Kind of blue...

A while back I saw this picture, and wondered if I should take a color risk and paint my table.  My husband came home the other night to me impulsively painting it blue.

It is happy.  It is full of "spring".  I am still a little surprised by it.  And, I am sure it is not for everyone, but I am glad I did it.

Amen, sister!

Recently, a reader wrote in to an advice columnist at The Washington Post, asking about why her friend with children seemingly had no time to call her back. The author, Carolyn Hax, gave her a response I think we can all relate to:

Dear Carolyn:
My best friend has a child. 

Her: Exhausted, busy, no time for self, no time for me, etc. 

Me (no kids): Wow. Sorry. What'd you do today? 

Her: Park, play group . . .

OK. I've done Internet searches; I've talked to parents. I don't get it. What do stay-at-home moms do all day? Please, no lists of library, grocery store, dry cleaners. . . . I do all those things, too, and I don't do them every day. I guess what I'm asking is: What is a typical day, and why don't moms have time for a call or e-mail?

I work and am away from home nine hours a day (plus a few late work events), and I manage to get it all done. I'm feeling like the kid is an excuse to relax and enjoy — not a bad thing at all — but if so, why won't my friend tell me the truth?

Is this a contest ("My life is so much harder than yours")? What's the deal? I've got friends with and without kids, and all us child-free folks get the same story and have the same questions.
— Tacoma, Wash.

Dear Tacoma,
Relax and enjoy. You're funny.
Or you're lying about having friends with kids.
Or you're taking them at their word that they actually have kids, because you haven't personally been in the same room with them.
Internet searches?

I keep wavering between giving you a straight answer and giving my forehead some keyboard. To claim you want to understand — while in the same breath implying that the only logical conclusions are that your mom friends are either lying or competing with you — is disingenuous indeed.

So, since it's validation you seem to want, the real answer is what you get. In list form. When you have young kids, your typical day is: constant attention, from getting them out of bed, fed, clean, dressed; to keeping them out of harm's way; to answering their coos, cries and questions; to having two arms and carrying one kid, one set of car keys and supplies for even the quickest trips, including the latest-to-be-declared-essential piece of molded plastic gear; to keeping them from unshelving books at the library; to enforcing rest times; to staying one step ahead of them lest they get too hungry, tired or bored, any one of which produces the kind of checkout-line screaming that gets the checkout line shaking its head.

It's needing 45 minutes to do what takes others 15.
It's constant vigilance, constant touch, constant use of your voice, constant relegation of your needs to the second tier.
It's constant scrutiny and second-guessing from family members and friends, well-meaning and otherwise. It's resisting the constant temptation to seek short-term relief at everyone's long-term expense.
It's doing all this while concurrently teaching virtually everything — language, manners, safety, resourcefulness, discipline, curiosity, creativity, empathy. Everything.

It's also a choice, yes. And a joy. But if you spent all day, every day, with this brand of joy — and then when you got your first 10 minutes to yourself, you wanted to be alone with your thoughts instead of calling a good friend — a good friend wouldn't judge you, complain about you to mutual friends or marvel at how much more productively she uses her time.

Either make a sincere effort to understand, or keep your snit to yourself.

-Carolyn Hax

When I am a grandma...

I sure hope my grandkids have this much fun with me!  I am so thankful for our parents who live near to us, and continue to love our kids with reckless abandon.  So thankful...

the joy of sharing

My kids share a room.  I have to admit, I was a bit bummed when we downsized into our 2 bedroom home and we lost a room.  I have a super girly-girl who had this really beautiful wrought iron bed that I had painted pink and distressed so that it was the perfect "shabby chic" bed that looked like it came from Anthropologie (really from Ikea for $99).  Moving two kids into one room did not allow the biggish bed to fit.  I loved that she had her own place to be while her brother napped - giving me some actual "quiet time to myself".  And, I certainly appreciated that I could send them each to their own rooms for some time out from each other when the going got rough.

Adjusting to one room has been interesting.  My son, who used to sleep until about 8 AM started waking before 6 AM.  I think perhaps he has always stirred around this time, and without anything exciting to do in his room would doze back off to sleep.  Now he wakes and sees his sister sleeping across the room and starts doing the worst things ever for these wee hours of the morning - he sings his ABC's and counts to 10 (with the numbers all out of order) and sings songs from his favorite TV shows at the top of his lungs until his sister is wide awake too. Then they play together and read books for, oh, I don't know, 2 and a 1/2 minutes before they start fighting and screaming at each other.  There are mornings that I really, really miss the other bedroom.

But, something happened recently that melted my heart into a huge puddle of blissful mama goo and pretty much redeemed the early morning shared bedroom blues.

Here is how it went down...

Callen (almost 3) had his first nightmare.  He woke up sometime around 3 AM screaming and crying.  It was heartbreaking and painful.  He was so, so sad.  He could not tell me in words what was so scary, he just kept crying and saying, "I had a scawy dweam."  I stood by his bed for a long time talking to him, holding him, stroking his back, and then I left to go back to sleep.  There were a couple of quiet moments, and then he started crying again and repeating his phrase about the "scawy dweam".  We repeated this cycle a few times.  Me going to comfort him, standing next to his bed, talking him through it, going back to bed and I would lay down for a minute or two and he would start crying again.  This lasted about an hour.  

The entire time this was happening, Logan was laying there in her bed with her eyes sleepily watching me come and go.  Everytime I would come back into the room to comfort her brother she would say, "Callen is still scared about his dream" in her crackly, sleepy voice.

He started crying again and I got out of bed and was rushing back to comfort him again, but just as I got to the bedroom door and was reaching for the knob, I heard Logan say, "Callen, it's okay, Buddy.  You're okay.  I am here with you.  It's okay.  Go back to sleep, Buddy.  I am here..."  She just kept repeating it over and over in her sleepy little voice.  He stopped crying and I stood there listening to her soothing him as he did that little shuddering thing that we all do after crying our hearts out.  I stood there for a good 5 minutes listening to her comfort him first with her reassuring phrases, and then by singing a song to him.  She sang the same song I sing to her when she is scared or worried - "Mighty to Save" - a worship song from Hillsong Church in Australia.  

I had to fight every urge in my body not to rush in there and scoop them both up into a heap of hugs.  I knew it would ruin the peaceful moment that had settled on their room.

I tiptoed back to bed with tears filling my eyes and thanked God that my kids get to share a room.

Si se puede!

Have you ever had a day where you feel like all that comes out of your mouth is, "No."? I especially hate when my beautiful girl is repeatedly giving ideas for activities that are great, but not necessarily doable in that particular moment [we are headed out the door to a birthday party and it is "Mama, can we bake cookies?"... we have 10 minutes before bedtime and it is "Can we build the super tallest fort and read lots of books with a flashlight"... we are running late for preschool in the morning and sitting down to steamy bowls of oatmeal that need to be shoveled into our mouths faster than you can say "line leader" and I hear, "I know, lets make pancakes!"...].

I have learned of a great tool called a "Yes Jar". It is a place to store all those great ideas that just do not fit that moment so well. Write the ideas down and place them in the jar. Once per month, deem a certain day a "Yes Day", and pull out these great ideas and make space for Yes in your life.

Si, si, si!

What am i teaching my children?

Each second we live is a new and unique moment of the universe, a moment that will never be again.  And what do we teach our children? We teach them that two and two make four, and that Paris is the capital of France. When will we also teach them what they are? We should say to each of them: Do you know what you are? You are a marvel. You are unique. In all the years that have passed, there has never been another child like you. Your legs, your arms, your clever fingers, the way you move. You may become a Shakespeare, a Michaelangelo, a Beethoven. You have the capacity for anything. Yes, you are a marvel. And when you grow up, can you then harm another who is, like you, a marvel? You must work, we must all work, to make the world worthy of its children.

-Pablo Casals

I read this quote today and was reminded of what I want to teach my children!  I was reminded that in addition to correcting them and redirecting them from harming each other throughout the day, that I need to stop them as they scurry past me, gently hold them by the shoulders and look deep into their eyes.  I need to smile at them in a way that allows them to see, through my eyes, how very much I treasure their very existence.  I need to list the things that I love about them and remind them that they are meant to be blessings to this world and that they can do great and wonderful things in their lives.  I need to kiss them on the tips of their noses and just say, "I love you."  And, tell them about how I remember them growing inside of my tummy and how I prayed for them 50 times a day.  And that the days that they were born remain as my favorite days in my whole life.  They need to know these things.  They need to believe these things in their little hearts.

Logan and Callen, your mama loves you.

This is love!

Don't you think that the longer you are married, the better you get at recognizing how much your spouse loves you through the oddest "displays".  In early marriage, I was wooed by love songs written just for me, and special date nights, and flowers and proclamations of my beauty and grace.

Now, 10 years and 2 kids later...

I am wooed by my husband doing fancy tricks on his bike while the kids and I follow him.   I was pushing our jogging stroller and so badly wanted a few more minutes of exercise.  But, the natives were restless.  A revolt was steadily growing.  Snacks were no longer placating and the grumbling was growing louder and louder.  

Dun dun du daaaaaa...

My knight in shining armor steps up and begins entertaining them with all sorts of antics.  He was pretending to ride into the trees lining the walkway.  He would ride under the tree branches and duck at the very last moment, just barely missing a concussion.  The kids were giddy with excitement.  There is nothing funnier to toddlers and preschoolers than physical comedy, right?

Well, maybe this is better.  This was his finale.  For about a 1/2 mile he did these tricks while cars slowed down and people walking on the other side of the street stared at us like we were the biggest family of freaks.  Were they in awe?  Were they perplexed?  Yes to all of it.

-"Honey, what is that guy doing?"

-"I don't know dear, but lets stay on this side of the road.  I hope he doesn't fall on those children."