Odds and Ends

As I glance around our house it occurs to me that less than 10 years ago most of what I see would have seemed very odd to me. There's a six shooter next to a plastic purse and gameboy on my kitchen counter island. A skein of yarn with the insides pulled out lies in a basket in the corner in two distinct pieces. A picnic blanket is set up on the living room floor in front of the coffee table. Next to that is an upside down tent nearly filled with toy cars, stuffed animals, and pillows. There's a doll shoe on my bathroom vanity. I don't know if other families' houses look like this. I don't really care. I could clean all these things up or have the children clean them up. But they remind me of something... the first day I died.

The death of Me started happening the morning I woke up and took a pregnancy test. A few days before that my husband and I had a mild disagreement about the purchase of a camcorder. He wanted it, and I didn't think we needed it. After all, we didn't have children - recitals to tape, sports events, etc. My husband and I had been trying to have a baby for a couple of years with no luck. That night I had a dream that my older sister was pregnant and had called to ask if she could borrow my new camcorder to video the birth of her child. I was MAD... dream me, that is. I woke up livid, as I struggled to sort dream stupor from reality. I cried at the thought of never having a child to record with the now-hated camcorder. I decided, for some reason, to take the last pregnancy test in the box - the rainy day test. I had, by that time, seen more minus signs on pregnancy tests than I had ever expected in my newlywed daydreams.

Well, long story short my sister got the first call, because she had been the "jerk of my dreams" the night before. She didn't even know what was coming. That was the day that I started to die. It started with the initial mother-guilt. Cutting back on caffeine and sugar... trying to eliminate processed foods and get plenty of sleep (which wasn't that much of a chore most of the time). The realization that I wasn't the only one my lifestyle choices were effecting was changing me - slowly. I avoided hot baths, saunas, and hot tubs. I even found myself worried to go to movie theaters and concerts - for fear that the loud noise would hurt the baby's developing ears. Every article I read about pregnancy made me more apprehensive about my capabilities as a mother, and the feeling of inadequacy threatened to drown me.

Then my husband asked me to quit my job. Quit my job? Okay - I've always wanted to stay at home to catch up on all my cleaning and watch TV all day. I can do that. The sadness of giving up a job I loved with co-workers I loved - also overwhelmed me. What had been my identity for several years was going away. My ability to identify myself as a working woman and to enjoy the pride of a job well done... gone. Was Me going away too?

When I got diagnosed with preeclampsia and had to quit work early to be on bed rest... when I started to look in the mirror and see twice the woman I used to be... I wondered where Me had gone. Would it be worth it?

As I arrived at the hospital to be induced at 199 lbs. I was thrilled that I hadn't hit the deuce. However, that 140 lb. frame I started with was long gone. I don't think I've seen her since. I think she disappeared along with the girl who could turn down dessert with a, "No thanks, I'm just not a 'sweets person'." As I entered my third day of labor with baby, I was still waiting excitedly for this new change. When they handed her to me, I cried. I was so relieved and happy. (I have cried with all four of my babies' births.) I was waiting for the magical transformation now - to MOM. Super mom maybe? I was supposed to know magically what to do now, right?

My aunt likes to say, "They'll let anybody take one of these home!" That's exactly how I felt. Nurse told me when to bathe the baby. But how? Oh, yeah... the fuzzy recollection of a child birth class I took a few months before this birth... it's all coming back to me. There was the big suit with the huge heavy breasts and big belly that I had hoped my husband would volunteer to wear for sympathy - yeah, right. There were all those other couples too... the older couple. I spent 6 weeks wondering if this was their first - not possible - why were they taking another class? Then the cute ones ... Mr. and Mrs. Perfect. "Is your nursery finished? Of course, my nursery has been done for 5 months. I just couldn't relax until I got all the furniture ordered... blah, blah, blah..." Then the single mom - there with her mom... at least her birthing partner new what it was like to wear the big belly suit. Oh, and then the videos - the scary videos of screaming labor. Is this supposed to encourage me to try natural childbirth? They left me wondering, "Could I just go ahead and get some demerol and an epidural right now? It can't be too soon to be well-prepared." I could remember all of those things, but the bathing lesson? Not a clue. That must be part of me that died.

The first 2 months were pure misery. Some women might tell you those were the best months of their lives. I wouldn't doubt them, but for me... it was pure torture. You name it - all those "helpful" motherly cliches that you hear, "Does she have her days and nights mixed up?" "Does she have the colic?" "You think it's a smile, but it's just gas." I wanted to scream like a maniac that someone had stolen Me. But instead I managed a polite smile and a courteous response.

After those first two months, baby started to do some things. She cooed. She smiled. She laughed. She sat up. She said, "mama". She got her first tooth. "How are you doing?" "Me? I'm fine, but look at her. Look how big she is! Look at her go." She's still going today. Me was continuing to die.

Me still rears her ugly head sometimes. Me is exasperated at a missing new box of pencils. She enjoys watching a toddler play drums with her new drumsticks. Me dislikes lots of background ruckus while on the phone. She loves watching the baby laughing on the floor while big sister blows on her belly to keep her entertained while mom's on the phone. Me is annoyed at the dead flowers in my front flower bed. She is thrilled that the first step in potty training a boy might just be letting him enjoy peeing off the front porch. (We live in the country.)

She is who I want to be. She is the kind of mom I want my children to have. After all, She sees the beauty in the chaos. She values love over perfection, rest over stress, relationships over appearances. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy order, but I have also come to see the value in the tangible reminders that this season of my life and of my children's lives is short. It will come and go in a blink. Me would have us miss out on the joy of it. She beckons me to bask in a the cuteness of a chocolate cheek, the sweetness of a syrup kiss, and a banana-slime handprint on my black blouse. These little "odds" have been the beginning of the end of Me.

I hope She continues to grow and push Me right out. If my own mother and grandmothers are any indication, Me might disappear completely once She becomes a grandma. Today, thank the Lord if you were blessed enough to have had the love of an unselfish mother. Burying Me isn't easy for anybody. What an odd end.

Spilled Milk

Germs have been waging war against us for about a month in this house. It started with a little sniffle, and it has become a full blown coughing, sneezing, earache, sore throat, mucus-fest. Combine that with a couple of perpetually teething toddlers, and you have a recipe for physical misery and mental anguish that seems to be never ending. I think much of this is brought on by seasonal allergies and taken advantage of by a few enterprising germs. On top of this, Mark is trying to work through it on his outage hours of 72 hours/week. We've been trying to start a garden also during this season, keep the lawn mowed, and deal with a few incidental health problems that have cropped up. The thing is, I don't really feel stressed by these things. That is, until I sit and dwell on them.

This morning was a different story. I woke up to a puddle under our freezer in the garage. It seemed as though it had been like that for quite awhile as most of what was in the freezer was thoroughly thawed and useless. Even the things I might have been able to salvage had NO place to go, as the freezer was inoperable at the moment, and our indoor freezer was overstuffed as it was. As I was calling everyone I could think of - it occurred to me I was feeling a little bit of stress. Mark is largely unavailable by phone during outage, and my parents are packing for a 2 week vacation in Florida.

As I was surveying the damage, the insurance man called to explain that he would need a thorough inventory (along with prices) of anything in the freezer that was unsalvageable. As we were talking, Violet came up behind me, slipped on the puddle of water from the freezer, and smacked the back of her head on the cement garage floor. The dull thud precipitated the "pause heard round the world" before the screaming that prohibited any further conversation with the insurance man who had ironically asked, "How are you doing today?" when I had answered the phone. Well, if he didn't have a clue how I was at the beginning of the conversation about how to properly inventory a freezer full of spoiled food, then he certainly had a better idea when the baby was screaming in his ear at the end of the conversation.

Now, I'm not really one for crying, and I have a strict, "no crying before noon" policy, mostly because no one else in the house follows this same policy, and we can't all spend the morning blubbering.

I was wracked with waste guilt as I was filling three garbage bags with previously-frozen food. I was also being grossed out by all the juices of previously frozen chicken and pork - imagining my feet wading in e-coli and trichina worms that had dripped onto the rest of the food and was running in puddles around the garage floor. The cause of all this mess was a tripped breaker. It almost made me mad at the freezer - as if it was all her fault. But then again no emotion makes me want to animate inanimate objects like anger does.

As I was struggling trying to empty and inventory the freezer food and keep the toddlers out of the germ puddles, Sadie and Claire came outside and asked how they could help. The girls started carrying salvageable food into the inside freezer and helped keep the toddlers occupied. As I breathed a long, frustrated sigh, Sadie asked, "What's wrong?" I responded rather impatiently, "What's wrong? You can see what's wrong." Without a word, she went into the house and came back out to the garage with her pink CD player and a CD which she popped into the player. It was called "I Can Only Imagine - Lullabies for a Peaceful Sleep". It was Christian songs/hymns played lullaby style. She turned it on in the garage and went to help Claire keep an eye on the babies again. Claire came over to me with a cut out heart that said in crayon, "I love you, mom. Happy Day. Best Day :)" Well, needless to say my no crying policy was in serious jeopardy. I felt another serious guilt pang - that of feeling so sorry for myself when these precious children could see it. They were bearing my burdens with me. And they knew what I needed better than I did at that moment. My blessings far outmeasure my difficulties, and how can I not see that every moment?

It made me notice once again that there are real people inside my children - not just ones that need, need, need, but ones that can see a need and give, give, give. I underestimate my children daily. Their understanding and ability is far above what I imagine it is. I take no credit for this. If anything, my ignorance reduces their potential. I am so thankful that God put within them the ability to recognize a need and the love to act upon it. I hope that, in a world full of takers, they will grow up to be givers, and I hope that I figure out how to nurture that gift. I hope that they learn that, as they demonstrated today, love is not a word - it's a choice to act for the benefit of another. Love - in its true form - is rarer than any other gift on the planet. 1 John 3:18 says, "¹⁸Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth." Anyone with a voice (or ability to write) can love with words, but actions show the truth of what's in the heart. True love requires action.

Today I've been loved by my children - not just in words before bedtime or after I bake a batch of cookies - but in action that overflowed from a heart of genuine love. It's my prayer that I can demonstrate this same action toward others also.

On the bright side, we're eating like royalty today - trying to salvage a HUGE pork roast, corn on the cob, and some Schwan turkey pot pies, AND the insurance company offers $500 in spoiled food coverage. So whatever I can't save is on the insurance company, and finally that huge insurance check I write out every month doesn't seem quite so useless. Today didn't go as I planned, but it always goes how God plans. This morning wasn't filled with learning about science and history. In fact, it was more of a "teacher might have to go to The Institute" day. At least I learned something, and I guess crying over spilled milk isn't so bad after all - as long as you're crying out of gratitude for the love of the one who cleaned it up for you.