On Redemption

Redemption is a beautiful concept. To take something, or someone, that was lost or broken or hurt and saving it or them. I can’t think of redemption without getting some tears in my eyes. I love the idea of something or someone being saved, being rescued. Maybe because I can so deeply relate to needing redemption.

I have had several moments in my life when I needed saving. Quite frankly, I need the redemption of Jesus daily. But some seasons stand out as a having a moment of redemption. When the darkness became light. When the valley path started rising to the mountains. When beauty rose from ashes and tears. Today is a day where I celebrate redemption.

It was eight years ago today that I became a mom.

It wasn’t at all the way I expected, but it was the path we came to be on. The path that led to redemption.

In fact, my plan, after a battle with infertility was to give birth on February 22, 2012. I had finally gotten pregnant in June the year prior and this was my due date. Until it wasn’t because I miscarried. Again. The events following that miscarriage showed us that the path we were to take to parenthood was the path of adoption.

The path of infertility and adoption was one of my lowest valleys. It felt dark. It felt lonely. It felt stagnant.

And then came the redemption. The saving. On the very day I thought I would give birth to a baby; one was placed in my arms. I felt the saving. I felt the weight of the darkness start to lift. I started to see the mountain path. My world had felt upside down and this little boy was turning it right side up again. I was a mom for the very first time.

The light was dawning and would continue to get brighter in this corner of my life. Parenthood would prove to have its own challenges (of course!), but my season of longing for a baby was redeemed. There was beauty rising from the ashes in my soul. My tears were tears of joy in the morning.

Adoption is considered a triad relationship: the child, the birth parents, and the adoption parents. We had a blessed opportunity to spend time with Isaac’s birth mother in the days before and after Isaac’s birth. We heard her story. We listened deeply. We cried with her. Yet, there was redemption. I don’t share her story or the beginning of Isaac’s story because they are not mine to tell, but I can say that the moment he placed was in my arms, there was a lot of redemption in the room. How could a mom not think about the woman who gave birth to her son on his birthday? She was first on my mind this morning. She gave me a gift. A gift of redemption. I hope she still feels redemption, too.

I love celebrating Isaac’s birthday. Today he opted to spend the day at home with his family playing with Legos. I am listening to him banter with his brothers as I write this. The story wasn’t at all what I expected when I wanted a baby. But this story has redemption and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Praying for our kids...and their education

Those sweet kids are all heading back to school in the next month and that transition is high in my heart and mind right now. In the last seven and a half years since becoming a mom, I have received more parenting advice than I knew was possible. A couple of those actually stand out, have stood through the test of time, and have continued to help me be a better parent. Not surprising for something that has staying power, both were about praying, seeking and receiving God’s wisdom regarding our children. 

One of these best pieces of wisdom was from an older wise mom regarding how she approached the education of her children. I revisit this every school year as we are preparing our kids, minds, hearts, and home to begin the school year again. 

Each year this woman and her husband would pray over the method of education for each of their three sons for that school year. She knew each child was unique, and in a unique season of life, and that one style of education may not be right for all of them. She shared that one year she had a child in public school, a child in private school, and a child she home schooled (she was a busy momma!). She knew her children would grow and thrive in these spaces. I never knew if she had a preferred education ideology, if she had always planned to home school, or if supporting public education was a core value for her. It didn’t matter. She had prayed over her children and had each one where God said each one would thrive.

When our first child was a little over a year old, I was sitting a table full of moms and was asked “what will you be doing for school for Isaac?”. I had no answer. He was ONE! I must have looked shocked because the follow up was “you NEED to get him on the waiting lists now for the best schools”. Oh boy. I was then treated to each mom telling me the exact educational plan for each family. None of these families even had school age children yet but they had such an important sounding plan. The words I had heard spoken to me earlier came to mind, and not trying to be flippant, I said “well, my husband and I will pray over our son for each school year and place him where we believe God will have him thrive”. That comment took me right out of the comparison plan for education.

We have continued to pray specifically for the best way to educate our kids. Even though our oldest son is only heading to the second grade this fall, we have already made choices we wouldn’t have made if we were not specifically praying for each child each year. Even this year, I made a choice about one of our kids without praying about it, I made what I thought was the "logical" choice, and then it started to not feel right. When we prayed over the decision, we made a completely different choice...one that I can see will help that child thrive and grow.

And we know that God will work out whatever that best place is. Honestly, given our family resources, I am pretty thankful that public school has been a good fit so far. God gave us a home in a fantastic school district for our specific children before we even knew we needed what they had to offer. But, if God calls us to home school one of the kids or send them to a private school, we can trust that he will also provide the necessary resources to make those happen. I can pray with the assurance that God loves my kids even more than I do and He will show us the path He has for each of them and will provide the way to get there.

Jesus Loves Peter. This I know.

It has been a hard 10 days as Peter’s mom.

It has been a hard 3.5 years as Peter’s mom. It has been almost exactly 3 years since we learned that the symptoms we were seeing in Peter were the result of a congenital abnormality in his brain. Over time we adjusted and Peter is just Peter. He is more work than a typical child. But he is just as wonderful and perfect and loving as any little guy.

But sometimes it just gets hard for a season. Not necessarily because of Peter but because of the world he lives in. One that administrators seem to rule. A world where he gets the short end of the stick and he didn’t even do anything wrong.

So, it is hard to be his mom because I see the injustice and the hurt and the hard on my boy.

In the last 10 days there have been insurance problems leading to his therapy being cancelled indefinitely. There have been school problems where his heart and spirit were ignored, even by generally well-meaning adults. I have cried so many tears. I have made so many phone calls. I have fought so hard for him. Some I can fix and some I am still trying. I don’t really ever stop trying!

BUT, through it all I have to remember something.

That God loves Peter even more than I do. That God knows what Peter needs even more than I do. That God sees where this is all going and I just don’t.

The night we first got his diagnosis was one of the scariest of my life. I can recall those emotions in a heartbeat. I cried as I rocked him to sleep that night. And then through my tears I tried to sing his normal nighttime songs: You Are My Sunshine and Jesus Loves You. I barely got through the first one. He will ALWAYS be my sunshine. Nothing that the doctors say can change that. Then I sang “Jesus loves Peter, this I know” and I couldn’t keep singing. Because it was true. He does love Peter. Not Peter with a perfect “normal” brain, He loves Peter with a “not quite formed” brain. He loves Peter more than I do. I clung to that fact in that moment.

I have held that fact close for these years of Peter’s life. God knows what therapy Peter needs. God will help us find a way to pay for it. God will help guide the teachers at school. God has held Peter and God will not stop now. To believe anything less is to let the Devil win.

I still have a lot of phone calls and emails and forms. There is some work on the ground that has to be done. But I will continue to pray and ask for what Peter needs. I don’t know what his future holds (as much as I would like some answers even in the short term) but I know who holds his future. And the one that hold his future is the Jesus who loves him. This is I know.

Everything's Not Awesome

I don’t know about your house, but mine has been taken over by all things Lego Movie 2. My older two boys have seen the movie, we have the Lego's (yay, marketing!), we listen to the songs every.single.day. You could say it is the “thing” of the moment around here.

There is a song in the movie that is supposed to get stuck in your head. It literally has the line “this song is going to get stuck inside your head”. However, that is not the song that got stuck in mine. Right now, I am in the middle of preparing to speak to a group of moms about motherhood. I am not totally sure I feel like I am the right person for the job but last week my mom said “why not? You are THIRTY-FIVE and have FOUR kids”. Thanks for the reminder, mom! So, as I think about motherhood, I keep thinking about a song from the Lego Movie 2.

It starts out with:

Everything's not awesome

Everything's not cool

I am so depressed

Everything's not awesome

Motherhood right now, anyone? Winter. Snow. Kids you can’t send outside. Health issues. Marriage in close quarters. Anyone? Please tell me I am not alone. I already wrote last month about given up. This is a rough season around here.

BUT that is not where the song ends and it isn’t how we have to live. It doesn’t have to be either totally awesome or totally not awesome. The song goes on (and this is the part I love)…

“Everything's not awesome

Things can't be awesome all of the time

It's an unrealistic expectation”

Did you catch it? Read it again. “Things can’t be awesome all of the time, that is an unrealistic expectation.” I 100% agree with that statement. It just isn’t how life works and if we want it to always be awesome we are going to be disappointed and that won’t feel awesome so we will be disappointed in our disappointed feelings and it becomes a WHOLE NOT AWESOME THING. GIVE UP! GO BACK TO BED! DON’T EVEN BOTHER WITH HAIR OR CLEAN PANTS. EVERYTHING IS NOT AWESOME!

STOP.

Read the next lines…

“But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try

To make everything awesome

In a less idealistic kind of way”

Oh, well, that is a different approach. We could try to make what we can awesome. We can just try our best. We can still try to be our best selves. We can wear clean pants. We can fix our hair pretty. We can get up before our kids to have some quiet space (I will harp on this until the day I die. It is my thing. Not even sorry.) We can try in a less idealistic kind of way. It won’t all be awesome. It just won’t. We don’t live in that made up world. We live here in the messy middle life. But we can still try to influence our families and world for good (or, for awesome) when and where we can.

And some days we need the last line of this verse….

“We should maybe aim for not bad

'Cause not bad right now would be real great”

Some days are going to be just shooting for “not bad”. Some days your husband will be out of town, and you will wake up to the sound of vomit, and then your husband’s flight will be delayed and you will end up sounding like Oprah after school…You get a Kindle and You get a Kindle and YOU get a Kindle and YOU get a snack and YOU get candy! And just give mommy a few minutes to pee alone! So we aim for not bad and that is real great right now.  We cut ourselves the slack we would cut our girlfriends and we make it through a less idealistic version of our day but feel awesome because we made it to bed that night.

One final point. The bridge of the song shares an idea of how to pull this less idealistic version of awesome off…”We can make things better if we stick together, side by side, you and I, we will build it together…”. Together. In community. Together with our spouse we can build an awesome family. Together with our friends we can build an awesome village. Going it alone rarely works. We can and need to depend on others. I ask my husband for help. We work together when things are not awesome to figure out how to get back to some version of awesome. We have even sought out help to do that. I have spent pretty much the entirety of my children’s lives seeking other mom’s (of all ages) to do this together. I support them and they support me. Building it together will ALWAYS make it more awesome!

So go be awesome, whatever that looks like, today!

My Shift

Do you ever look back and see that there was a particular day, that was supposed to be an ordinary day, where everything shifted? Everything in your whole life swerved in that moment? Where you don’t remember thing events that were supposed to be big, but you remember everything about the moment when your life shifted? Even if at the moment, you didn’t know it was actually going to be the shift?

I am not talking about large scale things like weddings, births, trauma, deaths. But where something small started the ball rolling. You didn’t know at the time what the outcome was going to be, but it turned out to be huge and it was all in that moment.

I have one of those. It is my most vivid shift in my life. It happened on January 18^th, 2012. It was exciting at the moment but I really didn’t know it was the shift until it all came to past.

My job that day was taking me to Washington, DC. Which was not out of the ordinary and something I did every couple of months. It was so routine, it was almost boring. I read a Sherlock Holmes book on the plane (I only know this from a Facebook memory quote).

The rest of what I was there for is a blur. I don’t remember the content of the strategy meeting we were having that day. I can’t remember a word of the lunch meeting I had that I had fought hard to get with an older guy in my field who I was hoping would mentor me some and give me tips. It was a score to get that lunch appointment. It was going to boost my career. I remember none of it because none of that matters today.

What I do remember from that day was this….

I had a few minutes to kill at my hotel that morning after dropping off my suitcase and before I had to get to a meeting. There is a Starbucks in the lobby so I got coffee and a snack and decided to make a quick phone call. A few days earlier I had learned of an adoption attorney who was opening her adoptive families list to new clients. We wanted to be on as many lists as possible so I was calling her paralegal to inquire about the process of getting on that list.

What began as an inquire call quickly changed when I said we wanted to adopt an African American boy. She got excited. She said they really needed a family to show an expected mother and they didn’t have anyone that fit. In that moment, I learned about my son. We went through the logistics of getting on her lists. She went a little outside of protocol and sent me the redacted intake paperwork so I could learn more about the baby. He was due in a month. I had to cut the call short with a promise to speak later so I could get to work. But the shift had happened.

I don’t remember any of the rest of the work day. I was thinking about this baby boy and how, just maybe, he could be ours. I am going to add here that I remember it was super stressful to be so far away from Mark and unable to get him even on the phone right then. Mostly I just wondered if I should get excited or play it cool. We had just had one failed matched but it is so hard not to get your hopes up about these things. I wanted to be a mom. Could this be it?

The next day I would fly home and the day after that we would drive to Gainesville, FL to meet the attorney and officially be on the list so our profile could be shown. A week later, we would get the call saying we were picked to be the baby’s parents. Two and a half weeks later, we would hold our son in our arms…that day and forever.

He will be seven in a few weeks. He changed my whole world. He was my shift. It all started on an ordinary January day and my life has never been the same and I am thankful for that every.single.day.

Siblings Without Rivalry - A few thoughts

Sometime in the Spring I told the Facebook world that I was about to read the book Siblings Without Rivalry by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish. I have long been a fan of their book How to Talk so Kids Will Listen so I was excited when I realized this sibling book I had heard a lot about was by the same two ladies.

It turned out I was not the only mom interested in reading this book. When I posted about starting it on Facebook, a surprising number of my friends responded with “oh, I have been meaning to read that book”. I know how hard it can be to get around to reading a parenting book when you are in the middle of actually parenting children so I took some notes and I am offering here a small look in to a few things that struck me personally in case a few of my friends still haven’t had a chance to pick up the book.

Overall, the ideas presented made sense and I got some good ideas. The format is something like a report on group sessions so there are lots of stories and lots of questions from various people posed to the authors. It doesn’t just read as a straight up “do this” book, but rather has several voices and even some disagreement with the author’s approaches that are worked out over a few of their sessions.

I am going to be upfront about my biggest challenge with the book. While they eventually got to my burning issue at page 164, I wish they would have acknowledged it earlier. The ideas in this book are geared towards neurotypical, typically developing children with relatively stable mental health. They are great ideas when you can reason with the siblings, when rational discussion can be comprehended, and when there is not a complete imbalance in the sibling relationship where physical aggression is routinely seen from one specific child. For that family, they would still recommend bringing in professional medical and mental health supports to work with the unique family. This made perfect sense, because as I was reading the book, I thought this is great for my kids that don’t need a ton of parent support to live on the same planet. It would not prove as effective for the kid that I was struggling with the most. Thankfully, we do have the recommended support team in place for our family, but if someone is super struggling with a very intense and aggressive sibling situation, I wouldn’t spend time with this book. Just go to a professional who can work with your family directly.

Okay, that is off my chest and I can share the other tidbits I learned 😊

I will be the first to admit it is hard not to cast my kids in to roles. Really, society sets this up for us without even much thought. Just think about all the of the research done on birth order. Then we add in our love of our kids and they all have personalities that are unique and we want to praise their strengths. But how we do that matters. How our other kids hear us talk about their siblings matter. My best example of this is music and dancing at my house. One of my kids does have some natural talent for music, beats, and dance movies. We have gushed over his dancing more than once. We have, and I cringe here, said “at least someone in this family can dance!”. Then there is that child’s sibling, who maybe doesn’t have the innate talent so, while we are not mean, we are not encouraging his dancing so much. Then one day, right after I read this book, this child was dancing and said “Mommy, dancing makes me happy and brings me joy. I could dance all day!” Full stop what mommy was doing. This child understands what brings him joy, regardless of how his actions are perceived by others. I want to celebrate and encourage all day long those activities that bring my children joy. So now we have no “dancing king”. We just have kids that love to dance. All of them. In the book this statement hit home for me “We want to make it clear to each of our children that the joys of scholarship, dance, drama, poetry, sport are for everyone and not reserved for those who have a special aptitude.” (page 97)

I definitely focused a little more on the chapter about fighting. It is hard, as a parent, to know when/if/how to intervene in the fights of our children. This book focuses on empowering children to settle their own disputes. Even so far as to walk in, state the issue in a way that expresses empathy for both children, letting them know that you are fully confident in their ability to settle this, and then walk back out. I have started using this with a couple of my kiddos and it works amazingly well. Just expressing my confidence in them as little boys who can solve this together goes so much further than mommy trying to play Solomon. Now, this doesn’t work so well when physical violence is common. Those kiddos who are being physically attacked are entitled to adult intervention and swiftly. Another take away from this chapter, not necessarily a new concept but a good reminder, was that forced sharing can cause the child to hold on even tighter. Letting the siblings work out sharing fosters more of a sense of knowing that they are important enough to not have things that are important to them. The overall theme of this chapter was “basically, we try not to interfere, but when we must step in, it’s always with the thought that at the earliest possible moment we will turn the children back to dealing with each other. It is the best preparation we can give them for the rest of their lives.” (page 157)

The chapter on comparison had a lot of good role playing for how damaging comparison can be. Even we are thinking it can be a motivator to a sibling. It is best to just find a totally different way to motivate and move a child. “Whatever you want to tell this child can be said directly, without any reference to his brother. The key world is describe. Describe what you see. Or describe what you like. Or describe what needs to be done. The important thing is to stick with the issue of this one child’s behavior. Nothing his brother is or isn’t doing has anything to do with him.” (page 55)

“To be loved equally is somehow to be loved less. To be loved uniquely – for one’s own special self -  is to be loved as much as we need to be loved.” (page 71) There is an entire chapter about how we show love to each child and it reminded me of a sign that sits in my living room, that I received just days before adding child number four to our family. It reads “no matter how many children a mother has, she loves each one the best.” Not that she loves them the same. She loves each one the best. For who they are as an individual. One of the best ways we can do that is to spend intentional time alone with each child every week. Where we are totally focused on that one child and they know that they have our attention. I find that this can still be time where something is being done for the family, if necessary, such as grocery shopping with one child. To hear about his day. To see the world through her eyes. Kids say way different things when they are not a voice in the crowd. I believe this intentional time will get harder as they grow, but it will be my priority to make it happen so I know exactly who they are and what I love about them that is uniquely their own self.

I will be keeping this book for reference as more of my kids are in the targeted age group (school age) and can reason and discuss their way through problems (it wasn’t meant to break up toddler level hair pulling fights). If you are just looking for a few ways to increase the peace in your house through siblings working together, it certainly is worth the read.

Falling apart and what happens next

Many people tell me that they are amazed at my calm and humor and grace in the middle of life as the mom of the Bennett crew. And, because I am working on not having a self-depreciating attitude, I will say that they are right. I am good at generally keeping it together in what is a pretty high stress mothering environment.

That doesn’t mean I don’t fall apart sometimes. Sometimes I fall apart in a big big way. It would probably be a bad sign if I stopped falling apart because there are days life is seriously awful and if I wasn’t falling apart it would be because I had stopped feeling anything at all. So sometimes I do fall epically apart. Mostly in private because of my personality, but sometimes even in public I just lose it.

I had a such a day two weeks ago.  It had been a rough 24 hours with our oldest son. It was time to get to the bus and he wasn’t having it. His anxiety and disruptive behaviors were at a premium. It took the whole village that is my neighborhood to get him on the bus. I had no idea what I was going to do if he didn’t get on that bus. I was panicked. When the bus doors finally close, with him safely on board, I broke down in tears. My neighbors gave me hugs. I cried all the way (super late) to my double preschool drop offs. I cried through drop offs. I cried clear through the Starbucks drive thru window.

What happened next, though, is the important part. I stopped crying. I did my next things and while I did, I started to deconstruct the morning. I asked myself a lot of questions. What triggered the child? What made me feel the most upset? What could have changed? What couldn’t change? Where could I call in some resources? Who could help me? And with those questions I started to create an action plan. A plan of people to call, places to go, a plan of what I was going to do for my own spirit after it had been so totally stomped on that morning.

With those thoughts, the clouds in my head and my heart started to clear. My soul was coming back to where it should be. To be honest, the problem wasn’t solved. I had no clear answers or promises that this wouldn’t happen again. Getting the answers to my questions and getting a plan in place took a few days of hard work, and it took some not taking no for an answer.

All the while I still was doing my regular next things of parenting and life. The taking a deep breath, the thinking through the events, the analysis and refocus, those I would argue are the healthy result of falling apart. Now, it would have been easier to give up on that day. To go home and eat a bunch of junk comfort food and watch a movie or bury myself in a book. Those are the not healthy responses to falling apart, those responses take you from falling apart over one thing to a life falling apart and a depressed spirit, if I may be so bold as to say.

We don’t have to put on a wonder woman face to the world, we don’t have to have it 100% together, we can, and should, fall apart sometimes. Where we go from there, though, can have a huge impact on our souls. So, I will keep falling apart AND I will keep putting myself back together. Hopefully an even better version, a wiser and new lesson learned version, of myself.

I Like You

Someone recently reminded me that the way we speak to our children becomes their inner voice.

So, yeah, no pressure there.

But this week I saw this happen in a good way.

The boys and I were watching Daniel Tiger and this was the catchy tune of the day...

"I like you
I like you
I like you just the way you are"

And I thought what if I sang that to my boys? I tried it right away. Isaac beamed! Joel beamed! Peter...well, he laid there, but I am sure he liked it.

Then I thought what if I sing that when I am frustrated with my boys? I tried it...and I was more calm and they looked happy instead of defeated.

So I kept singing the song...and they started to sing it to each other...and back to me. What a mommy pick me up!

And then I walked past Isaac's room today and heard:
"I like me
I like me
I like me just the way I am"

I has become his inner voice and it was good! I so want my kids to like themselves for exactly who they are. My mommy heart was full!!

And this works on another adults, too. Isaac saw that Grandmommom was sad and asked me to sing her the song to make her feel better. She smiled. It worked.

Who can you lift up this week by reminding them that you like them just the way they are?

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.

Conversations with a Three Year Old: Part 5

Overheard at the playground...

Random Adult: "Is that your mommy?"

Isaac: "Yes, and she is also my April"

I am not even sure what to think of that!

It was...a day!

(I have been working on a deep blog post for several days, it isn't quite done, but this one was in my head today, so here it is....)

Marriage speaker Mark Gungor once said if you ask a man how his day was he will look back and the box could be empty already and he will say "ummm, it was...a day!". But a woman will tell you every. little. detail.

Sometimes, though, I look back and all I can say was "that was...a day" because I can't even believe all of what transpired in that day. Some days I am sure I have lived a whole week since I got up in the morning!! But, I can't even repeat it because it was so overwhelming, so I just say to myself "well, that was A DAY".

Today was one of those days.

I woke up feeling overwhelmed and then spent my day putting out fires and having new reasons to feel overwhelmed....

...starting a new business and all the little details of trying to have a kick off.

...taking my son to the doctor and dealing with billing problems (this one was resolved by other people today. YAY!) and then getting some heavy information about the kiddo during the appointment (thanking God that I have a HUGE support team to turn to to sort stuff out with).

....volunteering to make FORTY rice crispy straw bales for preschool tomorrow (the volunteering was done weeks ago, I was crazy).

...sending my kids out to play and having the 3 year old throw the 1 year old's glasses over the fence! (trying to be thankful he told me what he did!)

...and realizing as I got the toddler ready for bed that we were both still wearing HIS breakfast on ourselves (my shirt, his hair).

But it was still a day. Just one out of many, right? Now, that was a lot to take in and I wanted to run and hide a few times (and I did cry once) but it was just a day.

Now we are at the end. And there were victories...getting the glasses back (breaking and entering, yes, but whatever), finding the right support after the doctor visit, and the straw bales are ready!

It was just a day. Days happen. Some are crazy but I need to remember to let them stay in their day, not to add or borrow to another day, just have one day.

So tomorrow is a whole new day, with whole new mercies, and I have no doubt there will be a whole new kid story, but let's not worry about it yet, ok?

Sleep well because it was just a day!

Lego Instructions Organization

We are starting to enter the Lego season with the boys...which I am pretty sure last the rest of their lives! Their daddy also has a few sets that he has received as gifts and little paper instruction books tucked on shelves were starting to make me itch!!

I looked around for a good solution and saw several 3-ring binder ideas so I made one that fit what we have now and should be able to grow as the kids collection grows...

First I picked up a one-inch binder. That fits what we have now with room to grow. Added a cover that makes me smile...

Then I labeled a set of dividers by types of Lego sets...Duplo, Creator, Technic, etc. For the movie based sets I just added a "movies" tab. If they get a lot for a specific movie, say Star Wars, we can always make a special section (I love how this will grow with them).

I then put each instruction booklet into a clear sleeve and put a large sticker with identifying information on the sleeve.

 If there was more than one booklet (like the Creator sets often have three things than can be created) I noted that on the sticker.

The sticker identifies the type of set, the Lego set number, and the name of the set. This should* allow for the instructions and the sleeve to always end up back in the right place.

(*should - we are still talking about little boys here...)

This project took about 15 minutes, because we are at the beginning of this season, and I am hoping I can keep it up as we grow!!

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!!!

Conversations with a Three Year Old: Part 3

Isaac and Joel were making a lot of very loud, typical little boy noises.

Isaac said, "Mommy, Joel is being loud."

Mommy: "Isaac, you are BOTH being loud."

Isaac: "Yes, but I am not bothering me!"

Isn't that how life works sometimes?

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!!