Momma Joy

When I was in college, I reached a point in my "enlightenment" when I saw children as a hindrance to knowing... A hindrance to knowing God, knowing self, enjoying the vast, amazing universe. And, in one of my less wise moves, I actually prayed that God would never grant me children.

I can barely type those words for the mist in my eyes; I'm so sad that I prayed those words.

But thankfully God didn't see fit to acknowledge that prayer.

Last night I had a sleepover with my precious Eve. The sleepover was not planned. My sweet preschooler was swept with a mad rash of influenza which rendered her weak and helpless. Her body became a ragdoll as I cleaned her face from each bout of sickness. I was truly concerned for her and it was no sacrifice for me to walk with her through this. She's my daughter and she's also my friend.

But pulling an all-nighter leaves one a big foggy-brained and perhaps a bit more fragile. I started the morning with 6 loads of laundry and a well-loved kitchen. My daughter was begging me for water which I could only issue in teaspoon amounts until her stomach settled. Everything seemed louder and harsher.

I ran the water in my kitchen sink. This was immensely satisfying. The smell of fresh bubbles. The warmth of clean water. I smiled at its simple joy.

I lit a candle. Whenever I light candles, I feel like my mother is with me. There's something almost spiritual about lighting a candle. The kitchen can be a wreck but the candle welcomes peace in its low flickering light.

And then, when my brain fog lifted, I smiled at other things in my home which give me peace which I thought I'd like to share.

My Amaryllis bulbs are brilliant. I try to buy them every year so that I have something beautiful growing in January.

My reading chair. Do you have a reading chair? I can't tell you how much joy this corner of my universe gives me. A blanket, a comfy seat, a gentle light and some fun reads.

I bought this side table from a thrift store several years ago. It was the "placeholder" table until I could find one that I truly loved. It is no longer the placeholder table; I'm keeping this puppy. It's big and round and fits all my lovely reading chair needs.

My "Go To" books are kind of like my friends who remind me who I am. Besides the Bible, I keep "Gifts from the Sea" by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, some Shauna Niequist books, Molly Wizenberg's "A Homemade Life", some art books, a few "self helpers" and some classics.

I keep a swanky Campbell's soup pen holder. I only keep magazines which truly bring me joy. If they make me all cranky inside about what I don't have they go the way of the dodo bird.

Every mother should have a little slice of peace in her home. It might be the kitchen sink or a sewing room. It might be gardening or a bench by a bright window. It might only be 3 square inches where a candle is lit.

And on days where the evening and morning meet entirely too quickly, it certainly helps bring joy.

Evey Wonder, Part 2

If you haven't guessed already, I am working through learning to love the way Eve learns by writing about her. So forgive the frequent theme. Sometimes therapy comes in the form of creativity. :)

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I am in the store looking for shoes for my 4 year old. I see the shoes I want her to wear. They're bright fuchsia. They have ruffles. They're ballet flats.

But I know her stipulations:
- Nothing too tight
- No slides; it must have a strap
- It's a good idea to have a rubber sole, or something that won't slide on hardwood floors; don't ask

And while I'm at it: I'm pretty sure she won't wear something too frilly, too girly, too pretty.

She won't wear tights. She writhes in them like a snake on a rock when I put them on her. Since she was two years old she hates things that are too tight. I've never seen a child wail on the floor for 20 minutes because she hates such clothing.

She won't wear jeans; they're too stiff.

As I am shopping for her, I can feel the anxiety mounting in my stomach.

"Excuse me," I imagine myself talking to a salesperson, "Do you have any shoes which a little girl can wear to both a wedding and while hiking through mud?"

"I was a perfect parent before I had children," the saying goes. I was no exception. I heard of mothers fighting with their daughters to, say, not wear sweatpants everyday. In my mind I thought, "Well, MY child will do what I say."

I've had the meeting of our wills. They clash like the sound of bucks rutting, head-hitting-head, entwining points and racks into a no-win situation. I don't want that.

So I put the sensible shoes on the conveyor belt at the store... the ones which she'll wear for certain.

I have friends whose children wear those cute coordinating outfits that you find in stores. The kind where the shoes match the socks match the skirt match the shirt. And while I know that I don't even particularly like matchy-matchy, I do fantasize about having a dressing session with my child which doesn't end in me thinking, "Good enough."

But I can't give up on my daughter. I can't say, "Fine. If you won't be feminine-- at all-- then I will just leave you to your hobo ways."

I can't give up on her. She didn't give up on me. I can't say, "If you won't do what I want you do, be who I want you to be, then I won't even try to mother you."

This child was the answer to my prayer when my heart could only whisper, "Spoil me, God" on the way to the fertility doctor. We have pictures of the THREE implanted eggs, just EIGHT CELLS formed, which they placed inside me. They look like underformed raspberries, nothing close to human beings.

Still, I prayed over that picture. I prayed for health over those creatures.
My husband prayed that there would be just one.

We watched as the doctor said, "Now there are two eggs, not three."
And then, "Now there is just one."
We gulped. Hope, hope, hope.

When she was born, heaven cracked open and the Hallelujah Chorus broke the curse of my womb. She was beautiful, perfect. She was healing for my soul.

I can't give up on her. So I try again. I look at the knotting hair of my daughter. She screams when I brush her hair.

So I remember her favorite movie, the one about Rapunzel-- the one called "Tangled"... and I say to my daughter, "Let's sing the song that Rapunzel's mother sang to her when she brushed her hair."

I clear my throat and being to brush her hair while singing,
"Flower gleam and glow, let your power shine..."
My daughter is very still. She likes this.
"... make the clock reverse, bring back what once was mine..."
It's a very high song; the octaves are not really in my range, but I sing anyway.
"...what once was mine."

In a scant 30 seconds she has brushed hair with a small ponytail perched on top. My daughter looks beautiful. Not because of her hair. But because of her hair AND her smile AND my smile.

"You look so pretty," I tell her. She hops off the chair and bounds into the play room.

I feel brilliant. Like I unlocked a piece of her world, learned a new language, earned a Nobel Peace Prize.

If I can learn to bring out the best in this child, maybe she will bring out the best in me. Maybe there are other dreams I thought I couldn't do. Maybe there are other things I told myself, "Don't even bother. It's not worth it. Just quit."

I can do this. It will be work. But I can do this. I won't give up.

That Lovin' Feeling

My two daughters are playing together. They're playing nicely and since this is such a beautiful (and sometimes rare) occurrence, I don't even care that the game that they are playing is called "war."

The older daughter (she is 9 years old) has decided that she and her sister will be in hiding and dodge all sorts of perils. They are running and giggling and laughing. To her, this is war. I'm not sure where her images of war have gestated.

She turns to her 4 year old sister and says, "Hey, Eve, don't forget your white flag of surrender."

My husband nearly dropped his coffee. "White flag of surrender?" he whispered harshly to me, "What are they? French?"

Our daughters are tromping around the house, hiding in places together, pretending to avoid very scary things and donning "white flags of surrender" in the event of defeat.

And me? I have mixed feelings about this whole thing. I know it's pure play. It's innocence. And, sweet mercy, it's SO nice to have them play together, not teasing one another. Playing in unison. The theme of war leaves a bit to be desired as does the defeatist flag.

If this happened, say, seven years ago, I would have assembled a United Nations meeting with my children and maybe gone to the library to research... I don't know... something about NOT surrendering. But I am a changed woman.

I have learned that children playing harmoniously together is such a gift. Just like sleeping babies are a gift. And a preteen girl who says "I love you" to her mother is a gift.

And it is a gift. My husband and I are standing around our peninsula talking, drinking coffee and watching our children laugh together. Forget Santa Claus... I'd rather have this kind of joy shoved down my chimney.

There's other joy, too... My children have taught me new languages.

In our house we can no longer say "wasps" without smirking because when Morgan was three years old she read a book about wasps and kept calling them "wasp-ps-ps-ps."

"Movie" was "moomie."
Dinner knives were called "ouchies."

And in an ever-so awkward teaching moment, a preschool-aged Morgan desperately wanted to know what the two dots on her chest were. In true mispronunciation, she called them "nickels" and we will never look at those five cent pieces the same way.

Being a parent is truly mind bending. Everything I ever expected has been almost the opposite.

Children love the most simple toys, much to the chagrin of Hasbro.

I can set up boundaries and purchase a "water table" for outside play, and still be surprised if the fun makes its way into my upstairs bathroom and through my kitchen ceiling.

I can choose to battle what my child wears, but if she's safe, modest and happy, that's what really matters.

A friend will call later and tell me that she's having trouble sleeping at night due to the perils of retired life *yawn* and I'll shamelessly smile because I have never slept better in my life.

There are some changes I'd like to make, though: In almost every single pic of me since being a mother, I know exactly what I was thinking in that moment. And almost every time it wasn't, "I'm so glad to be here." It was more like, "I am so tired" or "Did I pick up toilet paper from the grocery store?" When I look back on the pics, I can see the invisible thought bubbles above my head. And because of that, I'm trying to make a change. To do the ever-trendy "be in the moment" exercise. Ignore the phone. That sort of thing. Very hard for me.

So to commemorate my journey, I'm taking pics of life without staging.
And I'm trying to just accept who I am, what my house looks like... all the stuff desperate housefolk normally obsess about.

I'm trying to be okay right here in the midst of it.

For me, that means accepting the "gifts" that come with the unscheduled life of unemployment.

Example: The other day my husband and I found a random tap house in an industrial park and ordered a flight of some good and not-so-good brews. He pontificated with a local there about different hops and yeasts and I stood beside him feeling like Lands End met Abercrombie. But I accepted it. The whole moment. Me, feeling like his dorky side-kick. Him and me having a 1pm lunch date.

Life unstaged.
Learning new ways to say bug names.
Taking whatever I've been given and recycling it into something special.
Pickled in joy with a white flag of surrender.

Again

Over a dozen years ago I was a Sunday School Teacher to first graders. The gig only lasted a year or two and it was incredibly educational and entertaining for me. I volunteered for the position because I thought they were cute and I thought I could make a difference in their little worlds.

I'm not sure if I made a difference, but I learned a heap about human nature from that stint. I won't weigh you down with the full stories but the bullet points would be something like this:

1. Don't dress up children in shiny silver fabric, tell them that they are the "glory of God" from a Bible Story you are reenacting and expect them to somberly act like deity; instead, delight that the aforementioned "glory of God" has a sense of humor as it screams and chases little girls.
2. Do not ask open ended questions; ask "yes" or "no" questions to stories. Because if you ask for a review of a Bible Story you will hear about how someone's goldfish, also known as "Flipper", made it's swirly, flushy entrance into goldfish heaven. And then all the class will want to tell stories of their dead pets.
3. Before you tell a Bible Story, expect half the class to raise their hand and say, "We've already heard this story." Anticipate saying, "Well, we're going to hear it again."

This last point, about hearing something AGAIN is actually of immense value throughout life, not just in first grade. 

I spend most of my life surprised that I'm re-learning something or experiencing some trial in life which I had previously mastered, or thought I had.

When I gave birth to my second daughter, Eve, the nurses at the hospital laid her on my chest and I honestly thought that I gave birth to my first daughter, Morgan, again; they looked almost identical. If deja vu met pregnancy hormones... that's what I experienced. I gave birth to Morgan.
"Again."

When my children ask for lunch I tease them, "Again? I just gave you a sandwich yesterday." And I'll give them a sandwich again tomorrow.
"Again."

The BEST joy from "again" comes when you sing a song to a happy toddler and at the end of the song they squeal with delirious delight, "Again! Again!" It's fantastic.

There are situations for which "Again" is not so much exclaimed as uttered with a sigh.

Like when the sump pump broke twice. I was too angry to say "Again?" but I screamed it in my head.

Or when I go to the grocery store for the third time in a week. Not sure how this happened but I'm here.
"Again"

The most deafening cries of "Again?" come from angst.

From a family car that keeps breaking down and there is no money to fix it.

From a marriage where shouting is the normal mode of communication.

From a military family who must move. Again.

After I go through a particularly difficult season in life I often find myself saying, "Whew! I made it. I'm so glad I don't have to go through that again."

I'm entirely unclear as to why I think that God has a clipboard of tribulations which he administers in a "check the box" sort of fashion to make me a well-rounded individual. But somewhere in my cranium is some bizarre theology which says that God doesn't do "AGAIN's"... Once you go through something bad you get a "Get out of Jail Free Card." God puts a memo in His file that you've already DONE that so you don't have to do it again.

And this is immensely bad theological footing because if wasn't for God's "again" love we would have ONE shot at doing something right, we would fail and we would have no more chances.

I am painfully aware of this because I am working through forgiveness towards people in my life and I want to say, "but they did this offense 27 times in a row... I'm done with forgiving them" and God helps me to my feet and says, "C'mon. Again." And if weren't for God giving me "again" strength then I may not have been able to submit my body to IVF to conceive my daughter Eve. Again is important to me.

I distinctly remember thinking this two years ago when my husband lost his job. It was only 2 months of unemployment, but it was hell and I hated it. When we emerged from unemployment, I sighed deeply and thought, "Well, I'm glad THAT's over with."

And then, two years later, a massive mistake made by a CEO causes my husband-- along with TONS of other people at the same company-- to be unemployed again through no fault of his own. Again? Oh, how I hate that word.

So we accepted Unemployment Insurance. Again.
And condolences from friends. Again.
And wrestled sadness. Again.
Again, again, again.

But... When I turn my gaze to God's mercies, I see the positive side of "again."

I see that the sun came up today. Just like yesterday. And the day before.
I see that my eyes are blinking. Hundreds of times a day. Over and over.
I see the seasons changing and the children growing and the fridge emptying and filling with the effects of the children growing.
I hear the toilet flushing as my preschooler learns to use the bathroom. And how does she learn? By doing it again and again and again.

There is an entire chorus of "Again's" that refresh my eyes and fill my lungs and tell my heart that God is good again.
And that forgiveness heals again.
And that my marriage partner of 12 years can not only make me smile still, but smile again.

It's cathartic in the best broken-record sort of way.
Watching the repeats of life.
Smiling at the joy they bring.
And knowing that God's love is chocked full--like a coffee cup topped with cream when there was no room for cream in the first place-- spilling over full of "again's."
Amen and again amen.

Words

As I grow older I realize that one of the best gifts someone can give me is the gift of words.

Not just any words.
Life-giving. Well-chosen. Not too showy, either.
Kind and truthful.
Bonus points if they're funny.
Words.

I am extremely sentimental. When my husband goes out the door to give the car an oil change I make sure I say something nice before he leaves. I try not to say, "Oh and pick up some apples before you return, would you?" I always want the last words I leave my family to be something kind, something which will make them want to return home again. Instead I'll say, "Hey babe, can you pick up some apples on your way home? Thanks for all you do."

I've watched too many movies, read too many stories about "last words" that people have said to each other and I never know when my last words will be, so I want them to count. I have this latent fear that my last words to someone will be something ridiculous like "dill pickles" or "mow the lawn."

The same goes for greetings. Say hello. Smile. Show some joy towards the other person. 

Now throughout the day-- the time BETWEEN my "first" and "last" words-- I reserve the right to be silly: I will exchange playful barbs with my husband, rant cynical about something I saw in a store and make monkey sounds while chasing my daughters. I also have a sarcastic tongue which I'm learning to tame for the sake of my daughters.

But first words and last words are kind of special to me. Hallowed. Holy. Special.

This morning was the first day of the first month of the new year and, believe me, I wanted to make sure that the words I chose were special.

My husband was making coffee downstairs. "Happy New Year," I offered. He returned the greeting.

I heard my daughter Morgan getting out of bed upstairs. Wanting to wish her the same I climbed the stairs just in time to see her coming out of her room.

"Gah. You SCARED me, Mom."
A look of annoyance filled her face. She huffed and ran into the bathroom.

What? No. We can't start the new year with huffing.
Fail.
Do over.
Boo.
Terrible.
If FIRST WORDS are that important, then FIRST WORDS on the FIRST MONTH of a BRAND NEW YEAR are exponentially so.

In fact, I sometimes fantasize that if you take the first and last word you say each year and string them together over a period of many decades, you could make an amazing poem. It would have a Dada-ist flair, but still... Wouldn't that be fantastic?

Mine would sound like this:

Year 1997: Huh? Night.
Year 1998: Labrador. Picnic.
Year 1999: Shhh. Kind.
Year 2000: Dan? Turquoise.

Shall I go on?

Point is: Make your words count.
They're free. They're fantastic.
They make the best gifts.

And on that note: Happy New Year. :)