed. SURE! Name the night!

My mom then gave me a gift certificate to have my nails done. She knows that my days are just brighter when I am wiping bottoms, picking up toys, and doing dishes with pretty red finger nails.

So last night my kids went off, I got my nails done and spent a few minutes reading in the peace and quiet of my. own. home. Oh My! It.was.awesome!

And I took a few more deep breaths.

I am so thank for that help, for that rest, for the people in my life who care enough about me to help me THRIVE. Especially on the hard weeks.

And I was so ready for my little boy kisses and hugs when I got them back again!!

Note to myself in about 10 years: Never ever forget that the NUMBER ONE thing you can do for a mom of toddler is to take her children and feed them dinner! She will get rest and she will be thrilled to have one less meal to clean up after!

Mercy and Grace...for me, for my children (Part 2)

"Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in our time of need." Hebrews 4:16 NKJV

I talked about how much I love this verse, and the words in it, as it applies to me, here.

This time it is about how this verse has impacted the way I interact with my children.

Mercy.

Grace.

Do my children know that they can come to me and "...obtain mercy and find grace"?

That can stop a mom of toddlers in her tracks.

On Sunday, the Pastor said after stepping on a small toy his child left out, "I wanted to wake him up, make him pick up all the toys, clean the whole house, scrub toilets, and maybe walk around the block with a boulder on his head". Man, are there ever days I feel like that! (He didn't, and I don't, by the way).

Yet. God is OUR parent. Thus, my boys are going to learn what God as a parent is like from their only source of knowledge about parents....me and their daddy. Wow. Let me say that another way..I am my child's first view of God.

Does that view include Mercy? Does that view include Grace?

Or (cringing a little)

Does that view include short fuses? Yelling? Punishment in anger?

I don't want Isaac and Joel to view God as primarily angry or frustrated. I want them to view God as Mercy. Grace. Help in their time of need. Love.

So I try to parent through that lens. I am far from perfect. But I think I am making imperfect progress. I calm down. I take a breath. I get on their level. And I dig deep (sometimes very deep) for the mercy and grace I want my kids to know.

Because I love them. Because God loves them so much more.

TWO and ONE, TWO and ONE

Another post written before there was a bloggy home for it...

My kids are little and close together in age. Sometimes this is ever so clear in our daily interactions, but sometimes it still hits me like a ton of bricks.

Today was one of those times. In the middle of a VERY stressful situation where each of my boys was moving in a different direction and neither was going in the correct direction, I was asked "how old are they?"

I causally and quickly answered (as I was trying to stop Joel from damaging some expensive looking equipment), "two and one".

I am fairly certain this is the first time I have been asked that question since Joel's birthday. And there it hit me, even though my answer was quick. My mind heard it and went "Oooohhhh".

Yes, these boys are TWO and ONE. Both are learning boundaries  and limits and language and social cues and respect and so many other things...

This is just going to be life for awhile...two boys, two directions, some extra stress (probably some extra judgment from onlookers)...but that is OK because I know they are growing and learning...

And I will just keep repeating "TWO and ONE'!!

Thankfor for a sick day

This was written back in December before I had a good bloggy home for it!

Today I am feeling extra thankful!

Today my baby is sick.

Yes, they go together.

Joel has had a crummy cold for two weeks. He has that sick but still active kid look to him. The one that makes you wonder if you should really bother calling the doctor. But it has been two weeks, his face has some weird rash, and has back end isn't doing well either.

So off we went to the doctor. He probably has an underlying infection. Should be getting better with his first ever round of antibiotics.

And that was the first reason for thankfulness with a sick Joel. He is 13.5 months and this is our first real infection his body couldn't quite fight alone. That's pretty good.

Then the second reason, my kids are mostly healthy. I saw a couple kids that clearly had chronic health issues at the clinic. That requires a whole different level of super hero parenting. So I am thankful that even though we had to make a quick run to the doctor for a cold, we don't go very often.

Finally, I was reading tonight about a newborn who contracted bacterial meningitis and is fighting for her life. Wow! Again, it put my little snot nose baby in perspective and I am so thankful that my boys have been, on the whole, pretty healthy.

I don't, and won't, take that for granted.

I am thankful today for the reminder for just how much we have to be thankful for in healthy kids!!