Goldilocks and the Wee Terrors

Violet was born a bit over two years ago.  I've barely had the chance to sit down since then.  Unless she's sleeping, she is a danger to herself and others.  She looks so benign, doesn't she?  Almost angelic...

My first 2 girls have been (and still are) admittedly easy to raise.  They are basically compliant.  They don't fight or argue.  They don't hit.  Even as toddlers, they didn't scream bloody murder or throw tantrums. What Violet does, on a daily basis, generally equates to what the other two girls have ever done.  She is what my mom would call "turbo naughty".

Once, after her bath, she covered her entire head with Vaseline, resulting in a 2 week quest for the shampoo that would de-grease her head.  We finally just had to use Dawn dish liquid.  Finally, after two shampoos with Dawn and a followup with Johnson's baby soap, her hair was clean again.

Just today, for example, she has been up to these types of mischief:

1)  She took a DVD into the bathroom and had coated it entirely with hand soap before I found them both.

2)  I threw away a two week old piece of Austin's graduation cake this morning.  While I disposed of it, I explained to both the younger kids that it was "yucky" now and that they were not to touch the cake.  They both agreed.  About an hour later, she wandered into the bedroom where I was cleaning, and her hands and face were covered in blue frosting.  I took her into the kitchen where I found that she had scouted out a discarded plastic fork from the night before (also in the trash), and that she had used it to eat nearly the entire piece of old cake.  Now, when she sits down to eat at the dinner table, we have to continually remind her to use her fork.  I submit to you that she worked to find a fork in the trash with which she could eat other trash.  At least she is unlikely to ever go hungry, as long as there is a garbage can to be found.

3)  She went out to the garage with the other kids.  A few minutes later, Austin came in to tell me that she was sitting on the garage steps eating an ice cream cone and that she had the whole box on the stairs with her and that she had left the outside freezer door standing open (for how long, we don't know).

4)  As I was making the salad for supper, she took the onion I was using, separated all the rings, and put some on each person's plate... then put the rest of it in the trash.

5)  After her bath, she went outside in the garage again.  Mark went outside to find her, and he couldn't.  He called for her and started walking down our very long driveway only to find her halfway down the long drive, walking away from the house, in her PJ's and her big sister's crocs.  

6)  When she came back inside she decided she wanted a drink and another piece of garlic bread from supper.  She brought the bag of bread over to me, and I told her we were done eating for the night.  A minute later, I turned around to find her standing on the bag of garlic bread.  So I guess her motto is, "If you can't eat it, stand on it."

7)  Somehow, in the midst of my vacuuming our bedroom floor, she found her way to the outside sill of the door that leads from the bedroom to the deck.  She scooped out handfuls of dead box elder bugs from the sill and into our bedroom floor - sprinkling them far and wide.  I'm not sure when it happened or how I didn't notice till I went into the bedroom later this evening.

These, mind you, are the things from this day that I actually remember or discover.  It's these types of things that remind me when I used to hear mothers say, "It's when they're being quiet that you know they're up to something."  Ugh... I used to not understand - in the practical sense - what that meant.  I miss those days.  Now, I not only understand it, it comprises my entire life.  In fact, I know that if I'm choosing to enjoy 5 minutes of peace and quiet in the kitchen or bathroom or weeding the garden or somewhere without her present, that she is most definitely doing something that is going to drive me crazy when I discover it.  However, it's not just when she's quiet that she's finding mischief.

These things don't even touch the dozens of times each day I am called by the other kids because she's hitting or jumping on or off furniture or filling her cup from a pitcher on the counter (or rather dumping it on the floor).  What about when she's licking the windows or taking food without asking or feeding her food to the dogs or pulling drawers completely out of the refrigerator or torturing pets or coloring in (or tearing pages out of) reading books.  (She is also my first book-defacer).

Tonight at supper one of the kids commented that Violet looks like "Goldilocks".  Another one of them said, "Yeah, but she doesn't act like her."  There was silence at the table.  Then, one of them said, "But Goldilocks did go into a house without asking."  And another one piped up, "And then she ate someone else's food...And then she broke their chair."  Then another one said, "And then she messed up their made beds and took a nap till she got caught."  More silence followed... then a giggle and another giggle... before we knew it, the whole table of us were laughing (including "Goldilocks").  Levi said, "She is like Goldilocks!"

Now I'm off to vacuum up some bugs before bed.  Tomorrow comes too early.

Empath to Compassion

My husband's work hours so far for most of this year (72 hours/week) have inconveniently fallen over Valentine's Day, my birthday, our wedding anniversary, and now two of our children's birthdays.  He has one shift a week off work, and this week he spent the afternoon taking me to lunch and to a plant nursery for the afternoon.  As we were walking through the nursery, the lady at the counter, who was trying to be friendly said to us, "Oh, so you said that you guys have been to Galena today?"  We both looked at her for a second, and my husband said, "Um... no."  It appeared she had mistaken us for a couple she had talked to earlier.  It didn't help that the "Galena couple" was standing over across the room and had also heard her make the mistake too.  As she looked at us both, mouth agape, I jumped to her aid with a, "I wish we had been in Galena today."  I wanted to try to make her feel less awkward somehow.  I tend to over-empathize with people.  It's not even something I consciously do.  It just happens inside of me.  I can't be near sick people without feeling sick myself, and I can't talk to someone with an accent without developing one too.


A few weeks ago, as my husband was getting ready for work, one of our older children hit her head on the corner of the couch.  She started to bleed quite a lot, and she showed me her hands were bloody from touching her head. As I saw the blood and tried to look for its source, I started to feel woozy myself.  I walked her into the bathroom where my husband was getting ready for work.  I told him, "You have to find the source of all this blood so I know if I need to take her to the emergency room."  As he began to look through her thick, blood-soaked hair, I got a washcloth to clean off her scalp a little bit.  As I started to clean it off, I looked down at my daughter.  She saw the bloody washcloth and started to wobble.  I asked her if she was okay as I put my hand on her noticeably clammy face.  She replied with a weak, "Yes," as I said to my husband, "She's going down."  Just as I said it, the full weight of her body (her now 5 foot tall, 100 pound frame), dropped fully into my arms.  He grabbed her and supported her weight as I started to wobble.  When I couldn't feel my lips, I knew I was empathizing with my daughter.  Between both of our dislikes for blood and the fact that she succumbed to it, I doubted I'd be up for long.  I managed to take some deep breaths, sit down and gather myself before I lost consciousness too.  


My husband's work hours have caused me to feel sorry for myself quite a bit lately.  After all, it's been awhile since I've been a full-time, single parent.  Aside from that, I only had 2 kids the first time I did it, and I wasn't so great at it then.  This whole 5-kid scenario is a tad different.  I had volunteered to help with our church's community outreach egg hunt last Saturday, and we were supposed to leave our kids behind during the setup the Friday night before the hunt.  A large part of our family's past 4 months or so has been dominated by various illnesses - most of them borne by the children.  They have suffered from virtually every type of germ our great cold season has to offer.  We have missed a lot of things due to these illnesses.  Violet happened to get sick last Monday, and, although I thought she'd be better by Friday's setup, she wasn't.  I couldn't find anyone to watch her.  So I had to take all the kids with me to the setup.  The setup is equipped with bounce house, candy-filled eggs, and about a dozen games with all kinds of treats and goodies - none of which they are supposed to touch.  So, the night was interesting to say the least.  I finally managed a few minutes to get away, as someone asked me to run to Walmart to buy a few last minute items for the hunt.  Violet tagged along.  As we strolled down an aisle, I saw a man with a mop and bucket.  I looked down at my feet to see him mopping what appeared to be vomit from the floor.  As we exchanged glances and I passed by, I said quietly to myself, "Well, it looks like at least TWO people are having a worse day than I am."  


Today I had to take the 3 youngest kids with me to Kohl's to look for luggage for an upcoming (much needed) vacation.  For the most part, I try desperately to avoid taking the children with me to "civilized" stores in daylight hours.  I don't get much accomplished and mostly end up wanting to bury myself in a clothes wrack until the men in white come take me away.  This time, I had no choice.  I had planned a morning filled with seemingly simple errands... a trip to the DMV, post office, pharmacy, a couple stores, and then home.  Believe you me, it only sounds simple.  We started off at Kohl's, where Levi, who had apparently never seen a dummy with no head (not to mention dressed in lacy panties and a bra), began to shout, "She doesn't have a head!  MOM!  Increbibble... She's got no head!"  As he chuckled to himself how funny it was, I commented something like, "Yeah, honey... increbibble," and I turned away to look at something else (ie. easily distracted by shiny objects).  As Claire tugged my arm, I turned around to see him thoroughly examining the anatomy of the dummy under her scant clothing, exclaiming, "This is great!"  Well, as I dragged him away from his new "friend", toward the luggage section, he ascertained that the toy section was a mere hop, skip, and jump from the luggage... what luck!  So he wandered toward that area half a dozen times as I coaxed, cajoled, or redneck hollered him back to my side.  Finally, luggage finally selected by an already exhausted and abundantly distracted mother, I followed him to the toys to appease his curiosity.  I looked at a few Melissa and Doug toys, and turned to Levi as he showed me a Batman toy he liked.  He said, "I think we'll just get it.  He threw it in the cart.  As I reached in to grab it out and put it back, I found that the whole bottom of the cart was filled with toys.  He and Violet (who was strapped in the front of the cart) had, it seems, grabbed and stuffed toys, $1000 shopping-spree style, into our little cart.  


I found a shirt and a dress to try on, and our caravan headed toward the dressing rooms.  Now, Violet wanted out of her cart/prison, and Claire let her out to "switch places" with her.  This went fine, and all was well until Levi started hollering, "Mom!  You're naked!  You're NAKED!!!"  I WAS NOT naked, by the way.  I was wearing nearly all of my clothes.  However, I couldn't help but want to explain myself to a dressing-area full of women I didn't even know and whose feet were the only part of them I would probably ever see.  After checking out at the front of the store, I realized that I didn't have my keys.  For that matter, I didn't have my coat.  Levi was testing out the automatic doors, and I had to run back to the changing room to see if I left my coat there.  I did, of course, and I found my keys.  We made it back out to the car in one piece, but then I realized that I had a pair of Levi's birthday shoes I needed to exchange.  So we went back in and started the adventure, round two.  


The rest of our day was much the same... bottles of shampoo ending up in the cart without my notice.  Levi spending 1/2 hour in the bathroom at ShopKo after having locked me out of the stall for his "privacy".  It's too bad really, because I was looking forward to broadcasting, "Levi, you're NAKED!" throughout the ShopKo bathroom.  Violet was bored in the bathroom, and it became strenuous to the extreme trying to keep her out of the toilets, off the floors, and away from the feminine products disposal cans.  I took her and her older sister just outside the bathroom door to get drinks and play away from toilet germs.  Levi kept half shouting/half grunting from the bathroom stall, "Mom!  Are you still in here?"  To which I would poke my head in and say, "Kind of..."  He is a fastidious hand-washer, and after his "morning constitutions", we were able to finish that portion of the nightmare errand morning.  I won't bore you with the rest, but suffice it to say that it ended in a humiliating episode in a crowded parking lot with a car alarm I am unfamiliar with how to disengage.  The only thing that could have made the day better is if I had tried to take our show to Hallmark.  There are very few childhood curiosities that can't be cultivated in an environment entirely dominated by racks upon racks of colorful cards with matching envelopes, delicate breakables, and delectable candies.  It's a virtual trifecta of parental misery.  Are you empathizing with me yet?


I have found it nearly impossible to find compassion about my husband's work hours.  He has a job, after all, and a good one at that.  It's more than many have in this economy.  It's very true, and I am very grateful for it.  However, it doesn't help with the daily reality of his absence or the fact that his job often rules our home life.  I think I was born with a sympathetic design.  My mom used to say that she could see the pained look on my face at the suffering of other people or animals.  I have been trying to nurture the ability to feel sympathy and/or empathy toward other people in my children... and not just to feel it but to act upon it in a healing, helpful way.  Monday, my 7 year old daughter decided to wake up bright and early to color a set of cards for me to take to my hospice patients.  I marveled at her caring heart when her older sister spoke up and said, "She's just trying to earn marbles to fill her jar so she can get that $10 for a new Webkinz."  I was initially offended on Claire's behalf for Sadie's crass assumption, but then it all came back to me - the jar on the counter, the comment I had made the night before about the fact that she would need to earn her own money for something that she wanted.  Claire responded, "It's not ONLY that, but which character trait is it that I'm showing?  And how many marbles is that?"  It brought to mind an incident a few years back when our oldest son was accompanying us on a caroling trip with my husband's family to the nursing home on Christmas day.  As we arrived at the home he said, "How much are we getting paid for this?"  


In our, "Look out for number one" world, it seems impossible to foster in others a genuine and pure desire to love and serve those around them.  My devotions last night brought to my attention some great promise verses about our compassion and with regard to generosity.  2 Corinthians 9:6-8 says, "⁶Now this I say, he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.
 ⁷Each one must do just as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. ⁸And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed;"  In God's economy, the more we give - whether it be money, time, compassion, a listening ear, or a helpful hand - the more we receive to replenish our supply.  Vss. 10-11 say, "¹⁰Now He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness; ¹¹you will be enriched in everything for all liberality, which through us is producing thanksgiving to God."  The likely result of our graciousness to others is that the receivers of that grace take notice of the God in whose name the gift is given, and they give thanks to Him.  So it's a win-win situation for God.  He gives to us so we can give to others so they take notice of and thank Him too. 


Vss. 13-15 are even more increbibble (if you will), "¹³Because of the proof given by this ministry, they will glorify God for your obedience to your confession of the gospel of Christ and for the liberality of your contribution to them and to all, ¹⁴while they also, by prayer on your behalf, yearn for you because of the surpassing grace of God in you.¹⁵Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!"  Turns out, it's probably a win-win for us too when we give to others out of what God's given to us.  In this particular situation, Paul says that the outcome is that the receivers of our gracious gifts end up offering prayers on our behalf and even "yearn for" us because of the light of God's grace within us.  My challenge is that sometimes it is more difficult to give someone a compassionate ear than it is to give them a meal or some money.  It's more time-consuming, and it requires the ability and willingness to engage another human in his or her difficulty or suffering.  It's more costly to care than many of us are willing to bear.  It's far easier to offer trite advice or even to shame another person for feeling bad in the first place than it is to go through their problem with them to the other side.  I'm finding that where there is the most suffering, there is the greatest opportunity for grace and healing to reign.  So if someone shares a problem with you this week, try not to think of your own troubles, but rather enter into theirs.  It might make yours seem a little farther removed.  Don't say "at least you have your health" or "at least you have a job".  The bright side isn't easy to see when you're in the dark.  It's far preferable to know someone with a Light is by your side.  Empathy might be your path to a life filled with greater compassion.

I... dentity Crisis

Prima was a ballerina, and she had to be the best.  Her name, after all, was her identity.  She couldn't bear the thought of another dancer taking her place.  This was the premise of our story today in the third book of Kingdom Tales by David and Karen Mains.  Prima could pick out a flaw in another dancer a mile away... the "toos" (too short, too fat, too clumsy...) and the "not enoughs" (not practiced enough, not lithe enough, not coordinated enough...).  She looked at herself in the mirror constantly and saw her beauty and her superior form staring back at her, and she was proud of it.  Her identity was set.  She knew who she was and what her purpose in life was - to simply be the best.  The caveat of the game her mind was playing was that her reflection ended up being the "initiator" in her life.  As a result,  she found herself mimicking the movements of her own reflection.  It seemed as though how she saw herself became her identity instead of the other way around.  The way I understood the story, it was almost as though she had looked in the mirror so often to see who she was that her reflection took on a life of its own, and she became a slave to looking at it - to the point that she couldn't make her next move without looking in the mirror to see if it's what "Prima" would do.

As you may notice, the story of Prima struck a chord with me.  Perhaps it is because my identity has long been, in many ways, a source of confusion and frustration.  I know the truth is that my identity is in Christ, and in Christ I am redeemed, holy, forgiven, justified, righteous, and many more wonderful things of which I could tell you and give you the Scriptural proofs.  How often the presence of my negative feelings and the truth of Scripture have lined up in this area, however, is shamefully less often than it should and amounts to much less than victorious Christian living.  I have lived my life, for the most part, up to this point at least, as a chronic people-pleaser.  If I think I can make someone happy, I try my best to do it, regardless of personal cost.  If I meet with personal criticism, I internalize it to the point of trying to change something that may be completely acceptable to 99% of the people I know and love.  The feeling that I should change certain things about myself, coupled with the inevitable inability to do so makes me feel helpless which makes me feel angry and/or rebellious, and it all backfires... sometimes in self loathing... sometimes in angry words... sometimes in failed relationships.  I can't tell you the level at which I have agonized over the need and intense desire to change this behavior.  Even writing about it makes me feel freakish in some way - that I may be the only soul who feels these things.

Tonight, my 14 year old son said something profound, and I'm not sure what prompted his words or what his intent was, but this is what (in effect) he said:  "If God gives a person a gift, He wants to use it.  He wants to refine it in him/her.  He wants to tweak it to His specifications, but what He doesn't want is for that person to deny it, hide it, or try to destroy it, which would be hurtful and offensive to the Giver of the gift."  This reminded me of the fact that trying to change an inborn quality/personality trait (in stark contrast to trying to change a habit or sin/flesh pattern) is not only pointless and destructive, it denies the Gift Giver.

Lately, my nearly 4 year old son has been saying, every time I put a meal on the table, that he doesn't want the food.  He "doesn't like" the food.  He thinks it's "yucky".  He whines at the very same meals of which he ate seconds and thirds just a week or two previously.  Last week, my husband was home sick with a dreaded stomach virus.  We sat at the supper table without daddy that night eating, much to my little boy's dismay, chicken and vegetable lasagna.  After saying several times, "I don't like this," he said, "Why isn't daddy eating with us?"  I replied, "Because daddy's sick."  Levi responded, "Because he doesn't want to eat this?"  I said, "No.  Daddy's throwing up."  Levi questioned in an angelic tone, "Because he ate this?"  I'm happy to report that, less than 5 minutes later, Levi was finishing his last few bites of lasagna and saying, "Say... I would eat this in a box, and I would eat this with a fox.  I would eat this in a house, and I would eat this with a mouse.  That's what Doctor Seuss says, ha, ha, ha..."  The point?  I know I'm a good cook.  Aside from a misguided attempt at spinach squares a few years back, I don't ever recall making something that tasted less than delicious.  I am confident that I cook and bake well.  So if my son's dislike for the meals I make caused me to quit cooking, because I was demoralized or disgusted or even just tired of the criticism, what would that accomplish?  Should I try new recipes?  Should I spice up some old recipes?  Should I try to learn some new skills and some healthier habits?  Absolutely, but to quit cooking would be ridiculous.

I found myself wondering in all of this, if Jesus experienced everything humans experience, did he experience identity crisis?  I mean, He always knew He was God, right?  He didn't go through teenaged rebellion or a tattoos and heavy metal phase.  He didn't have to "find Himself", because He was never lost.  However, WE all, like sheep, have gone astray.  Oh, it's not like Satan didn't try to make Jesus question who He was.  Satan, of course, knew who Jesus was.  He had tried to thwart Jesus' existence from the moment He was conceived by God in a virgin named Mary.  However, it always interests me that two of the three temptations that Satan used against Jesus in the wilderness began with "If you are the Son of God..." (Matthew 4:3, 6)  Could Satan have actually believed he could get Jesus to doubt He was even God's Son?  In the garden of Eden, Satan tempted Eve by causing her to question who God was, "Did God really say..." and what God's motives were, implying that God only told them not to eat from the tree, because God didn't want them to become like Himself.  He caused her to doubt God's identity.  Under the new covenant, we who were given the identity of Jesus Christ find this same identity the object of similar and intense attack.

The truth is that my identity was determined before I took a breath.  I was determined fully acceptable by my Maker.  I enjoy drawing and creating.  If I sit down to draw something, I can see what I want it to look like in my mind way before its reality takes shape on my paper.  I have conceived of it completely in my mind before I bring it to be.

In this way, drawing is entirely unlike parenting.  When it comes to parenting, you receive a child you had relatively little control over (as far as arrival date, physical appearance, and emotional temperament) up to that point.  You give that child a name of your own choosing, and you start to try to shape that child - habits, behaviors, etc.  You do your best to love that child and make him/her comfortable.  You take things as they come along, and you spend much of your time either trying to guide and direct or trying to do damage control when your guidance is not heeded.  You try to maintain some level of control over that individual until they are mature enough to gain percentages of that control from you... which they start to do at a relatively young age (eating with a spoon, drinking from a cup, walking, talking, etc.) until they come to an age at which you give over 100% of the control to that child.  I was created with an identity already established... like a drawing - I was conceived of completely before I was given breath.  So the only One who knows who I really am - the full picture - is the One who conceived of me.  I was never a surprise and am never a surprise to Him.

II Corinthians 3:5 "⁵Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God."

The Mother of Invention

For those of you who have read my blog before, it might not surprise you to know that, as a mom, I'm pretty much a goof ball.  It should not come as a surprise to you (as it would not to my children), if you were to see me dancing down supermarket aisles or hear me talking in a thick foreign accent of questionable origin.


About a month ago, we were at a pizza parlor that had gotten one of these fancy, new, electronic-type jukeboxes.  It could instantly access nearly any song by nearly any artist.  It had touch-screen operation at toddler level, and Levi was... well, he was like a kid in a pizza parlor with a jukebox.  After a while, the kids convinced me to put a dollar in the jukebox.  This gave us 3 credits, which we assumed was three songs.  However, we found out later that most songs were 2 credits.  In fact, it appeared to us that every song was 2 credits.  This wasn't entirely true though, and I'll tell you how we found out that there were, indeed, one credit songs.  After we listened to Run by George Strait, we were trying to decide whether or not to get 5 ones for one 5 so that we could get another 2, 2 credit songs when we heard techno music begin to emanate from the jukebox.  We looked over to see that Levi had managed to touch-screen his way to perhaps the only one-credit song on the jukebox... Sexy Chick by an artist named "D. Ghetto".  Imagine the surprise on our faces as the lyrics, "I'm tryna find the words to describe this girl without being disrespectful..." reverberated from the box with almost deafening pitch.  (As if those lyrics, in and of themselves, aren't oddly disrespectful.)  These lyrics were then followed by the chorus that consisted entirely of 6 words repeated ad nauseum, and I am loath to repeat them.  However, in order for you to get the full picture of this Christian family of seven (two of whom are toddlers) sitting in a local pizza dive listening to Sexy Chick, you must know that the words to the chorus were several variations of the 6 words, "da** girl you's a sexy chick".  When the chorus started, my husband looked at me, and we tried not to roar with laughter.  The ridiculousness of yet another blog-worthy situation did not escape me - or as D. Ghetto might say, "exscape me".  (By the way, he's a white guy with blonde hair named Dave Guetta who looks, frankly, a little like Keith Urban to me.)


Well, you can't keep my kids from dancing - no matter how tacky the song.  They have their mother's "west-end rhythm" as my mother always called it.  Mark was leaning over the table talking to one of the kids, and I was behind him - enjoying the kids dancing and ardently hoping they weren't listening too closely to the lyrics, as I could picture the moment the phrase "you's a sexy chick" might make its appearance in the 2's and 3's Sunday School class.  This is when I couldn't hold it anymore - I had to get down with my bad self.  Consequently, in the tackiest club groove I could muster, I did just that.  I danced... boy, did I dance.  I did so in complete silence, so that Mark wouldn't turn around and mess up my groove.  The kids were watching me in stunned silence, as were (I found as I turned around) the waitress and three cooks... who were the only other humanoids present at that juncture.  I watched myself in the mirrored wall, and I hate to brag, but I think I did mothers of 5 everywhere a little justice that night.  When the kids told Mark to turn around, I stopped immediately.  He asked what was up, and I showed him my best moves, and he said slowly, "You did that in front of people?"  I said, "Yeah, why?"  Then he laughed nearly uncontrollably.  I wasn't sure if I should be flattered or insulted.  However, I know one thing, I was glad I had joined my kids in a few moments of uninhibited F-U-N!


I guess there are indeed one-credit songs - or at least one.  I guess you can't charge 2 credits for a 6 word chorus - one of which is a swear word, and after studying contractions with the girls for several weeks, I'm pretty sure that "you's" does not count as an actual word.  As a side note, I can't imagine the woman who is flattered by this utterance.  This took me back to a few weekends ago.  I attended an event with my husband at a nice restaurant.  The D.J. approached me and asked if he knew me.  I said, "I'm not sure."  He then sat down across from me, completely ignoring the presence of my hulking husband, and began to grill me about my whereabouts for the past 15 years - trying to guess how he knew me.  The Pièce de résistance of this man's repertoire came when he asked me if I "hung out in the bars" in Oregon.  I replied, "no", and then he asked how old I was.  When I replied that I was 32, he said, "Oh, I thought you were younger than that." (As if I'm OLD now?  He was at least in his mid-40's.)  Men?  Clueless?  Nah... the only thing that made it more amusing was when I turned to my husband after the D.J. left to see smoke coming out of his ears.  He later told our son about this guy's lame pick-up lines and said that he was about to pound the guy's face, which made me feel all the more flattered until my husband said, "Yeah, but then I noticed that he was hitting on all the girls the same way."  Aw, honey... I feel so special.  Anyway, again this left me wondering what manner of woman would find the bars question and a virtual age slam attractive.


Today, I took my girls to my rheumatologist appointment with me... partially because I enjoy their company, and partially because I'm not sure whether or not he's a little creepy.  He complimented me on a 14 pound weight loss, which I couldn't help but be proud of, showing off my muscles to the girls as he turned his back to us.  As they grinned at me, a thought occurred to me  - a thought that scared the daylights out of me, for some reason - "I'm the only mother that God gave them."  The reason it scared me was that, and I can't believe it never occurred to me before, I am the female role-model for my daughters... the person whom they are most likely to emulate.  I am IT for them... for lack of a better word.  I can't live only like I want to live, but I have to live how I want them to live.  For instance, I value a sense of humor intensely.  I feel this way, because I think it helps a person to deal with life's ups and downs... especially the downs... easier.  In fact, if on our first date my husband hadn't blurted, "We don't like those guys in Iowa.  We beat 'em up and throw their skates in the crick," (referring to men who roller skate semi-professionally), we likely wouldn't be married today.  I want my girls to laugh and to make others laugh.  However, like most fun-loving people, I have a tendency not to consider all the feelings involved before I blurt a punch line.  That is overt selfishness on the part of the chronically silly... I'll take the risk of hurting others if it'll make people laugh.  If it's possible to have an epiphany of all the things I want to be and don't want to be for the benefit of my progeny in .2 second, I had it.


My husband marvels at the capacity of my mind to be in 10 different places at once... I am If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.  In fact, Sunday morning in the car, I brought up a friend's ailing grandmother, another friend I was having dinner with that night, cabinet latches I had ordered, and about 5 other totally unrelated (in his mind) things during a 10 minute car trip.  He finally said, "I'm having a tough time following you.  How do any of these things match up?"  I said, "What things?"  He then proceeded to list back to me all the things I had talked about in the last 10 minutes.  I was astounded... for one thing, that he had been listening, two, that he could remember what I had said, and three, that I had said all those things aloud.  I said, "Well, they were all connected in my mind somehow."  Austin mumbled from the back seat, "Men are waffles, and women are spaghetti."  (I got him that book for Christmas 2 years ago, and he read it cover to cover.  Now he's a virtual relationship therapist.)


This blog is full of bunny trails that I'm honestly having difficulty pulling together.  In conclusion, as I looked at my mother's nose, my sister's nose, and thought of my nose the other night, I noticed they are all three virtually the same... as are my children's noses.  I glanced at my mother's mom and dad and noticed that neither of them had the same distinctive pug nose we had.  I asked my mom, "So where'd our noses come from?"  After thinking about the question (wondering why I asked), she responded, "Great Granny.  It's her nose."  Of all people... great grandma's nose.  How did her nose skip a generation and then proliferate throughout almost a dozen grandchildren and great grandchildren?  Whose nose was it before it was hers?  The point?  What traits of mine will show up in the next generation... or 3 generations from now?  What trait of mine will proliferate in a seemingly random way?  Will it be something I will be honored to see?  A life lived for Christ?  A compassionate spirit?  A passionate heart?  I hope they have a sense of humor, but I would be deeply saddened if that's all they got from me.  


A dear friend of mine lost her grandfather a few months ago and lost her 95-year-old grandmother today.  As I reflect on the sadness of these events, I am met with one happiness... that her grandparents left a legacy of love of God, love of family, and deep and lasting commitment to both.  Without these, they would be entering a time of despair with barely anyone beside them.  As it is, however, they have God, and they have one another... all to lean on in difficult times.  


I need to be more purposefully discipling my girls into relationship with the Giver of a life worth living.  He not only formed me with His hands, He breathes life into my lungs and makes my heart beat for Him.  He is inventing me, and I need not hide it behind whit and humor.

Snot Fair

As a mother of 5, there is hardly a day that goes by without at least one of my children adding a new word or phrase to his or her vocabulary.  Sometimes these words are good words - words like "apple" or "puppy".  Sometimes they're not such good words - words like "poop" or "idiot".  Levi, who is about to turn 4, happens to be learning the most distressing words and phrases.  Some of these are undeniably ones that he's heard me utter.  Other ones I honestly have no idea from whence they came.  I often hear him mutter words like "poop" at the dinner table and say, "We don't say those words at the dinner table."  He replies, "So can I say 'poop' in the living room after supper?"  The truth is, I'd rather he didn't say those words either place, but if he has to say them one place or the other, the living room is preferable.  I guess I could just tell him that those are bathroom words - if anything.  A few months back, he liked to say things like "stupid" and "idiot".  We told him that it hurts God's heart when we say those words.  He whispered, "Well, God can't hear them if we're in our room and we whisper them like this."  I guess that explained all the time he'd been spending in his room by himself... quietly.  This was also during the phase when I found in him the bathroom talking to himself in the mirror.  He looked confidently at his reflection and said, "I'm a BIG boy!  I don't say, 'stupid'.  I don't say, 'shut up', and I never point at people... like this," (as he pointed directly at me).  Somehow toddler hypocrisy is funnier than adult hypocrisy.

(Levi - being Levi)

This past week, Levi has discovered a new phrase - one I am positive he didn't learn from me.  "Snot fair" has been a regular lately.  It applies nicely to virtually any toddler situation - from when he doesn't get to watch a favorite movie, to when he gets put into the timeout chair for hitting his sister, to when he doesn't get enough jelly on his PB&J.  Today we ate dinner at Fiesta Cancun.  The waiter only put in an order for one cheeseburger plate when we had ordered two.  The waiter gave the plate to Violet, and Levi ended up sharing Violet's for a while until they brought Levi his.  "Snot fair" made it into that conversation too.  The vocabulary geek in me is happy that he uses this phrase in context, while the mother in me is annoyed at the sound of, what we refer to in our household as "sass".


Now I said before that I know he didn't get "snot fair" from me, but that's only because I don't say that things aren't fair.  That being said, it's not because I don't think sometimes that certain things aren't fair.  In fact, I see a lot of things that make me want to say, "snot fair".  This thinking sometimes originates from seeing something that is hurtful to a person I love.  As I've said before, I am generally in favor of vigilante justice, and I have been the deliverer of such on more than one occasion - mostly in my younger years.  I have a tendency to want to right perceived wrongs and straighten out contradictions.  No doubt it is prideful of me to think that I have the right answers to the problems I perceive.  


Contentedness and vulnerability are themes that have been running simultaneously through my life lately.  Our family has been experiencing a lot of changes, and a lot of those changes require more work from me.  In the midst of a busy life, I can find myself being discontented with everything from my marriage, to my family, to my job, to my possessions, to whatever else I don't have - or the things I do have and don't like - or the things I do have and wish I didn't have...  My husband has been going through a lot of spiritual and emotional awakenings that I've been hoping and praying about for him for so long that I wasn't even sure it was any use to pray for them anymore.  These changes are coming fast and furious.  He's becoming a different - even more amazing - man.  So that's good, right?  GREAT even, but even in the midst of that, I find myself desirous of different timing or process.  We are finding an openness and vulnerability that is more intense than I even knew was possible with another human being.  However, I find myself hesitant to embrace it, because it seems there is no such thing as complete vulnerability with another person without some level of pain attached to it.


Tonight we were reading Dr. Seuss's Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories before bed.  There is a story in the book called, Gertrude McFuzz.  Now Gertrude McFuzz is a bird who has one plain tail feather on her rear end.  However, Gertrude "knows of" this other "fancy young girl-bird named Lolla-Lee-Lou" who has two, nice, colorful tail feathers.  This makes Gertrude so discontented that she must have two feathers also.  She goes to see her "uncle doctor" who sends her to a "pillberry vine" that helps her to grow new tail feathers.   With each (awful tasting) pill she pecks off the vine, she grows a new tail feather.  Gertrude starts off by making her tail feather exactly like Lolla-Lee-Lou's, but then decides that she should make hers more striking still.  So she pecks off pills, tail feathers shooting out everywhere "gleaming like diamonds and gumdrops and gold" until she has a huge, fancy tail made of dozens of feathers that she hopes will make Lolla "scream" and "fall right down dead".  The caveat is that Gertrude McFuzz's new fabulous tail is so heavy that she can't fly over to show anyone.  Not only can't she fly, but she can't run or even walk.  So she has to get carried by several friends back to her home where she has to have the feathers painfully plucked until she's left with just that one she had to start.


I guess the bottom line with contentedness is that - when I don't have it, I'm not trusting God that what He is giving me at this point in my life is what I need mostly because it's not what I want.  Often in my parenting I give my children what they need although it's most certainly not what they want.  I am more likely to give myself, however, the things that I want instead of those things that I need.  What I am giving my children is genuine love - love that looks out for their best interest and their long-term happiness.  What I give myself, in contrast, is short-term happiness and followed by long-term misery.  I have to trust God that He is like parent-me, not self-absorbed me - or better yet, not like me at all.  He gives me what I need, even if it's not what I want.  His desire is my holiness not merely my happiness.  My happiness achieves nothing in me.  Holiness, however, achieves all sorts of things - from perseverance and endurance, to patience, to peace, to trust and faith, to compassion for others, to everlasting life.


I receive daily e-mail readings from www.ransomedheart.com .  Yesterday, the reading was about being content.  The author said that women need to have satisfying relationships with others - specifically other women.  However, the author was quick to point out that, in our fallen state, we feel this need for others to fulfill us - to fill us up - to make us whole.  We desire others to "come through" for us.  If they don't we often try to force them to do this.  Other people were never meant to meet this need for us, and they can't and won't.  This leaves us, in the end, alone, broken, and more desperate than ever for fulfillment.  The only way we can have healthy, vulnerable, contented relationships with others is by getting our fulfillment from our Maker.  He made us, knows who we are, gave us our identity in the first place, and He's the only one capable of filling our emptiness and making it abundance.  When we live a life overflowing and fulfilled, we are able to give to others from our bounty instead of trying to give them water from an "empty well". 


God has given women some things what would seem to invoke the phrase, "snot fair".  We are generally physically weaker than men.  We are more physically vulnerable.  We have menstrual cycles, menopause, and child bearing to endure.  However, we have been given a unique ability to give life to other human beings.  Our bodies are built for bearing and imparting life.  Our tendency from the youngest age to the way we carry our books in high school show that we were made for this purpose.  However, we often think our ability to give life stops at they physical.  God didn't stop there... everything special about me from my appearance, to my words, to my touch has the ability to impart life.  Too often, I don't use that gift.  In fact, the ugliest portraits of women are the ones who suck the life out of those around them... from Medusa, who turns mortals to stone with a glance, to Delilah, who uses her beauty to take away a man's strength and his very life.  We don't often see the strength in our softness.  The ability we have to give life to those around us - no matter whether we will ever physically become a mother - is God given.  Our temptation, however, is to do the opposite - to say words that cut like a knife... to disrespect, to maim, to embitter - or to ignore.  In so doing, we unwittingly abandon the possibility of receiving that which we most desire - vulnerability - the opportunity to be fully known and to fully know.  We cause our loved ones to build up defenses against us and for good reason.


In front of the mirror last night, it occurred to me that, in the garden of Eden, the serpent convinced Eve she did not have.  She didn't have God's benevolence (And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?”).  She didn't have God's honesty.  She didn't have God's best.  She considered it, believed it, and changed history with one decision.  The irony is that she had all of those things... and more than she could have ever imagined until after she had already lost it.  God had never created another being in His own image.  She had the privilege of being the most beautiful of all creation.  She had effortless comfort and lavish, loving relationships with her husband and her Creator.  She had equality with Adam.  She had everything we modern women strive after.  As I searched the mirror, I longed for something I felt I had lost.  I was Gertrude McFuzz, and my spirit was shouting, "Snot FAIR!"  But a Still Small Voice graciously reminded me, "You already have it."  


Whatever you're longing for today, you already have it.  Ephesians 2:4-7 says, " ⁴ But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, ⁵ made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. ⁶ And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, ⁷ in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus."  2 Peter 1:3b-4a says, " as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, ⁴ by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature..." In case you missed that, if you are in Christ, you have EVERYTHING you need for life and godliness.  Don't let yourself be convinced of nonexistent lack that leads to an all-consuming covetousness.  In this life, you may obtain things that are not God's best for you, but you will never be without those things He has decided are best for you.

The Blame Game

About 6 weeks ago, I started to take supper to my shut-ins a few times a week.  Sometimes, the kids like to accompany me to get out of being "shut-in" themselves.  (This winter weather is driving us all to the brink of madness.)  Yesterday, as Levi and I were driving to drop off a meal to my "sick people" as Levi calls them, the front passenger tire of our van got pulled into one of the many ruts on our soft, country road.  It pulled the whole van to the right, and Levi was uneasy about it.  He said, "Mom, you're driving crazy."
I said, "Sorry, buddy, but the road is kind of soft."  He replied, "It's okay.  It's probably just the van's fault."
I guess you know you're blood-relatives when a person is willing to blame an inanimate object for you.

As a divorced person married to a divorced person, my life has been filled with a veritable plethora of awkward circumstances.  From hosting my husband's ex-wife in our last home and in our current home, to inadvertently washing her underwear... yes, I said, "washing her underwear", to coping with children's programs with my ex-husband and his wife, to hosting my ex-husband's wife's parents at our home last week and introducing them to my other children as Sadie's and Claire's "grandma and grandpa".  I say that I cope with all these things, only because my husband doesn't seem to mind a whole lot of these inconvenient goings on.  That is to say, until his ex-wife's last visit ended in her walking unannounced into our bedroom and seeing him sitting on my adorable, white, cushioned, Victorian, vanity bench lifting my 5 pound dumbbells.  I missed it, and when I say, "I missed it," I mean I really would have liked to have witnessed that.  I'm sure it was precious.

Not to diminish Mark's hospitality in bizarre situations...  He is way better than I am.  He doesn't get annoyed, flustered, or exasperated like I do.  It's moments like these when I feel sorry for myself and find myself wanting someone to blame for my circumstances.  Isn't it someone else's fault that I have to continue to graciously endure the people who have been the cause of much of the pain in our lives?  I mean, we obviously have a choice as to whether or not to let these people invite themselves into our home.  It's probably not even good "boundary setting" to let them into our family home.  We certainly don't allow it for their sakes.  We do it for our children - who are much better at unconditional love than we could ever be, and what's important to them is important to us.

Blame shifting comes naturally to humans.  Shifting responsibility to another person (or even an animal or inanimate object) seems like second nature when we face consequences that are even just the least bit unpleasant.  And why not?  We've been doing it since Genesis 3:11.


"Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?"
 ¹²The man said, "The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate."
 ¹³Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?" And the woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate."

I don't know about you, but I see three shifts of blame in Genesis 3:11-13.  The first two are from Adam to "the woman You gave to be with me."  In other words, it was God's fault for giving Adam "this woman," and/or Eve's fault for giving him the fruit.  The third blame shift is in verse 13 when Eve says, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate."  Adam and Eve covered the aggregate of human propensity to blame.  First, it was another person's fault - Eve's.  Then very quickly, in the same sentence even, it was God's fault.  Third, it was the serpent or devil's fault.  She made me do it.  God made me do it.  The devil made me do it.  The people He had created for fellowship - companionship even - abandoned Him: left Him alone, holding the bag (blame).

God saw our very first sin - not trusting that He had our best interest at heart and thereafter choosing a way we thought was better.  Even worse, we were not willing to even acknowledge what we had done to Him.  To our amazement, His redemption of us flies in the face of the justice we deserved.  By glorious contrast to our blame-shifting human nature, Jesus came for the sole purpose of taking our blame on Himself and not just our blame, but our punishment for that blame.  Isaiah 53:3-5 tells of this work:

³ He was despised and rejected by men,
      A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
      And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him;
      He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
       ⁴ Surely He has borne our griefs
      And carried our sorrows;
      Yet we esteemed Him stricken,
      Smitten by God, and afflicted.
       ⁵ But He was wounded for our transgressions,
      He was bruised for our iniquities;
      The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
      And by His stripes we are healed. 

We hid... our faces from Him in the Garden of Eden.  We abandoned Him in our selfish desires.  Matthew 26:40-45 details the disciples falling asleep in the Garden of Gethsemane before Jesus died.  He asked them to stay awake and pray.  He was experiencing those very human emotions of sorrow and fear, but they were tired.  Matthew 26:55b says simply, "Then all the disciples forsook Him and fled." Again in Matthew 26:69-74, Peter denied even knowing Jesus - not once, but three times.  At a time when Jesus was counting on their companionship, humanity again left Him alone - holding the bag.  We hid... our faces from Him in the Garden of Gethsemane.  Not only did we not recognize His heart beating for (toward) us, we didn't care... even when it stopped beating for (in order to save) us.

How many times are our eyes to heavy to companion our Lord?  How often are our feet too quick to abandon Him in front of others?  Why do we still hide our faces from Him?  Jesus died to purchase the right for us to look God in His glorious face again.  He bought back the opportunity for us to be His companions.  It was so costly.  He took my blame so that I don't have to shift blame - not to favorite television shows, nor to sleepy eyes, nor to busy days.  The ultimate irony is a thing of beauty.