Independence

Yes, it’s July 4th.  I woke up this morning- at 7:45- to the sound of a helicopter about to buzz the roof.  Emerging from the deepest level of incoherence i remembered we are on the 8th floor in mid-town ATL, which is larger by far than the downtown we are accustomed to, and that there’s a giant road race going on right outside the bedroom window.  So the helicopters, the sirens, the loud cheers and the Eagles cover band at 8 a.m. are all totally normal for that. So much for sleeping in.

We’ve road-tripped this week, and had such a great time.  Just now I was reading a devotional at PortCityChurch.org that referenced this week’s sermon.  I must have missed that, i thought, since we’ve been gone, but then realized that was just six days ago.  Last Sunday we were in church, Monday morning we left for youth camp, where we spent an incredible 48ish hours with Brian giving 4 great talks within that timeframe.   This was our first youth camp experience.  I was amazed at the memories that surfaced– how in middle school, the first time away, it was borderline terrifying with all the wacky and wild leaders, the thrill of eating Froot Loops every morning and staying up way to late giggling, only to be completely freaked out by the counselor jarring us all out of those miserable bunk beds with a megaphone at some uncomfortably early hour.  Then the high-schoolers know the drill, and are all nonchalant about grabbing a latte from that gas-station-style cappuccino maker in the dining hall before heading up to the morning session.  From what I could tell from my post on our cabin’s front-porch swing, and talking to folks, it looks like camp, or in some way getting out of everyday life together, is really still one of the best ways to really get people connected.  Awesome.  

From there we went to Charlotte, spent a relaxing night with my family and slept in real (non-camp) beds.  Thursday morning we drove on down to Atlanta to take part in Olivia and Tommy’s wedding festivities, which culminated with their beautiful wedding last night.  Afterward we sat in the living room here in Uncle Bob’s condo, overlooking the skyline and enjoying being independent of our dependents.  There were times over the past few weeks when, as the kids took turns not sleeping when they were supposed to, or as discipline duties began to take their toll on all of us, Brian and i looked at each other and said “Atlanta.”  The knowledge of an upcoming getaway reminded us how nice it is to have this luxury– a few days away from our “usual,” a few days of sleeping straight through the night in a ridiculously comfy bed and waking up to a room flooded with beautiful light where we can sit and read and write and be still– this is good.  

Definitely feels like we’ve fit about two weeks into the past six days.  That’s summer at it’s finest, i think.

In a nutshell.

I’ve been saying all week that it feels like my to-do list is longer than my day.  Mostly this comes from the things that make our summer days busier– playing at the beach and with friends, preparing for and participating in all kinds of weddings, and the fact that amid all that wonderfulness, there are still household chores to be done, children to be taught and trained and to laugh and snuggle with, cookies and muffins to be baked, ( i mean, i guess i don’t hafta bake, but you know how much i love to) dates to go on with my husband, and then sometimes i just flop down on the couch and watch Wipeout and laugh till my guts hurt, and then wonder if i’m terribly immature.  I think you get the general idea. Also i’ve started working part time (more accurately, part- part- part-time.  It’s editing and it’s at home after the kids are asleep= perfect for me).

So this explains what’s keeping me busy.  What else is going on?

We’re still looking for a house.  Our townhouse is under contract (thank you, Jesus!).  But after putting offers on four houses, we have still not bought one.  The last one we found that looked promising was under contract before we even got to see it, which just made me laugh.  We’ve prayed for clear signs each time, and we have received just that, so for that we are very thankful.  It feels like when i was pregnant and overdue with each of the boys, and had gone from thinking, “Any day now!” to, “Okay, it’s never going to happen.”  And in that way, it makes me laugh and feel hopeful that after enough false alarms, sometime we will buy a house.

In prep for moving someday, i’m sort of casting my eye around the closets and stuff, and thinking, “What do i love enough to pack and unpack again?”  I realize I have potential-seeing eyes, because i keep a lot of things based on what i could do with them someday.  Many of those things are getting the ol’ heave ho:  baby food jars i might use for a craft with the kids, the stack of magazines i was going to go through and cut out my favorite pics, the broken toys i might fix, the running clothes i’ve had since high school with elastic that’s gone all brittle with age… all that stuff.  It is good.

We’re preparing to head to camp with youth group.  Brian is speaking there, and the rest of the Few crew are along for support.  Both to support him, and because we need the support of Daddy, rather than being without him for four days.  Seriously, you should see how these kids flip for Dad these days. Oliver saw him arrive home from work the other day, and did the old, “Hey!  My dad’s home!” only to see Brian then walk away from the house (to check the mail) and wail “Oh no! My Daddy leaving!”  It’s pretty sweet.

I’ve been reading some great books on parenting.  Part of me thinks, why didn’t i look for this stuff earlier, and part just thinks, better now than ten years from now.  A few i’m loving are Toddler Wise and Preschool Wise (Ezzo), Don’t Make Me Count to Three (Plowman), and Heart of Anger (Priolo).  All of these are SO helpful at translating Biblical principles and words into life with small kids, which i’d felt pretty overwhelmed about since reading Shepherding a Child’s Heart (Tripp) back when Stella was a baby.  A great book, but a lot of it left me feeling, at the time, like “okay, now how do i explain the Bible to a ten month-old again?”

Last week I got baptized at church, which was exciting and great, and i’m going to have to save the rest for later.  There is just too much going on in this post and my brain already, which is also why i’ve gone ahead and saved all the stuff about the kids for next time.

morning sunshine

I am not a morning person.  This is not news to anyone, really.  I sort of thought I might grow out of my night-owlishness with age, or with a kids, and certainly I thought with three kids I’d be up with the sunshine and happy about it.  Not the case.

Asher is up with the sunshine, and happy about it. For a time, he’d eat and drift back off to sleep.  This ended the very day he began really crawling.  Now, as soon as he’s up, he’s ready to move.  He usually wakes up between 6-6:30.  At this time, I am out cold, so Brian retrieves the babe.  After I feed him, he crawls up on his daddy’s chest and basically says, “Ok dad!  Time to play!”  Brian is (obviously!) a morning person, so they get up, and Brian reads and studies while Asher crawls around playing with toys or inspecting specks of dirt on the carpet.

Stella is usually up as soon as the clock in her room reaches 7:15 (though occasionally as late as 8:00,) and Oliver starts yelling soon after that “Mom, I Awake!  I Ready Breffust (breakfast) Mom!”  So by 7:30, we’re all up and there’s coffee left in the pot for me (thank you, thoughtful husband!) and the kids watch a show on PBS while I figure out what day it is and what’s for breakfast.  Perfect, right?

Right.  Except that, since he is such a morning person, Brian is very productive in the morning, and loves to schedule meetings for bizarre times like 6:30 and 7:00 a.m.  What is up with this?  But there are other people who actually agree to meet at these times.  He loves it.  I, uh, do not.  Generally, I still attempt (unsuccessfully) to lull Asher back to sleep at that 6:30ish time.  After accepting that it’s just not going to happen, I lie on the floor for ten minutes or so, which Asher thinks is hilarious, and then begin to gather my wits, which is important since I need to be prepared to outwit three quick and clever kids all day.

Yesterday, all three woke up as Brian was leaving at 6:45, and all three woke up crabby.  Stella had lost TV privileges for the whole day, which left me feeling like I was being punished.  I asked Stella if she knew what sort of attitude she was choosing, and she answered “A bad one.”  Yes, sweet one, that’s true.  I explained (again) that even when it is very difficult to have a happy heart, and when we want to be crabby, (like, for example, a four-year old who refused to fall sleep until midnight.  Or like a mommy who does not like getting up early with fussy, clingy littles,) we can still choose a good attitude.  “Mom,” she asked, “Did ya ever have ta choose a happy heart when ya didnt’ feel like it?”  I know exactly how you feel, I told her.

We are all just prisoners here…

I had “Hotel California” stuck in my head.  I must have heard it somewhere and not known it, because suddenly there i was all afternoon, croonin’ away, “Mirrors on the ceiling…. pink champagne on ice.”  And i just couldn’t shake it, all the while thinking, gah!  anything but this!

Then i walked into the grocery store.  Over the speakers, turned up to an abnormally high volume, blared “MMMBop!”

k, so maybe not “anythign but this,” afterall.

overheard

While driving today, i overheard this conversation in the backseat:  

 

Stella:  Oliver, what did the cat say to the dog?  

Oliver: Meoww!

S:  What did the dog say to the cat? 

O:  Woof woof!

S:  What did the cake say to the dog?

(longish pause)

O:  (singing)  Happy Birthday, dear Dog!

 

Oh, they make me laugh so much.

I inherited a great book this weekend:  “Bird by Bird” by Anne Lamott. Maybe you’ve read her writing (which is great).  In my past, when I’ve referred to inheriting things I’ve meant that someone handed something down to me, the way I inherited a collection of lace-collared floral  fine-wale corduroy dresses that I wore as a young girl.  Yikes.  That happened when mom was trying to clear some space in the guest bedroom closet.  This time I inherited a stack of great books because Uncle Bob died.

Eleven days ago things went from looking up to sudden-turn-for-the-worse, and ten days ago, Bob left his weakened body behind and, wide-eyed, went to Jesus.  More on that later.  Not later today, but later later.  Today is just about the inherited book.  Because when we were all together in Bob’s condo over the weekend, the morning after his memorial service we began to thumb through the bookshelves and CDs.  It didn’t feel vulture-like, as I might have imagined, but almost tender.  To find things just as he’d left them, and think, yeah, that’s Bob; the eclectic selection of music, the books on art and architecture, the orderly and organized closet, so obviously Bob.

I’ve only just begun reading the book and already Anne has kicked my tail a little, because it’s a book about writing and she’s saying that if you like writing and want to write, at some point ya gotta sit down and get to it.  That’s the hard part for everyone.  But Bob loved to write, and spoke of wanting to write more, of making time to write.  He read my writing and spoke so encouragingly and uncle-ishly of it that his passing reminds me (among other things) that the things I keep wanting and meaning to do should be done.  Like seizing the moment of inspiration before it has passed and telling the stories stockpiled in my soul, sharing the moments that strain forward in my memory.  There is something about a glimpse of life’s brevity to crystallize vision, to remind us to live our days with purpose and passion.  Which, i should add, my UBob did wonderfully.

Mom brain. Always mom brain.

Just when i thought i’d started to get over the debilitating and far-reaching condition known in the trenches as “mom brain,” i lost my cell phone.  My only phone.  My connection to the rest of the world. My source of sanity when i really really need a grown-up conversation and the non-grown-ups all around me are losing their cool.

Repeatedly, I called the phone from Brian’s, hoping to hear the ring and find it.  I thought Oliver had taken it somewhere, so I asked him if he knew where Mommy’s phone is.  “I take it to work,” he’d answered.  Where is your work?  I asked.  “Ummm, over dere,” pointing.  No phone dere.

It had been four days.  Four long, and sometimes slightly panicked days.  Then, when i’d almost given up hope and had begun dropping heavy hints to Brian that we should go phone shopping, there it was.  In the seat of the jogging stroller, hidden under baby toys and a hat.

First step:  finding phone.  Next:  recovering brain.

Break with the past

“Are you tired?  Worn out?  Burned out on religion?  Come to me.  Get away with me and you’ll recover your life.  I’ll show you how to take a real rest.  Walk with me and work with me– watch how I do it.  Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.  I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you.  Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”

Matthew 11.28-30 (The Message)

We have  a book,  “131 Christians Everyone Should Know,” (from the Editors of Christian History Magazine) which contains snippet bios of Christ-followers from history.  The back cover starts like this:  “If you think history is boring, take about three minutes and scan through 131 Christians Everyone Should Know. Zero in on an article.  You may find you can’t read just one!”

And that is what happened to me.  The testimonies of these ancestors of faith are inspiring and compelling. To think about them nudges me to think about what sort of legacy I want to leave, what mark I will make in this world, and the type of life that must be lived in order to do that.

Theresa of Avila committed her life to ministry by becoming a nun in her twenties.  But she joined a convent known for its leniency, and considered herself half-hearted, despite her commitment to the spiritual life.  “I voyaged on this tempestuous sea for almost 20 years with these risings and fallings,” she wrote in her Autobiography.

The bio in “131 Christians” says this:  “Then one day while walking down the hallway in the convent, her glance fell on a statue of the wounded Christ, and the vision of his constant love throughout her inconstancy pierced her heart.  Gently but powerfully, she said Jesus began to break down her defenses and reveal to her the cause of her spiritual exhaustion:  her dalliance with the delights of sin.  She immediately broke with her past, undergoing a final conversion.”

Like the passage in Matthew, like Theresa of Avila, I have found myself spiritually exhausted.  The spiritual exhaustion was so draining it led to physical lethargy.  The effort of trying to be like Christ while trying to maintain my own way of doing things and seeking my own happiness wore me out.  It is easy to miss the cure for this when you feel like you’re already doing the things you are “supposed to do,” and not doing plenty of things you’d like to do.

But then, take a good look at Jesus, who was wounded for me and you and for the people who completely reject Him, and find that His love has never wavered.  Ask Him to let you see Him as He is, and not as you are accustomed to perceiving Him. It is hard not to be completely humbled, completely broken, by that Love.  And as Theresa of Avila saw, the “delights of sin,” begin to pale in comparison to the pure joy of fellowship with our Resurrected Jesus.  It becomes easy to break with the past and run to Him, responding to his call, “Get away with me… Walk with me… Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.”

Thank You, Jesus.

The Yellow Haze is Lifting

My neighborhood is so beautiful right now. Before we lived here, we’d ride our bikes through and admire the trees arching over the road and the wisteria in bloom. It’s like a carnival of spring colors. I never though I’d dread seeing the blooms. But this year, basically the day that the azaleas and dogwoods and cherry blossoms and a blossoms on the tree our neighbor calls a tulip tree came out, I started sneezing and sniffing. And rubbing my eyes like a toddler ready for bed– ooh the agony, the constancy, the intensity of the itching!

“Uh, you ok?” Brian asked as i stumbled out of bed with bloodshot eyes, or jumped up in the middle of the night for more Kleenex. It was urgent. I basically had “surfer nose” without the surfing. (Surfer nose: when all the water that made its way into your sinus cavities while you were in the ocean makes a sudden re-appearance via your drippy nose. Especially problematic if you surfed before work or on your lunch break.) “I just feel like I’m in a fog,” I complained to Nini (my sister Stephanie, but the Auntie name, NiNi, has just really stuck) who told me “You sound like a Claritin commercial.” But without the Claritin. I’ve been hesitant to take meds because, though several are safe with breastfeeding, they can also adversely affect the milk supply. And Asher, who has cut two teeth now, is not hesitant to let me know if he’s still hungry. Chosen method of communicating dissatisfaction: biting and tugging. Simultaneously. Oh. my. goodness. And ouch.

I think the allergies are waning. And I’ll tell you this: for allergies I can now recommend the Neti Pot, a “natural sinus wash.” Also Reed’s Ginger Beer. Which is not really beer, in the sense that it is non-alcoholic, but is potent stuff. The label says it contains 26 grams of fresh ginger, which is supposed to help burn off congestion. And if you’re really brave, or really desperate, you might try the “Garlic Challenge” a try: eat one clove of raw garlic (a potent natural infection and inflammation fighter.) Though wouldn’t try it if you’re pregnant or sensitive of stomach. And perhaps have something nearby to chase it, cause, again, ouch. But it does help clear things up.

Is it the ginger or is it the rain washing tons of yellow pollen away? I don’t know, but I’m beginning to appreciate spring flowers again.

blogging unplugged

I love getting rid of things.  Not that you would know this from visiting my house… I will finally admit that Mom may have been right in always calling me a “frustrated perfectionist,” (I whole-heartedly denied the ‘perfectionist’ part from about age 12 until, oh, probably a day or so ago.  And still… I’m more the frustrated part)  What this means is that stacks and piles of papers and projects tend to profligate under my care. I will abandon a wonderful idea just started because I don’t have time to “really do it right,”  and then wait for that time when I do have time to do it properly.  I’ve begun to catch on to the fact that that time will never come. At least probably not in the next 40 years or so.

That said, i really dislike clutter (Note: my piles of papers and such do not count as clutter, because i know exactly what is in them and that is their proper temporary home) and excess.  If the Barbie shoes are left strewn about the house, I’m vacuuming those puppies right up.  (Oh, I know.  I swore I’d never be the mom that did that kind of thing.  I also swore I’d never utter the phrase “Because I said so.”  Alas…)  And if I’m not wearing it it’s going right to Goodwill.  Of course, there is a downside to that:  during each of my pregnancies I’ve cleaned out my closet, getting rid of all the clothes I’m sure I’ll never wear again.  And each time, a few months later, I’m looking in the closet like, where are my normal clothes?  Did I think I was going to be preggo-sized forever?

Brian can tend to be the same way.  We’re always looking around, re-evaluating:  is this working?  Do we need all this “stuff?”  Can we pare down?  This is not to say we seek a monk-like existence, but that we want to be rid of the excess, keeping just what’s really functional.  You know a couple months ago we cut off our cable– from the normal channels to the most basic of cable, with eight or ten channels.  I thought there’d be some Noggin (the kids) or TLC and HGTV (me) withdrawal, but no, (fortunately!) life went on just fine.

Now, a few weeks ago we did away with our internet.   I know, weird ’cause I’m still here, right?  Well, see, if I sit in just the right spot, or put the computer up on top of the bookcase on a clear day, I can catch just enough signal.  Sometimes.   So we’re saving a little more money each month (always a good thing, right?). And definitely wasting less time.  Definitely a good thing.  But shoot, I really do miss being able to catch up with your blogs, and your pics and comments and my inbox and posting what’s going on in my brain and life whenever.

Officially it’s spring, and nice and warm.  This weekend I plan to unpack my warm-weather clothes.  I’m curious to see what’s left after last summer’s pregnant closet-cleaning spree