Have you ever spent a summer evening sitting on a back porch or taking a walk and mosquitos keep biting you? You swat them away and a few minutes later one bites you again. It happens over and over and you don’t realize how bad it has gotten until you go inside and see yourself in the light, covered in bumps and splotches.

That’s how I would describe today. Nothing terrible happened, but rather it was an accumulation of annoying, frustrating, and somewhat sad events that I didn’t realize was taking its toll until I took a step back and surveyed my day.

Then I went to MOPS this evening and our theme was Celebrating Lavishly, and to be honest, I didn’t feel like celebrating anything. We watched a video and at one point the narrator said something along the lines of I know how my story ends and it gives me reason to celebrate lavishly. 

She’s right, you know. I do know how my story ends. I know that my good days and my bad days are working together to form me in the image of Christ. I know the annoyances and frustrations, (and the way that I respond to them,) create character. And I know that no matter my journey, my destination is already secure… And that, my friends, is reason enough to celebrate lavishly!

MOPS nights are always a little rough on my savages. I barely see them on these days, as I run from work straight to our meeting. When I finally pick them up they are exhausted beyond reason and tonight was no exception. When I got to Rebecca’s we had to wake C up just to get her in the car. We live literally 90 seconds away and on the way home Big E had a meltdown that I wouldn’t stop the car to give him potato chips.

Once I settled that, C piped up asking me to give her a sticker. When I told her that I didn’t have any stickers she started to scream at me that I did have stickers and she wanted one. I tried to explain that I wasn’t holding out on her, I really didn’t have any stickers at all. She was convinced I was lying to her and freaked out the rest of the way home. (Thankfully that was the total of about 30 seconds!)

When we got home, they ate chips and then I successfully got all three of them into bed in less than five minutes, which might very well be a record! With the house quiet, I might just sneak in a little bit of reading before sleep claims me as well.

We have a problem with our television.

When I was a small child… I mean a really, really, really small child (like 18 months old) we had a not so good babysitter. Let’s be honest, she was horrible. She would take us to bars, if we went through a drive thru she would get her own children food but not us, and she even dropped me down a flight of concrete stairs. My sister and I thought that the way she treated us was normal, so it never occurred to us to tell our parents. Some of my more vivid memories of our times with her were when she would watch horror movies (like Halloween) when we were in the room. I’m not sure if she thought we were too young to understand or if she was just that negligent, but we were terrified.

When we finally told our mom years later she was mortified! Thankfully we had moved and never saw her again.

But back to our TV. As a result of those early experiences I have always been very guarded about what is playing on the tv when the kids are in the room. I rarely let them watch films that either Tim or I haven’t seen before, and if they are watching one we are sitting there with them. Subsequently my children have come under the misguided impression that the tv only plays kids shows and they get very upset when we turn on anything for us.

I usually have grand intentions to watch something after the kids are in bed, but more often than not by the time the kids go down for bed I am too tired to watch tv and just end up blogging and then going straight to bed. I have a bookshelf of movies I still need to go through!

However I just got the first two seasons of When Calls The Heart on DVD for Christmas. (Before you judge, I know it is a very cheesy show, but somehow two episodes into season one and I was hooked! Darn my love of period pieces!!) Thankfully you can’t get much tamer than this show, so my poor kids are about to learn that the tv does not revolve around them and *gasp* they can entertain themselves while mommy watches her show! I think its only fair considering how many times I have sat through Meet the Numbers or Springtime with Roo. 

On a less sedentary note, today was beautiful!! After some playing with the cousins this morning, and a much needed nap this afternoon, we got the chance to go for a walk. It has literally been months since we have been to the gazebo park. Seriously, the last time we went was on Baby E’s birthday which was November 6th so we were long overdue. Both the big kids got remote controlled cars for Christmas so they wanted to take them along to play with them. I thoroughly enjoyed the fresh air and the chance to stretch my legs.

I love warmer winter days that still have just a touch of the frigid in the air, but the sunshine and daylight warm you enough to make you shrug off your coat and feel the cool air through your clothes. I love listening to the crunching and crackling of brown leaves beneath my feet and seeing the web of empty tree branches reaching toward the sky. I also love how noises sound clearer and travel further in winter.

I think if it wasn’t for the constant sicknesses, germs, and doctor visits, winter would be my favorite time of the year. In fact it was before I had kids, but then I had children and found myself living in a hotbed of runny noses, sore throats, and stomach bugs. Now I feel like most of winter I am just trying to keep my head above water, so today was an extra special day of warmth and calmness.

When I was a teenager, my first real job was working at a documentary production company. I remember we had a meeting one day with clients that came into town from Richmond. They had just driven for three hours and when they arrived the company I worked for provided us with lunch. They were already seated at the table when I got my dish and headed into the conference room. When I entered the room they both stood up and stayed standing until I was seated in my chair. A few moments later I realized I had forgotten something and got up to get it and they stood up too. When I came back, again they stood when I entered the room.

I’m a huge fan of period dramas (basically any film based on a work of classic British literature will draw me in) so I’ve seen this happen a thousand times onscreen, but that was the only time in my life that ever happened to me and it has stuck with me all these years.

And when I look at my sons I think, I want to raise men like that. I want to raise men that respect women so much that opening doors, offering their arm, or standing when a woman enters the room is second nature for them. I want to raise men that have no desire to objectify women, but instead value them as precious and worthy of protection.

That is not to say that my boys won’t understand that women are equal to them, but rather women are different than men.

As for my girl, I hope to raise her to never find her value in the attention of men and that she should expect to be respected and to never settle for anything less.

Of course both of these tasks require my children to not seek their worth in themselves, their talents, or other people, but in the knowledge of how truly special and intrinsically valuable they are to the one who created them.

A moment with Big E.

Big E- Mommy, did the doctor take me out of your belly?

Me- Yes.

Big E- And did I cry because of all the lights.

Me- Yes.

Big E- And did I want to go back in your belly because it was so comfy in there?

Me- Yeah, I think so.

Big E- (Thinks for a moment) Is there a bed in your belly?

Me- No.

Big E- Then how is it comfy in there?? (Pause) When you have a baby in your belly and you eat food does it land on the baby’s head?!?

It was an uncharacteristically loud evening in our house tonight. Tim took the day off to spend it with the good folks at the MVA to renew his license. When he got home this evening the kids begged him to play one of their favorite games, Monsters. Basically this involves daddy being a monster and hiding in the closet in our bedroom and then the kids have to go look for him. When they find him he jumps out and everyone screams at the top of their lungs!

As I’ve mentioned before, I grew up in an old farmhouse. The community was comprised of mostly historic homes. The little town I lived in used to be a large shipping port and was quite a bustling town but by the time we moved in, a century had passed and it was a quiet, peaceful little place where everyone was local. The neighbors used to tell us stories of how all the older houses were haunted, and which spirits supposedly walked their halls. (On a side note, I was once asked to housesit for a woman down the street and when I came over to meet with her, she told me she would rather I didn’t actually stay in the house, as the ghost was not familiar with me and she didn’t want to make me uncomfortable.) Having heard these stories as a child, I wondered if my own house was haunted, though my little eyes and ears never found any proof.

The closest my imagination ever got was when my own parents would play a game very similar to Monsters with us. My mother’s favorite hiding spot was the closet in their bedroom and my father’s was the basement. (I should say cellar. Our basement was quite terrifying with its dusty concrete floors, hanging cobwebs, occasional black snake, and its dirt filled crawl spaces.) They would rattle the doors and make scary sounds all to the delight and terror of my sister and I. We would hold hands and muster up the courage to look for them (Knowing very well exactly where they were, and exactly what they were doing.) But in my child’s mind I would pretend it was one of those ghosts and it was our job to find them and stop them. Inevitably we would track down my mother first, because obviously going to the basement would be far less scary with her leading the way. She would jump out, we would scream, then we would all look for dad. We knew he was right inside the basement door, and we would challenge each other to be the one to open it. Sometimes he would surprise us by bursting though and send us all scampering and screaming. It was an odd pastime, but one we thoroughly enjoyed as small children and we often begged them to play.

And while I can’t stand the screaming and squealing, I am glad to see that my children have adopted a game very similar to the one we enjoyed. It’s just too bad we don’t have a horror film-esque basement to really test their resolve! Ha!

For the past week, Baby E has been sporting a pretty impressive diaper rash. We thought we were getting it under control with the usual suspect (i.e.- Desitin) but lo and behold it came back full force just a few days ago. It’s looking so bad and bothering him so much that I decided to take him in to the doctor during walk in hours this evening. Fortunately, I was able to leave the big kids with Rebecca, so it was just me and Baby E and a whole host of sick and slimy children. The place was packed. But I just kept shoving bottles and crackers in Baby E’s face and he stayed pretty calm. It was a super long wait to see the doctor. So long in fact I was able to watch almost an entire episode of Downton Abby while we waited.

When the doctor finally came he confirmed that the rash needed a prescription and wrote one out for us and then we were on our way. However, we didn’t end up getting home until after nine.

I knew I was in trouble the second I pulled in our parking spot because all of a sudden C got very silent. For a child that had been talking nonstop not more than ten seconds earlier I knew she was playing an all too familiar game of pretending to be asleep so that she would have to do as little as possible by way of getting to bed. Meltdown 1 happened when I ‘woke’ her up to make her walk inside. It all went down hill from there. Big E started freaking out that I wouldn’t let him stay out in the van as the temperature drops to about 20. I finally got everyone inside just in time for them to start screaming hysterically that one of them was hitting the other one, while one of them was pushing the other, etc. I got them upstairs and they whined through pajama time. I finally got them into bed and they moaned that they wanted me. I told them I would put Baby E to bed and come back in and spend time with them.

I wasn’t gone more than 2 minutes tops, and when I returned they were both out! Snoring-drooling-out! So, I gave kisses and hugs and snuck out and downstairs to eat my much overdue dinner and spend some time here.

When the kids were younger I used to fight these meltdowns. I used to try to make them feel better, or try to solve their problems. One day a lightbulb went off in my head that reminded me that there is no rationality when a child is tired. It is pure emotion. Don’t cater to it, just get them the thing their body needs most… sleep. Now, I don’t get as frustrated with these episodes. They come and go, and I can smile through them knowing that once they are in bed, sleep will come quickly for them and peace quickly for me!

Once or twice a year I get the urge to be crafty and when that urge comes I have to embrace it because I know it will be months and months before it returns. Fortunately it usually happens around Thanksgiving, I start getting the itch to make something with my own hands. It takes days to settle on a project, but once chosen, the wheels are in motion and for better or worse it will get completed. This year I scoured Pinterest (a site I both love and loathe) and narrowed down my search until I finally decided on this.

I was a little intimidated because there were a lot of materials and steps, but the author of the blog insisted it was easy, fast, and cheap. (For future reference, never believe that phrase in connection with anything DIY.)

Tim and I went to Home Depot to gather the supplies. We picked out the specific boards, stains, and paints. We bought sandpaper and shop rags. We got the letters at Michaels and the frames at Walmart. At home, Tim cut everything to size, sanded the boards, and stained them for me. I did the letters and we both worked on the frames. When everything was dry, I assembled everything together.

It was slow going, but I really enjoyed the process. It was fun to see each of them come together and I loved adding the small details. We were really happy with how they turned out and were excited to gift them! (somehow I didn’t get a photo of the one I made my parents. *sigh*) 

There is always such promise in a new year, isn’t there? Its the time we make resolutions and promises that this year will be different. This is the year we will lose weight. This is the year we will eat more healthy. This is the year we will finally love ourselves. But it doesn’t take us long, does it, to fall back into the daily routine of life? By the end of January, we stop working out, we give up on spinach, and we learn to settle when we look in the mirror.

What is it about resolutions that are so hard to keep? Is it because these resolutions are grounded in guilt? Maybe. I really don’t know.

I’ve been reading the Bible in a year for the past two years. That doesn’t mean that I have gotten through the Bible twice in two years, it means that its has taken me two years to get through the Bible and I’m not even finished yet. It started as a New Years resolution, which obviously failed, but one that I keep plugging away on like a year has 1000 days. But I know I will finish.

Why bring up all that? The other night I was reading a story about Elijah in 1 Kings 19:11-13. God tells Elijah to stand on a mountain. As he is standing there God passes by. There is such a terrible wind, but God was not in the wind. Then there was an earthquake. But God was not in the earthquake. After that there was a fire, but God was not in the fire. Finally there was a gentle whisper and when Elijah heard it he knew it was God.

This passage was pretty convicting to me. Personally I tend to look for God in the dramatic, in the theatrics. But in my daily every day, I forget to look for Him in the gentle whisper. But that’s where He usually is, isn’t it? He’s in our quiet times, our Bible studies, our community fellowship. He’s in devotionals, He’s in our relationships, and He’s there when we pray.

So my resolution this year is to listen for gentle whispers- and to achieve this in very practical ways, by continuing my journey through the Bible and by choosing to pray and invest in relationships in a meaningful way.

And hopefully by grace and not guilt this year will draw me closer to my heavenly father, and in turn draw me closer to my husband, children, and community.

When Big E was born, one of the first thoughts I had (after I got over the shock that he was a boy) was that he reminded me very much of my father. It was his mouth, I think.

It seemed fitting that my father’s first name should be my son’s middle name.

As he has gotten older, I see more and more traits of my father in my son. For instance, Big E eats the same way that my dad does. Their smiles are still similar too.

And when they are together I love to see them interact. Big E usually takes a little while to warm up to anyone, an introvert to the core. But he does seem to warm up quicker to men. When he sees his GP, he runs right to him and hugs his legs. He really likes GP’s car and compares all vehicles to that one. (In his eyes, nothing is faster than GP’s car… He might be right. *sigh*) He jokes with his grandfather and likes to play games.

While visiting my parents I picked up this alligator (or crocodile- I honestly can’t tell the difference and I already threw out the packaging) game. The mouth of the alligator stays open as you press down its teeth. Randomly it will snap shut as you push down a tooth. Big E was a bit timid about trying the game because he was afraid that the mouth would hurt him, but after watching the adults play for awhile he wanted in. Eventually it was just him and GP playing and he was having a blast.

I’m glad to see they are such good buddies!