"Grit" and Bear it.

I am not a perfect mother. For some reason, when you have six kids running through your house, or trucking along behind you at the grocery store, people draw a number of conclusions. The first is something like "Wow, you must really have it together." I don't. The second is "Man, your marriage must be a fairytale." It's not. And the third is, "You must be rich." We aren't. In fact, most of the things that "people" think it must take to raise six kids, we don't have. The biggest of which is endless patience. I will admit that yesterday was a sad example of my sometimes less than desirable length fuse. For starters, I just could not get my head in the game. Honestly, I probably need to get out more. We didn't go to church. We could have, but the ability to sleep in took over, and Sunday ended up being the day of rest but certainly not one of spiritual renewal. It wasn't really the spiritual renewal I needed though, it was just a chance to put on "real" clothes and a little bit of make-up and remember what the world looks like beyond the corn fields outside. Second, I have a teething, almost two year old. Which is in my opinion is way worse than a teething infant. And...as I mentioned, he's almost two, which equals loud, persistant, belligerence. Third, we have a super old farmhouse. It's wonderful in many ways, but the steps in this house isn't one of them. They are steep and slippery and well....they just stink. They are also configured in such a way that they're almost impossible to gate off. We figured out how. He figured out how to climb over. Sigh....we taught him to climb them safely which he can do. Then we taught him to bump, on his bottom, back down. He's good at that too. But sometimes between the travel up, or the trip back down, he gets undecided on the direction, and won't move. This happened yesterday. And after a nearly full day of listening to him whining and complaining, and yelling, and asking to be picked up, etc, etc, I was DONE. Then the stair thing happened. He wanted to go up and play in his brother's room. He got halfway up, and stopped. He sat there. I tried to get him to come down, standing at the bottom with an infant in my arms, and his brothers stood at the top and tried to entice him to come up...it didn't matter WHERE he went, as long as it wasn't ON the steps. Yes, I could have gone up and carried him down (which I eventually did) but the point is for him to use the steps independently, and get from point A to point B without assistance. So as I stood there, asking nicely, attempting to get him to WANT to come down, I got increasingly frustrated. I said Evan, please come down, he yelled MOMMMMMY, annoyed that I was bothering him. I said You can't stay on the steps, come down and play blocks, and he stomped his feet and shook his head. And I found myself gritting my teeth, trying to remain calm, and not yell. I gritted my teeth so hard in fact that I. chipped. my. tooth. ---- time for a mommy time out. I handed the baby to my son, walked up the steps, tucked that toddler under my arm and marched him down to his room, and left them to play. I locked myself in the bathroom. Half for the quiet, and half to check out the damage in my mouth. It's minor, but it needs to be fixed. I read once that a mother's patience are like a tube of toothpaste, never really all gone. I'm not sure I agree with that. Mine are more like a box of Cherrios. There is a definite end, and they just get crummier the closer you get to the bottom. With any luck, the weather will start to improve and we will be able to spread out in the yard, soak up some much needed Vitamin D, and begin to feel alive again. In the meantime, I have a dentist appointment to make...

Hey Nemo, it's not snowing!

There's nothing but rain to be seen here in Central PA, at least not yet anyway. So how are we filling our time on this rainy day? First, we have some sensory play going on in the kitchen. (That's a fancy way of saying that I put some pasta in a baking pan and am currently watching it get spread around the floor) And, we have some fun art projects going on. Thanks to my love-hate relationship with Pinterest I found a seemingly simple but fun coloring project.(pictures below) Which interestingly appears to be more fun for the adults in the house than the kids. Although we have all spent time on these, and really enjoyed ourselves, and they're super easy to draw out yourself. Perhaps a tutorial is coming? In the meantime, for those of you who are seeing a LOT more snow than we will, stay warm, stay safe, and enjoy the white stuff!

Like sands through the hour glass...

My Dad is always telling me to enjoy this season of life, it's fleeting, and when it's gone, all I'll have are memories. This season-the one I've begun to affectionately refer to in my head as "The Tribulation", I fear,due to my sleep deprived, over caffeinated fog, I may not remember at all. So this morning, I decided on a small but meaningful project. I set out to spend no more than 5 minutes capturing our life exactly the way it is right now, messy as it may be, it is our "now". In reality I spent more like 10 minutes taking pictures and about that putting them into black and white, but 20 minutes is a small amount of time to invest in freezing the sands of our hour glass. -'til next time...

I can only do what I can do...

Lately I'm finding I have a lot of things want to do. (and let's face it, the invention of Pinterest isn't helping) These days my activities are almost exclusively limited to baby care, and more often than not walking my ever fussy three month old daughter in circles around the house. (She's not actually fussy if I'm walking) But as I wear a path through the house, I see all of my unfinished projects laying about, almost taunting me with their undone-ness. (note my word invention there) My sewing machine is sitting out, taking up needed space, because I am certain that putting it away is admitting defeat. I move my knitting basket around the house, maybe managing to sneak in a row or two of that precious baby blanket I started, before that precious baby wakes from her ten minute nap. Today, and most days I can't DO much. But what can I do? I can blog from my phone while I pace the floor (as I am now). I can ignore the growing knot between my shoulders and just enjoy the smell of this sweet head of hair under my chin. I can allow my older children to sit and paint for what's going on 3 hours now, and know that while it might not be the academic heavy activities I had planned in my head, it IS art, and they ARE learning, and we are together. I can help my 7 year old read "The Giving Tree" even as I walk, filling in the words he can't sound out yet, and hear just how far he has come since we started this whole thing in July. My mental list continues to grow, but I am holding fast to the idea that I am here, present, loving them, doing my best to school them, watching the dishes and laundry go undone, the crafts unfinished and the chapters of my book unread..
But I can only do what I can do... Keep walking.

That Thing Called "Togetherness"

It's day 2 of homeschooling, so I thought I'd reflect a little. My immediate thought is: besides giving birth to them, this is the best thing I have ever done for my kids. That's not to say that it's a perfect solution, and it's only day 2...so we could still be in the "honeymoon" period. Although, we have spent all summer together and we aren't sick of each other yet, so I'd be surprised if we did at this point. (check back with me in a week and a half when we squeeze 3 adults (my 18 year old brother, my husband, and myself) and 5 kiddos into a one room cabin with no plumbing or air conditioning for 2 weeks and see if I feel the same way :) Why is this the best thing I've ever done for them? Because it's changing ME. I can see that already. I thought I was a pretty engaged parent before this, talking with the kids, paying attention to their needs, and pretty much being more attentive and involved than most, but now it is my mission, I'm spending deliberate, intentional one on one time with each of them during the day. They are each getting MORE from me than they were before this. Besides that, the prep time for each of their lessons forces me to think about each of them individually every evening after they're in bed. The time that I spend thinking about their strengths and weaknesses, likes, dislikes, and basically reflecting on WHO they are as people, and not them as a group is giving me an appreciation for them that I thought I had before. My second thought is that the amount of "togetherness" has seriously increased. I think it's really something that so many families today lack. This kid goes here doing this thing, Dad is off doing his thing, Mom has HER time....and that family bonding is seriously lacking. Maybe I'm old fashioned or have a totally different perspective than most, but I'd rather we stay home and do a lot of nothing TOGETHER than do a whole bunch of "stuff" apart. We are reading books together, sitting at the table nightly to talk about our day as a family, learning how to value each other even more than we have in the past, and learning together. In short, homeschooling was the last thing I wanted to do, but instead of listening to my selfishness, I chose to follow God's leading. And the blessings are already evident.

Back on the Wagon?

It's been just about a year since the last post. So, after a very long break, I finally feel "caught up" enough to post. As I'm hiding in the cool house from the heat of the day, I'm watching the inventions of boredom come to life. Tent's made of blankets and pillows are forming, a magazine sits shredded on the floor, and I'm trying to think up crafty indoor projects for the day, since we all agree it it just too hot outside. Since our summer project is to memorize the Beatitudes, we've picked one to do a project with today. A news paper, a Highlights magazine, some crayons and glue and we're finding the words to the verse and pasting them on our "poster" for the week. We're making a big old mess, but we're doing it together, and learning as we go. If I get really brave we might just break out that recipe for the homemade finger paint....

A Tiny Hand to Hold

It's been two years today, since we lost Ethan. It's one of those things that neither time, nor even Evan's birth can heal. I won't have an answer as to why he was taken until I get to Heaven myself. But really that's ok. There was a day when screaming "why" at God might have seemed appropriate. What I've come to find is that while intensely painful in the short term, Ethan's death has given us insight, appreciation, and a capacity to love our earthly children in a way we could not have if it had not been for Ethan's life. The concept of Heaven itself is a reality, rather than an abstract now. There seems to be plenty of room for question about what lies beyond this world when we stand viewing an older person laid out before us, or ashes as they sit in an urn on a table, but when you look upon a tiny infant, peaceful, without fault in this world, it is obvious that their tiny soul is in Heaven. It's not even that we want to believe it, there is just no question in our minds, and there never was from the moment we saw him. The "why" is not important. It was part of a plan that we will never understand, and I don't believe we were meant to.

At the moment this photo was taken (and it's the only one we have) I thought I was holding Ethan's hand, in some way lending comfort to my precious tiny baby who's life was unfairly cut short.I now believe he was holding mine, comforting me from Heaven.


~One night I dreamed a dream.
I was walking along the beach with my Lord. Across the dark sky flashed scenes from my life. For each scene, I noticed two sets of footprints in the sand, one belonging to me and one to my Lord.

When the last scene of my life shot before me I looked back at the footprints in the sand. There was only one set of footprints. I realized that this was at the lowest and saddest times of my life. This always bothered me and I questioned the Lord about my dilemma.

"Lord, You told me when I decided to follow You, You would walk and talk with me all the way. But I'm aware that during the most troublesome times of my life there is only one set of footprints. I just don't understand why, when I need You most, You leave me."

He whispered, "My precious child, I love you and will never leave you, never, ever, during your trials and testings. When you saw only one set of footprints, It was then that I carried you."