Enjoying the Present

My dad is convinced that as you age, you romanticize your past. This explains why when my great great aunt came to live with us at the age of 94, she talked about her deceased husband as “a saint”. He joked that he wants to go first so we can have time to remember him as a saint too. He doesn’t know it, but if he died tomorrow, he’d already be remembered as one. He’s one of the most generous and thoughtful people I know. But we’ll save that for another post.

I think there is some truth to this “romanticizing your past” theory. I see it happening already. The other day I mentioned to my husband that I didn’t think our older two boys had the “terrible twos” nearly as bad as our toddler does. He laughed at me. He reminded me that, yes, in fact, they had it every bit as bad as our two year old does now. And let’s not even talk about women’s memory regarding childbirth… can anyone say “rose -colored -glasses”?

But despite our desire to look at the past positively, I do think there are certain seasons and chapters in life that are just plain great: that we can appreciate fully even when we’re in them. I feel like I’m in one now. My husband and I are blessed in so many ways. And as we approach Christmas, I’m especially mindful of the sweet ages of my boys. Their anticipation and joy is palpable. And their desire to give generously is truly touching.

(here are the older two with Grandpa... Christmas 2008)

(Look at that joy!)

Recently they spent hours in the basement secretly working on gifts for us that they brought out when we decorated the tree.

It took me a few minutes to get over the fact that my tree wouldn't look like something that belonged in a magazine....

Until I realized it couldn't be more beautiful....

I know that this chapter won’t last forever. Recently I read an article from my beloved Erma Bombeck, “Christmas Chimes”. It made me know that this time really is something to treasure and that there is plenty of romance already present.

Christmas Chimes

Everything is in readiness.

The tree is trimmed. The cards taped to the door frame. The boxes stacked in glittering disarray under the tree.

Why don’t I hear chimes?

Remember the small boy who made the chimes ring in a fictional story years ago? As the legend went, the chimes would not ring unless a gift of love was placed on the altar. Kings and men of great wealth placed untold jewels there, but year after year the church remained silent.

Then one Christmas Eve, a small child in a tattered coat made his way down the aisle, and without anyone noticing he took off his coat and placed it on the altar. The chimes rang out joyously throughout the land to mark the unselfish giving of a small boy.

I used to hear chimes.

I heard them the year one of my sons gave me a tattered piece of construction paper on which he had crayoned two hands folded in prayer and a moving message, OH COME HOLY SPIT!

I heard them the year I got a shoe box that contained two baseball cards and the gum was still with them.

I heard them the Christmas they all got together and cleaned the garage.

They’re gone, aren’t they? The years of the lace doilies fashioned into snowflakes … the hands traced in plaster of paris … the Christmas trees of pipe cleaners … the thread spools that held small candles. They’re gone.

The chubby hands that clumsily used up $2 worth of paper to wrap a cork coaster are sophisticated enough to take a number and have the gift wrapped professionally.

The childish decision of when to break the ceramic piggy bank with a hammer to spring the 59 cents is now resolved by a credit card.

The muted thump of pajama-covered feet padding down the stairs to tuck her homemade crumb scrapers beneath the tree has given way to pantyhose and fashion boots to the knee.

It’ll be a good Christmas. We’ll eat too much. Make a mess in the living room. Throw the warranties into the fire by mistake. Drive the dog crazy taping bows to his tail. Return cookies to the plate with a bite out of them. Listen to Christmas music.

But Lord … what I would give to bend low and receive a gift of toothpicks and library paste and hear the chimes just one more time!

You need to get out more...

With a baby that sleeps all morning, and a toddler that sleeps all afternoon, school pick up is the extent of my social life these days. Parent-Teacher Conferences? A night out on the town for me! The other social experience is Target. I don’t know how it is I only run into people I haven’t seen in ten years if I’m wearing sweats with no make-up and have something embarrassing in my cart like Tucks or Hemorrhoid cream. One time I ran into a guy from my past in Target when I was buying lingerie. I didn’t even have a cart; I just tried to discreetly hide it behind my back. I guess that’s why there are special stores for that.

Anyway, for being a stay-at-home-mom, I don’t actually like to stay home all the time. I am an extravert (although I might have denied that for a few years while doing ministry). I need conversation… adult conversation. Once during the longest winter of history when I hadn’t left my house in months, I was so hungry for adult conversation that I let the Kirby vacuum salesman into our 740 square foot house to try and sell me a vacuum that cost more than my car. I just needed to talk to an adult… even if it was about dirt.

With naps and nursing and a baby at the height of separation anxiety, even getting a sitter just isn’t worth it. And so the computer… blogs, facebook, and emails, has become my link to the outside world. But tonight I made an exception to policy and attended not only one Christmas party, but two. It was great to know that I still can shake hands and make small talk while balancing a glass of wine and a plate of hors d’oeurves. And it is so nice to have that much craved adult interaction. And I did come home feeling energized... which is why I'm working on my blog past 10:00 at night.

But as I was driving home, I realized that the people I most enjoy spending time with are right under my own roof. Which is a good thing since my two year old was still awake (3 hours after his bedtime) reminding me why I don’t do this very often.

Becoming My Mother

When did I become that person? You know the one with hand sanitizer in her minivan that she lathers on her children after every errand. I think it was somewhere between the emergency room visits, the middle of the night breathing treatments, and the vomit.

When did I become the person who spends $40 on laundry detergent in Costco and actually uses all 180 loads of it... in a month?

When did I become that person that falls asleep on the couch in front of the TV?

I used to need company to cook a dish that uses a 9 X 13 pan, now I wonder if it’s enough to feed us all. When did that happen?

When did I start looking in the mirror and being surprised by lines around my eyes and mouth?

When did I become that person? You know, the one who worries and starts to look ten steps down the line at the consequences? I’m not sure exactly when it happened, but I remember one day on my way to costco seeing a motorcyclist going over 90 mph zigzagging in and out of traffic on the interstate. A few years ago I would have thought “cool bike”. Now my mind spun ahead to the poor driver who hits this crazy biker and spends years in jail for involuntary manslaughter. I thought of his poor mother burying her son. I thought of all kinds of worst-case scenarios and I realized that I was thinking like a mom, and not just any mom, but my mom.

Some of the things that used to drive me the most crazy about my mother, I find myself doing. I used to roll my eyes when she'd ask my dad to turn the music down, or call us to dinner like a drill sergeant, or come up with some ridiculous catastrophe that might happen if we didn't do whatever it was she thought we should. And headaches... who gets headaches all the time? A mom... that's who... or maybe it's just our sympathetic nervous system needing some quiet. Anyway, the more time goes by, the more and more I understand my mom.

Love is demanding, and no one loves quite like a mother. So this love manifests itself in all kinds of ways from nagging to hugs, but at the heart of it, is love. And love changes us. So much so that sometimes I don't even recognize myself. But I do see my mother!

Nursing

I know many women who have been unable to breastfeed, and others who made heroic sacrifices to nurse. One friend pumped everytime her baby ate since he wouldn’t nurse. My sister nursed for an entire year while completing her residency to become a doctor…working incredibly long and crazy hours in an intense setting. I know women who have had mastitis so badly that it required surgery. But I have been blessed that nursing my babies has always been easy.

Hmm… maybe easy isn’t the right word. I do remember the first few weeks with my firstborn son being so frustrating that I wondered if pigs and cows could do this, why couldn’t an educated woman figure it out? I have had moments of sheer exhaustion and utter exasperation. There were times in the first weeks after each of my children when I knew that I would quit if it didn’t get easier. But it always did. So maybe easy isn’t the right word….but fulfilling.

I have had a real sense of awe and wonder at how my body knew just what to do to nourish my child. I’ve been amazed that my child could grow and gain weight by nursing. I've been grateful that my baby can better fight off infection with my antibodies. I’ve taken better care of myself, knowing that everything I put in my body could be passed onto my child. I’ve been completely and totally astonished by how it can relax me better than a glass of wine, and bond me to my children.

And I've gotten more comfortable with nursing, even in public. Baby #4 has been nursed at baseball fields, restaurants, pools, church, and more places than I can count. When you are trying to juggle the needs of six people, you make some compromises.

Sometimes these compromises make me feel stretched and overwhelmed. But when I’m nursing, especially if no one else is immediately demanding anything, I often feel like I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be. Although I spend large parts of my day juggling demands and occasionally feeling inadequate, when I’m nursing I feel like I’m enough. More than adequate. My baby delights in me and is satisfied.

Time flies...

It seems as though I can literally see my children growing before my eyes! Each day they not only seem bigger, but continue to master new milestones and express more of their personality. Although we have moments where time seems to drag on...the cliché that this time will go by in a “blink of an eye” seems not so cliché anymore.

Just look what seven short months will do…

(This is my baby using the truck as a bassinet)

(And here he is putting legos in and out of it!)

All of a sudden it seems he’s not a little newborn anymore, but he’s grabbing and rolling and yesterday he gave me his first kiss. They say there is nothing as sweet as love’s first kiss… it’s true.

And my toddler is talking up a storm. Everyday he has new words and phrases that surprise me and make me realize he is picking up way more than I think.

My kindergartner is learning to read and has matured so much since starting school.

And my oldest just had his eighth birthday. REALLY? 8?

I was reading a blog recently about what you would tell your pre-kid self. When my oldest was born he had colic and cried for the first four months of his life. I wish I could go back and tell that bleary-eyed, overwhelmed me with spit up on her shoulder that even though each day felt like an eternity at the time… all of a sudden he would be an eight year old with an amazing sense of humor and a big heart… that didn’t need a booster seat anymore.

(His first ride without needing a booster carseat)

An exhausting, wonderful, sweet chapter....

In honor of Thanksgiving approaching, my next several blogs will focus on things that make me happy or illicit gratitude.

I am grateful for a good night’s sleep.

I got one once. I remember it was a Saturday. Miraculously no one peed the bed, had a bad dream, spent half the night coughing, or cried incessantly because they wanted to eat at four in the morning. I woke up feeling like a new woman… you know, normal! My smiles came a little easier that day, and my patience didn’t feel so forced.
It seems in the life of a baby it is two steps forward... four steps back when it comes to sleep. Once we start making progress, something always happens: daylight savings, a cold, teething…the list seems endless. I have even had fantasies of going to a hotel just to be able to sleep for eight hours in a row.

When I start to see double or have to wear sunglasses to cover my red-eye, I remember that this is only temporary. All of my older kids eventually sleep through the night most nights. If I ever feel tempted to fast-forward through this chapter of life, I am reminded of Erma Bombeck’s, “No More Oatmeal Kisses”.

Erma Bombeck is one of my best friends. I never actually met her, but she has encouraged me and helped me appreciate the humor in many of my mothering moments. If you haven’t read any of her work, I highly recommend, “Forever Erma”. I laughed, I cried, I cherished.

No More Oatmeal Kisses

One of these days you'll shout,

"Why don't you kids grow up and act your age!"

And they will.

Or, "You guys get outside and find yourselves something

to do...and don't slam the door!"

And they won't.

You'll straighten up the boys' bedroom neat and tidy:

bumper stickers discarded, bedspread tucked and smooth,

toys displayed on their shelves. Hangers in the closet.

Animals caged. And you'll say out loud, "Now I want it

to stay this way."

And it will.

You'll prepare a perfect dinner with a salad

that hasn't been picked to death and a cake

with no finger traces in the icing and you'll say,

Now there's a meal for company."

And you'll eat it alone.

You'll say, "I want complete privacy on the phone.

No dancing around. No demolition crews. Silence!

Do you hear?"

And you'll have it.

No more plastic tablecloths stained with spaghetti.

No more bedspreads to protect the sofa from damp bottoms.

No more gates to stumble over at the top of the basement steps.

No more clothespins under the sofa.

No more playpens to arrange a room around.

No more anxious nights under a vaporizer tent.

No more sand in the sheets or Popeye movies in the bathroom.

No more iron-on patches, rubber bands for ponytails,

tight boots or wet knotted shoestrings.

Imagine. A lipstick with a point on it.

No baby-sitter for New Year's Eve.

Washing only once a week.

Seeing a steak that isn't ground.

Having your teeth cleaned without a baby on your lap.

No PTA meetings.

No car pools.

No blaring radios.

No one washing her hair at 11 o'clock at night.

Having your own roll of Scotch tape.

Think about it.

No more Christmas presents out of toothpicks and library paste.

No more sloppy oatmeal kisses.

No more tooth fairy.

No giggles in the dark.

No knees to heal, no responsibility.

Only a voice crying, "Why don't you grow up?"

and the silence echoing,

"I did."

Erma Bombeck

And so this day, I am thankful for this hectic, crazy, full, sweet chapter of life. And I'm grateful for Erma Bombeck.

Gratitude

I just finished reading “Ten Prayers God Always Says Yes To”. Anthony DeStefano mentions things like, “God, show me that you exist”. “God, make me an instrument”. And “God, get me through this suffering.” He asserts that there are certain prayers that God always answers. I have one I think he should have added: “Lord, make me grateful."

When we seek gratitude, we will find it. We have so much for which to be thankful. What are some things that make you grateful? On the top of my list are my faith and the countless ways God shows me that He is with me and in charge, my four boys who bring so much joy to my life, and my husband who really is my best friend. I’m also grateful to be near family and friends, to have an amazing school for my older boys, and for so many other things I couldn't possibly name them all.

A few less significant things that illicit gratitude:

· Finding new music that I love… the latest is Ray LaMontagne thanks to my friend Cynthia

· Chinese take-out from our favorite place

· Watching my kindergartner learn to read

· A hot cup of coffee first thing in the morning

· Watching “Little House on The Prairie” (you know, the old 70s one with Michael Landon) with my husband while drinking a glass of wine

· Cheeks so chubby that they jiggle when my toddler runs

· My sons’ proud look

· A million other little surprises that grab my heart and make it grow in love and thanks

I must admit though, while I am abundantly blessed, I often don’t feel grateful. I take 99% of my blessings for granted.

Source: flipflopsandpearlsdesign.blogspot.com via Kate on Pinterest

As we approach Thanksgiving let us pray,

“Lord make us grateful.”