Not Just a Fairy Tale

A picnic lunch outside before chasing butterflies in the sunshine.

A line from a children's story?

I suppose it could be.

But it was actually my day.

Courtesy of being a mommy.
How amazing is that?

This Test Is Timed

For most, birthdays are about the happy-in-the-now and the giddy-of-ahead.
No rearview mirror to be found.
Except for when those birthdays belong to our kids.
Then my neck's a'cranin' to yesteryear.

I guess looking back makes the "right now" all the richer.
Lights the ahead in even brighter hues.
Because these little ones are it for me.
I'm a wife. A teacher. A friend. A leader. A sister. A daughter. And a follower of Christ in all six.
But a mother: now that's the role that has changed my world.
Perhaps it is the role that changes the world.

However you slice it, I look backward. To cherish the present. To appraise the future.
But a three foot package in the today makes me reconsider.

The tip of that hourglass to this day four years ago brings me to Judsen Ames. I love his story. I love him. Sounds obvious, no? It's still true, though. I really love him. More deeply every minute.  I mean, I grew him. GREW him!

And ahead I looked when first I held him, pondering what would make him laugh; who would make him cry; what dreams he'd dream and falls he'd fall. I guess I thought about how I'd keep growing him. Changing him.

But when I look behind, I see that it's him who's changing me.
From little...

 to bigger ...

 and biggest still...

He may be little, but he packs a powerful love punch.
On which I'm a little drunk.
Which I suppose makes him the better barometer of time.

Whether ahead or behind, now or then, birthdays are where they all collide,
   bound together by love for one little guy,
      standing the test of time.

How To Build a Boat

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.  ~Leo Buscaglia

To me, parenting and mothering, in particular, is a never-ending, always-winding string of touches, smiles, kind words, listening ears, honest compliments, and small acts of caring...that don't often feel, in and of themselves at the time of their execution, like life turnarounds.

Sunday last was a good day to remind me how wrong I am.

This is Elijah.

This is Elijah's daddy.

This is Elijah's daddy baptizing him.

This was a day when the little came 'round to the big: a big decision from a big boy lived out in the hands of a big guy, both honoring a big, big God.

It was a day that turned our firstborn son's life in direction anew. It was a marker of "before" and "after". It was his day, a reminder that though children come from us, they are separate from us. They must go their own way while we stand on the docks, watching them set sail...

 and remember how our touches, our smiles, our listening ears, honest compliments, and small acts of caring have, in fact, built their boats and carved their oars and steered their rudders.

Yeah.

Did I mention it was a good day?

                                                                                   

Redone

My spunky friend, Jessica B, yields a superpower particularly useful in our world gone clutter: she's a professional organizer. Her recent FB post proclaimed, "I love me a good, hot mess!" And God bless her for it! But I got to thinking: if I finished that sentence, how would it read?

I love a good, hot __________. (Wait, wasn't I in this fix last post, too?)

Project. My answer is project.

When Craig or one of the kids starts a sentence with, "You know, we should..." and end it with, "...you could totally do that", my inner project designer sits up and barks. In honor of the double sticks birthday, Grace decided she wanted most a bedroom makeover that was, as she put it, "bigger girl. But not too big."
     She wanted a room.
          Redone.

Now, any shopping fiend carrying a 54-by-86 mm IOU can redesign a room in an afternoon. But can you do it for less than $50? How creative can you be and still proudly wave your frugal flag? Now that's the real project.

Her color picks and patterns + a quest for the perfect fabric = Girl Date. Here's what she settled on.

Polka dots. In orange, pink, and brown. Best part of redoing a tween's room? No rules!

Which is good because we crafted these felt pillows to accent.

They're so easy to make, and each one cost mere cents. Buy the felt by the yard from a fabric store at about $1.50/yard. Use a coupon! We varied the sizes based on Grace's whim and cut the pillow forms from orange and brown. We also scooped up a couple of the 10 cent felt squares in neon green and fuschia for accent. You can hem inside around the perimeter or use an accent thread in a zig-zag on the outside for extra pop. Leave a few inches at a base side to stuff with Poly-Fil, and then stitch it up when the pillow's full. Grace decorated the outside using beads, circles, and flat glass marbles. Voila!

Strangely, our biggest brain teaser was this:

No, it's not a dead orange ostrich? Or, not quite. The shade used to be purple-trimmed, and how hard (dreamed I) could it be to find an orange shade? Well, if I was looking now, none at all - for they adorn the endcap of every blasted aisle in Target. But when I needed one? Nope. It was like water in the Sahara: a mirage of possibility, at best. Lest we be beat, the girl and I snagged a bag of orange feathers at Hobby Lobby which I used promptly to re-frock the lamp.

Remember: no rules.

A quick repaint of her name...

and a re-striping and decal-ing of her dresser ...

(We pulled out the drawers and painted her new colors just at the white areas between the drawer tops and bottoms. Then I free-handed some detail at the top and sides.)

along with a "craft-line" (aka hemp rope with painted clothespins in her new colors) to showcase her current treasures, and she was set! This way, she can change out her pieces without hanging them all over her room.

To further that idea, we used the narrow and wretched-to-paint wall area between her closet and bedroom doors to mount a corkboard wall. You can grab a package at a craft supply store for about $12 for 6 of the 8x8 size. Then hang 'em up in any configuration you want and let your kiddo go mad showcasing ribbons, notes, medals, drawings, snapshots...whatever. And NO HOLES in the wall!

I like!

 

Yes, I love me a good, hot project.

On a budget (yep, less than $50).

But I learned a little some'in, some'in along the way this time.

Our girl is growing up.

Today's "bigger girl but not too big" will fast become "bigger yet" and "bigger still" until she's decorating a house of her own.

If time is going to fly the way it insists on doing, these are the collaborations I'll love best.

Sure, there will be lots of hot projects. 

But the ones happening in a 10x12 cube with a Daddy, a Mommy, and a leggy Tween brainstorming on a budget....well, I suspect those are the ones that'll be remembered for quite some time. 

By every heart involved.

So, I s'pose I don't love me a good, hot project so much as I love me a good, hot family remodel, fixed and fiddled and flagged for display.

Us and her.

 

Redone.

That Was You

11. What's so great about 11?

Yeah, if you don't care - I get it.
  And I normally wouldn't, either.
   Except that, today, I do.

Because it's the 11th year since she came.
And made contact.

And a family.

 And a dream come true.

In these pictures, I see the first time she held Aunt Jessi's hand; the first time she met her Nana and nuzzled her cheek - as she still does today.

I regard the way she engages the world with her simple approach of love mixed with authenticity peppered with gentle compassion and quickness to giggle at all manners of humor.

If children are hope for the future, then our "ahead" will surely be better than what lays "behind" for I have met few so abidingly pleased with the white-bread, everyday pleasures of a life spent simply living.

She has grown from baby to little girl

to young woman bloomed.

She is a sister twice over.

      Part artist...

       















part dreamer...

...if you opened her mind, horses would stampede out.

        
She is an in-the-flesh reason we know blessings exist.
The first in every category we'll face together.
Our original "you and me" come to make "us".

Perfect? No.
Polished? Maybe.
Paramount? Definitely.

What's so great about 11? The Story of Grace: much in the same way she made numbers 1-10 equally brilliant. Because she's perfect and ever-pleasing and without any flaw to force constraint, not so much.

But because she came.

And made contact.

And a family.

And a dream come true.

Yes, Gracie. 

That was you.

Redefine Disgusting

Life is all well and good until chunks of vomit are cascading down your underpants.

What?!!!!???

A truer statement may never have passed my lips. Or echoed from my keyboard.

You're speaking metaphorically, right? Like a euphemism, right? Like letting the curses fly when it doesn't go your way? Something like, "Oops, I forgot to stamp that card...chunks of vomit cascading down my underpants!"?

Yeah. No. I mean, one minute I'm talking to Grace's teacher in the back of the gymnasium before the curtain rises (Did I mention Grace was a pirate? Tried out for the play and everything? Been memorizing her lines since August?). Next minute, Judsen's sounding all panicky, like he's the first to spy the white horse riding on the horizon cloud. Then I hear, "My tummy doesn't feel goooood." 

Oh crap. I know where this is going.

With teacher still talking and concern sharply peaking, I ask, "Do you feel like you're going to be s --"

And then, yes. Yes he was. Like a hose. Aimed right at my chest. Curled into it, if you really want to know the horrors. Then, as I was moving like I, too, had seen the apocalyptic horsemen, he did it again. And, just as I hailed Elijah to go get Daddy - quickly - he did it again. And again. And, just for good measure, one more time. All before we made it the bathroom.

Um. 

Ew.

Yes. Yes it was. After finally getting him to the toilet, up he chucked twice more. Outside the women's room, I could hear Grace's teacher telling Craig, "Just go in. Go in! It's all right." Of course, when Craig came 'round the corner, he was a most exceptional shade of green. I don't think he thought it was all right. Wife covered in vomit traipsing its way steadily south. No, not all right at all. But still he passed the near-useless (not his fault) brown school paper towels like a motorized arm on the "just to help you scrape off the chunks" conveyor belt of mercy. 

Yeah, that simile isn't helping the "ew" factor.

Yes. Yes I know. When the last retch had ceased, I wrapped the boy in my sodden jacket - yeah, I did type sodden - and told Craig to stay for Gracie while I headed home with the hurler (and I don't mean the throwing kind). By now, the spooge (um, didn't know how to spell it, so Googled it. Turns out, that's NOT what that word means. Triple ew.) vomit has oozed a path down the v-neck (how often do I wear a v-neck...come ON!), over the belly, and well into the underpants.

Wow. 

I'm just incredibly disgusted by this whole post.

Yes. Yes I am, too. Try motherhood. It'll redefine disgusting every time.

And, while you're basking in the merry land of pondering, here's another tittle worth excogitating:

Life is all well and good until chunks of vomit are cascading down your underpants.

In The Last 365

Today is our son, Elijah's, 8th birthday. 

8 (!).

It's hard to believe - and even harder to imagine I'll be making that same statement for the next, oh...say....every year until I die.

In 2009, I wrote a post entitled "The Story of Elijah" that tells you everything you need to know about the quality of this gem we get to call son. And, truth be told, I could write a similar entry for every year we get to have him. But, this year more than ever, I've seen our little man grow. Change. Become more of his best while shedding his worst. 

In so many ways, Elijah is my hardest child - the one I struggle to understand the most, usually because he's the child I'm like the least. Yet, he's also the child who's taught me the most about my own best...and worst...and inspired me to tip my own scales in the same way he's tipping his. He makes me laugh just by laughing himself. And it is he, more than any other worldly influence the last 365, who has awakened me to the joys of living each moment - in that moment - as a singularly delicious "just as it is". 

I've looked before at my first-born son and seen possibility; glorious potential; a promise of greatness to come. Then, somewhere along the way, I cleared my lens to see the presence of glorious potential, the arrival of promises once to come...and he is beautiful.

And that's just in the last 365.

See for yourself.

Happy Birthday, sweet boy.