Tag Archives: motherhood

home, mommyhood, random thoughts, women

Currently

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Happy Monday, and happy Halloween! I’ve never been more happy to not be in the classroom as I am right now. Monday + Halloween is the worst elementary school combo I can think of.

Since it’s already November,  I’m linking up with Anne in Residence and A Short Blonde for their first Wednesday link up as well. I haven’t done a little update in a few weeks, so here’s a little bit about what I’m currently doing!

Celebrating || my bestie’s new baby girl! She arrived last week, and I was excited to be able to spend most of my time in the hospital during her labor. It’s such an interesting and beautiful process, and it was really neat to be a part of it from the outside, versus being the mother in labor. Here’s a picture of sweet Adele being snuggled by my J.

Hoping || for a few good pictures for a Christmas card! My friend Mary Catherine was sweet enough to come take pictures of our family last night, and when I get done writing this post, I plan to go through them, and try to arrange a few for our Christmas card. There’s a sneak peek below…

Wearing || blanket scarves and ponchos and big sweaters. This is sort of new for me, but I found a couple of things at Target and one at TJ Maxx that I fell in love with, and they’re going to be my favorite accent pieces this fall. A couple of them are tribal patterns, which I love! They don’t work super well with coats, mostly because they’re bulky, so it’s likely that I’ll drop them when it gets really cold – maybe around Christmas time. This photo is a peek from our shoot with MC yesterday, and I’m wearing one of those pieces I love!

Enjoying || a quick date with Hubby yesterday afternoon! My mom has been in town for the past few days, and during naptime, she let us go to our local beer growler store and enjoy a couple of flights. It’s been a while since we were able to just sneak out like that. Our dates usually take a lot of planning.

Eating || So. Much. Pho. It’s such a good fall treat, and fairly healthy. If you don’t know anything about it, it’s basically chicken noodle soup, Vietnamese style. You can also get different kinds of meat, but it’s delicious broth, rice noodles, onions, bean sprouts, and toppings like cilantro, Thai basil, lime juice, and/or hot sauce. The weather cools off, and there’s nothing I like better to eat. The kids like it as well, so that’s an added bonus! But all this pho does remind me that it’s almost RAMEN TIME!

Googling || blog post topic ideas. I know that seems a little trite, but I’m going to join some writer friends in publishing a blog post every day for the month of November. It’s a spin-off of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), which works for me, since I’m not writing a novel (and don’t really plan to). But I love writing, so NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) is a perfect excuse to write and write and write some more. When I began this blog, I wrote something almost every day for the first several months. But as I got busier and wrote about a lot of things that I’d been saving up for, ya know, the first 28 years of my life, I ran out of QUITE as much material. That being said, kids are constant fodder for writing, and the world is constantly changing. I plan to keep it up!

Well, this catches you up a little bit on my life. What’s going on with you currently?

home, mommyhood, siblings, things toddlers say

Things Toddlers Say

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Hey y’all! I almost forgot it was Tuesday! Here are the things from the week that were a little humorous… Enjoy!

Talking about being outside…
Me: …and I think Daddy wants to blow the leaves, too.
EK: I want the leaves to stay where they are, because it’s fall!

Talking about someone saying something mean to EK at school…
Me: You know what? Sometimes people say mean things. I don’t know that boy, so I can’t really make him stop. But you can tell him the truth, and that he’s wrong, and walk away.
J: I can make him stop! I can do this thing! I will make him stop and get my light savers (sabers, obvi) and make him stop!
Me: 😍

J’s preschool teacher told me this: J is very smart. He is able to remember details from the stories we read the next day. Although, when we read about Noah, I asked the children, “What did God put up in the sky after the flood?” And J kept saying, “Duck!”

Peekaboo champion…
J: Here, D. I got your bee swaddle! Zzzzzzz…. (He puts it on D’s head.) Look, Mom! Where did D go?!

G-Daddy to EK: You have your shoes on the wrong feet.
EK, crossing her ankles: Now they’re on the right feet.

J: Mom! Look what I picked!
Me: A booger?
J: Yeah!

EK: I want Cinderella’s pink dress.
Me: But Cinderella doesn’t wear a pink dress.
EK: Yeah she does. She has one from her mice.
Me: Touché.

J, holding out his hand: I catched it!
Me: Caught what?
J: My spit!

Twenty-first century kids…
EK: I want to hear the train song.
J: We can’t pull it up.

Bee stings from two weeks ago…
EK: When we get home, I would like a little ice for my stung. It was a couple weeks ago but it’s still there and it’s still hurting. That night when our friends were here? It’s still a sting and it hurts.

Some tidbits from a ride home one evening…
J: I could see some lights that I could see!
EK: And I see some trees!
J: I see some broccolis, mama!
EK: Um, um, um, um, um… how many times did I say um, mom?!
J: I’m still hungry. How much am I hungry, mom?
EK: When will I be home?
All in the same convo.

After we put the kids to bed, and we’re getting to bed ourselves, J comes up, asking for extra snuggles. Hubby and I hop on the bed for a couple of minutes of snuggling. After a sweet 30 seconds, J exclaims, “Somebody stinks.” and hops off the bed. Um, goodnight?

What are your kids talking about? Are they as random as mine?

home, mommyhood, random thoughts

Today has been a typical Monday.

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Y’all, it’s finally naptime. I woke up this morning wondering if I was sick; my body was achy and I was fatigued. J was in my bed at the actual crack of dawn, one weak sunbeam pouring through the crack in my curtains. He was soon followed by EK, who joined the Netflix-on-Mom’s-phone party, but at that point there were too many people in the bed. After sending them downstairs with a one-ton container of grapes, I crawled back in the bed to see if I could snooze.
It didn’t get better from there.

I’ve been on edge, grumpy, and just plain yuck all day. The big kids haven’t been much better, having gotten up so early. They haven’t eaten well, or played well together, which recently hasn’t been a problem. The baby was his usual bright self, but with 3x the normal number of poops and a mad diaper rash at the end of them.

In short, it’s a proverbial Monday.

People always talk about how Monday is the worst. The weekend is over, the workplace is full of grumpy people, the students are tired, the joy and freedom of being unscheduled and just having fun has worn off. But for my family, Monday is usually the best. Hubby and I never work on Mondays. The kids don’t have preschool, and so we try to make it a family fun day. We have lunch out. We go to the park. We watch a movie together. Whatever it looks like, we try to have fun together since there’s no agenda. But not today.

Monday jumped up and bit us all in the ass.

So now, in a blessed moment of quiet, Hubby is doing some dinner prep, and I’m sipping hot tea and writing. To pour out the words somehow gives my feelings a bit of validation, but it also begins to wash those feelings away. Giving myself an opportunity to complain a little can be the start to eradicating the bad feelings. Just need to get out of my own head, realize it’s my attitude (well, and the kids’) that’s causing most of the problems, and pull my bootstraps up to a different mindset.

Here’s to hot tea and quiet moments.

#amwriting

faith, mommyhood, My Big Jesus

The Beauty of the Balance of Parenting

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This post also appeared on My Big Jesus.

This weekend, our pastor kicked off a series about the beauty of balance (you can listen to it here if you’d like). He spoke of how Christ is balanced not by being mediocre, or lukewarm, but having strong feelings in both directions. When he loves, he loves fully, fiercely, and sacrificially. When he is angry, he is filled with righteous anger. Jesus was altogether human, and is fully God. He is full of grace, yet spoke only truth. Some might say He is a contradiction, but He simply embodies the beauty of balance.

As I listened to the metaphors of balance, it seemed even more apparent to me than usual that life is more about a balance of extremes than pulling ourselves into the middle, and letting go of what’s on either side – and especially better to have a balance than leaning on one side too heavily.

Even more than that, as it often happens with me nowadays, the pastor’s message spoke to me particularly through the lens of motherhood. It is important to have balance in every aspect of parenting children. You need lots of elements to raise well your tiny humans, and to emotionally and physically survive parenting. You need silliness and discipline. You need exercise (or at least getting out some energy) and rest. You need community and time to be alone. You need a balance of all these things. Parenting consists of small moments of a single feeling or a lesson learned, all of which are built up together to grow up your little people. Yes, there are moments where your children learn security from love and affection that you show them. There are moments where they will learn about integrity, because you went through with a consequence, even when you didn’t want to. There are joyous times for being silly and making faces, and growing imagination through pretending. There are hard conversations about right and wrong, and mistakes made and how to fix them.

But each of these things, on their own, don’t create and nurture a life. It takes all of them together, interspersed through the long days and short years of being a parent and loving a child. The beauty of balance in parenthood is what grows up our helpless babes into Jesus-loving men and women who can impact the world in a positive way. The seasons of sleepless nights (cue any “mombie” jokes you’ve ever heard), potty training (when it’s often easier to leave them in the diaper), driver’s ed (where you might be literally fearing for their lives) and college tuition (where you’re sacrificing your current comforts for their futures) all matter. The beauty is in the balance of your love for them, your willingness to make sacrifices for them, and your desire for them to be independent, well-meaning and compassionate people.

mommyhood

Currently

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Hey y’all! Thanks for bearing with me through a summer of travel, kids out of school, a few changes, and general laziness. School starts for my eldest two kiddos next week, and I fully expect to be back in my writing swing.

In the meantime, there are a few fun things I’ve been involved with that I haven’t had the chance to write about! There have been parties and celebrations, trips and concerts, yummy food and drinks, date nights and play dates. I’ll attempt to recap you a little on what we’ve currently been up to.

Discovering || the gender of our dear friends’ first baby! They hosted a little get-together to share with us whether the sweet babe would be a boy or a girl. We found out that (just like us and most of our close friends, oddly enough) their first baby will be a sweet girl! The mama-to-be Andrea baked cupcakes with pink icing inside, and let our kids all tear into them. It was ADORABLE.

the girls, celebrating adding one to our number!
EK and her buddies dancing

Celebrating || my best gal from college Lauren, as she prepares to welcome her first baby: a girl! Three other friends and I got together to put together a baby shower this past weekend, and it was SO fun. We held it in the same place on our college campus that they held my first baby shower, and one for another friend in our college roommate group. It’s a beautiful space to begin with, so we spend more of our efforts on food, games, etc. than we do on decorations. The crowning achievement for me of this particular shower was the favor. I had seen an Instagram post a while back about a favor that was a splitter of champagne. It had a homemade label with instructions to save the splitter till the baby arrived, then post a photo of a toast on Instagram with a specific hashtag. Since Lauren is a Prosecco lover (as am I), we bought Prosecco splitters, and my friend Andrea (yes, the other one having a baby girl!) made cute tags for them. EK helped me tie the tags on, and I was VERY pleased with the result! They were definitely a crowd pleaser.

i got macarons, but when the mama-to-be is a baker, she wants to contribute, too!
the Salem girls! (and Callie, class of 2038!)
 

Listening || to the Dixie Chicks! I listened to them during their height of popularity, and have tapered off listening to them recently. But when I saw that they were coming close by on their next tour, and on my friend Mary Katherine’s 30th birthday no less, I decided to go. I got together with some girlfriends, tailgated, and went to their concert. I was a little sad that I didn’t know more songs (they were mostly songs off their new album, which I didn’t know very well), and a little aghast at the blunt political statement they were making (I know, I shouldn’t have been surprised) since I just wanted to hear them play music. But all in all, I enjoyed myself! The tickets weren’t that expensive, so I won’t complain anymore.

i stayed that night with my gal pal from high school. love her!
the birthday girl and our photobomber. it was SO HOT that night. those hats were freebies at the venue, and they say, “No hate in our state.” oh dear.

Enjoying || the last few days of no routine. The kids and I went downtown for breakfast treats and to the park this morning. It won’t be long until we don’t have many morning dates, so I’m relishing that time with them.   

Eating || summer salsa and quesadillas! Between tomatoes and peppers from the garden, and local tomatillos, we have been tearing through salsa. Fresh salsa, cooked salsa, mild or hot… It’s one of our summer favorites, and I’ll be sad when the season is over. 

you know it’s good when it’s all gone!

Shopping || for Christmas! I know y’all think I’m crazy, but I love being the early bird and getting sales before other people are even thinking about Christmas. When I sat down to order our Halloween stuff (I am so excited!) I also got a few things for Christmas presents for the kiddos. Online shopping is the actual best!

Well, that’s a big update on my life- what have you been up to? Are you happy to have school back in session and slip into a routine?

faith, mommyhood, My Big Jesus, random thoughts, travel, women

He Could Be My Son. 

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Mahmoud Raslan/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

This boy – five years old – having seen more than many children will see in their entire lives, has shocked our country into realizing and responding to the terror and violence wreaking Syria. It might have been easy to turn away from the information we get via television and the internet, when the headlines are often focused on the latest Trump-ism or Bieber folly.  But this photo, this one viral image of a dusty, bloody boy, tiny and scared, in the back of an ambulance, has been burned into my psyche. 

He could be my son. 

He could be a nephew, a neighbor, a classmate. He is all of those things, even if not my own. He is torn from his home by a futile attempt to force Syrian citizens into submission by the radical government regime. All the effort does is harm, maim, and kill. 

He could be my son. 

He could be one of hundreds, thousands. Displaced, alone, wandering. They might be hungry, thirsty, and tired. They are struggling to take even one more step towards just the possibility of freedom. 

He could be my son. 

He could be my very own boy, ripped from me by an air strike. He could be my son, and I could be torn from him by rescuers who can only save a few. He could be my son, my only possession worth saving, and I would die for him a hundred times over. He could be your son, dirtied, bruised, bloodied, scared to death. 

Silent. 

He could be my son. 

Please consider giving what you can to a local and specific relief effort. Here is a short list (there are many more!) of organizations taking donations of any size:

Karam Foundation 

Hand In Hand for Syria

Mercy Corps

Migrant Offshore Aid Station

If you can’t give, do what we can all do: pray. 

faith, home, mommyhood, My Big Jesus, random thoughts

Childhood Unplugged

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This post also appeared on My Big Jesus. 

I bet you read the title to this post, and thought I was one of those no-technology, stick-to-the-outdoors sort of moms that somehow get their toddlers to eat vegetables at every meal, and don’t even have televisions at their houses. 

I’m definitely not one of those. 

My family has regular movie nights, where we watch entire movies, even beyond our “expert”-allotted one hour of screen time and right before a later bedtime. My kids eat veggies when they’re in pasta sauce or baked into muffins. And get this: we don’t even go outside some days, especially if it’s all that hot. 

But sometimes, we have opportunities to live life unplugged. My daughter has a keen imagination and could play dress up for hours. My older son loves wooden trains and tracks, and spends entire mornings rolling them along the tracks or on table edges, seeing if they’re going to crash when the magnets carry too much. They love coloring, blanket fort building, helping in the garden, and recently, the Olympics have brought on a random but fun interest in volleyball. My oldest and I are reading our first chapter book together, and imagining the pictures as we go along. 

I’m not pretending that we do these things every day. Sometimes, we don’t have a totally unplugged day for weeks at a time. But when we do… when I forget I have an iPhone, I don’t care what’s on TV, I lose track of time, and we just play… Those are the times I feel like I’m sharing my own childhood with them. I remember days of reading book after book, throwing sheets over the dining room chairs and hiding underneath, filling giant coloring books with crayon colors, and swinging for hours. I love sharing my favorite movies with them, or playing reading games on the iPad, but sometimes, somehow, unplugged is just sweeter. 

Now, I’ll be crying by the end of tomorrow about how my preschoolers won’t stop fighting, and I’ll have broken the unplugged magic by lunchtime, but hey- it can’t be every day. 

mommyhood, things toddlers say

Things Toddlers Say

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Happy Tuesday, y’all! I haven’t had a chance to get this one up until now, so happy afternoon! We’ve had a funny week with the kiddos, so here are the highlights!

Hubby is trying to talk to his dad…
J: Daddy! Stop talking and close your eyes!

EK, looking at above picture: Okay- that’s pretty cute.

J: He stole it!
Me, to D: Can you give that back to J?
(D puts it in his hand for a split second, then snatches it back.)
J: He don’t wants tooooooo! (Dissolves into tears as I laugh at the irony.)

J: Look at I found! (Any time he wants to show anyone anything.)

J, when asked why he wasn’t taking his nap: I got a bad poop! (And starts taking his diaper off.)

One night after bedtime, I found EK at the top of the stairs about 45 minutes after I’d left her in the bed. I asked, “How long have you been here?!” She sighed a teenagery sigh and answered, “Five hours.”

J called this my “Cinderella glass”:

EK, as picture below: But I don’t have the same costume as them!

EK: But I want dinner!
Me: You remember the avocado and carrots and oranges? That was dinner.
EK: But I want something cooked in a pan!
Me: …….

Me: Would you like to hang out with our friends tomorrow?
EK: I wanted to go to the mall tomorrow.

J: Daddy, I love you. So do you have a baby in your tummy?

Listening to Jesus Loves Me…
EK: What’s this song? (She definitely knows it.)
J: The Bible of the book. From summer camp.

EK, after VBS: We went to the playground today, and I kick-ed dirt.

We’ve been putting conditioner in EK’s hair to help it get longer, and she’s now obsessed with how soft her hair is. Then this happened…
EK: Daddy! Look how soft my hair is! (And she did a little flip of her hair with her hand.)
J, running up: Mommy! Look how soft my hair is! (And he starts rubbing his hair with both hands, a la an Herbal Essence commercial.)
EK: Yeah, it’s because we condition it. (Like it had all been her idea.)

J’s newest word confusion: Choke and joke. Usually, it’s that he’s trying to say joke but says choke instead, and it’s a hilarious mix-up.

When we ask the kids to “Say cheese!” for a photo…
EK, nicely: Cheese!
J, screaming as loud as he can: CHEEEEEEEESE!
D, smiling: Shhhhh!

Well that’s it for today! What are you kids saying that’s silly?

faith, mommyhood, My Big Jesus, my journey as a mother, women

It Is Important. 

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This post also appeared on My Big Jesus. 

 Sometimes, at the end of the day, I look back and can’t think of a single thing that happened. I can’t think of anything I accomplished, or anything that was done.  There isn’t a checklist that got finished, or a project that was completed. I mean, I made meals that were at least partially eaten, and then I probably cleaned the rest off the floor.  I made bottles, changed diapers, maybe took the kids to the park. I might have helped with some craft, or at least handed out markers and paper. I probably turned on a movie, folded a load of clothes, or filled and ran the dishwasher.

Those things are so mundane to me sometimes. And often, they’re littered with scoldings, time-outs, or even shouting. Sometimes there are tears- theirs and mine. I get wrapped up in the second-to-second happenings: “He called me a name!” and “She pushed me!” I can’t let those things go unaddressed, lest they happen ten times more often. But I tire of punishing and reprimanding and repeating my pleas to “apologize” and “forgive”. I tire of the endless dirty laundry, and potty breaks with a “buddy”.

I was so overwhelmed by these things that last week at church, survival was my prayer request: day-to-day grace and patience in my crazy-busy, yet accomplishing nothing, stage of motherhood.

The gal who prayed for me, sweet woman that she is, happened to know exactly where I was – really knew. She not only prayed straight through to my soul as a fellow believer, but as a mother who had been (fairly recently, too) exactly where I am. She didn’t offer a cliche about how the days are long and the years are short. She didn’t encourage me to cherish those moments when they need me so much. She said simply that it was hard, she had been there, and I’d survive these intense years. But the biggest thing that hit me was this: the work that I’m doing is important.

Let’s say that together: It. Is. Important.

When I look around my frequently messy home, or catch sight of my often dirty hair, I can be discouraged that I did so much while accomplishing so little. I’ve got grubby handprints on every window in the house, snot on my jeans, and no one has gotten out of their pajamas. Am I even doing it right? But the answer is undoubtedly yes. I am doing it right, because I’m loving my kids, including lovingly disciplining them. I’m doing my best to raise them to be kind, helpful, and independent. I’m giving them endless snuggles, smooches, and hugs. I’m reading them books, and teaching them as much as I know how to teach. I’m praying for them, with them, and in front of them. I’m leading them, hopefully, into a relationship with Jesus. That work is Kingdom work, and it IS important.

 

mommyhood, things toddlers say

Things Toddlers Say

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Hello and happy Tuesday! After a fun (and admittedly emotional) weekend of the tiniest member of our family turning ONE, I’m ready for some humor! Hope you enjoy these funnies!

EK on public toilets: These aren’t so loud as blenders.

Me: Let’s get you some shorts, buddy.
J: I don’t want some shorts. I’ve got some legs.

EK approaches J to apologize for biting him (I know- it was a whole thing).
J: I’m sorry you bited me on the arm. Can you give me a hug and a kiss now?
EK, turning to Hubby: Did you hear that?
Hubby: I did. Why don’t you do that?
EK: I’m sorry, J. (Gives him a hug.)

EK has a gown with a bunch of female superheroes on it. She came upstairs after getting ready for bed while we had friends over…
EK to the room at large: There’s no boys in my nightgown. (Not a typo.)
Sam: Keep it that way.

J, all day long: Can you say, “Yes I can have some candy?”
Me: *giant eye roll*

J, picking up a phone: Hello, Lucy. It’s Gru.

EK singing “Jesus Loves Me”
J: Stop singing, EK!
Me: It’s okay if EK is singing.
J: (Sigh!) It’s okay if you sing the Bible, EK.

This very concerned helper…J: Mom! I’m fixing Diesel! (Because that plastic wrench is actually going to help whatever the problem is.)

EK: I don’t like ranch (dressing).
J: I do!

My friend sent me this gem. They were on a chair lift at a theme park…
S: Look how high we are! It looks like we’re a hundred years old!

While EK was with her grandmother…
EK sees the picture of herself as a baby, in a bikini at the beach.
EK exclaims: Oh how cute!
Annie: Do you know who it is?
EK: No.
Annie: It’s you!
EK puts her hand to her chest and says: Oh… that makes me so happy – I am going to cry!

J has had several booboos recently, and calls Band-Aids “ban-dangs”. I die every time.

So what are your kiddos talking about? Any hilarious mispronunciations?