Wax String Fun!

The Days Are Just Packed... With Fun!

This is a pretty normal state of beauty for my precious Eve. She loves to live life and doesn't have time for anything considered "clothing" or "hygiene"... We love her!

The girls love to collect worms.

Morgan loves to play ladderball with Dan. She has her "game face" on.

Morgan is making a glass paperweight at a glass blowing place in Alabama!

Eve sleeps with ear muffs on her head. She really does.

The In Between Hour

It's 2pm and it's the time of day that is the precious hour or so when Eve is "resting" and Morgan is not yet home from school. When Morgan comes home, I love to ask her about her day and help her with homework and feed her a cookie. And when Eve is "resting", she is really just storing energy for the last part of the day, which most women call the witching hour.

So in the time frame before then, I am a bit paralyzed. I know how precious this time is. I know I could fold laundry (*yawn*), iron Dan's shirts (*ugh*), start dinner (not a half bad idea) or rest. And those are just four ideas of the 179 that are dancing in my head. Somewhere in there is a notion that I should be outside because it is 70 brillliant degrees outside and it is March. In Chicago. It's a March miracle is what it is.

It's anyone's guess what I'll do. :)

Not on Facebook

Here's what a Facebook post looks like when you're not on FB. I kind of like not being on the FB grid... but these posts sound lame in a blog:

Eve: "Mom? I love, I love..."

Me, smiling at Eve...

Eve: "I love Daddy."

Facebook Fasting

Observations on Week 2 of "No Facebook"...

I'm seeing the pattern of when I use Facebook.

Something crazy happens in our house. No one is around to see it.
I Facebook it.

Something awful happens in our house. I'm the only adult to see it.
Facebook again.

Something lovely.
Something terrifying.
Something maddening.
Something heart warming.

Facebook, Facebook, Facebook.

In fact, when I first go to my computer in the morning to check my email (*yawn, mostly boring...) my fingers automatically want to type the url for Facebook. It's almost like I have trigger fingers for it.

I don't think Facebook is bad. I really don't. In fact, it has provided me with a wealth of friendly connections and kept me in touch with adults, which is a treasure to a stay at home Mom.

What I don't like about Facebook is how it sneaks in the crevices of my mind and edges quietness out of my mind. There's something special about being able to hold something close to my heart, ruminate on it and be able to share it with others later.

I miss Facebook, but I don't miss the way I think when I'm on Facebook. I like thinking complete thoughts and letting those thoughts sink in. I like thinking in paragraph form, instead of snippets. I like thinking in big, broad strokes instead of having my thoughts perforated by, "Oh, this would be a riot on Facebook. I should share it."

Facebook fragments my thinking.

Ultimately I want to learn to be more quiet in my heart and to hear God's voice.

Have I been successful so far? Well, I've been more quiet in my mind but I haven't heard God's voice in the awe-inspiring way that I expected. I've been reading chapters of the Bible, chunks at a time and find myself marveling at the humanity of Jesus, the way He has such compassion on the woman who had been bleeding for 12 years... I cry almost every time. I love Jesus for not rushing around and being, forgive the term, "GODzilla". He took time for people, all sorts of people.

In the midst of reading these chapters I can honestly say that I would have loved to have been able to have met the flesh and blood Jesus of the Bible. I would have loved to have met Him on the road, have Him see right through my insecurities, my vanity, my efforts, my heart and say, "Em, let's have dinner."

I can honestly say that not until recently have I ever wanted to meet Jesus. I've been terrified.

But now I see things differently. I see His gentleness. I see how He told the Pharisees to go suck on a lemon (essentially) since they hated how He healed people on the Sabbath.

I love Jesus' heart.

So, no, I haven't had any spiritual nudgings of "go this way, do that" except to realize that when I sit down, put aside my fragmented thoughts and look into Jesus' life, I see a man who could only have been God.

Come to think of it, that's right where I'm supposed to be.

My Name is Mud

It's 8:30 in the morning and already we have engaged "Operation Do-Over."

A "Do-Over" morning is one in which the morning has started so terribly that we all freeze in our tracks and declare "Do over!" Sometimes the "do-overs" are humorous and we all go back to our rooms and pretend we just woke up. Some mornings it's just me quietly saying it to myself, re-centering my priorities.

This morning was the latter.

Yesterday we came back from a mini vacation in Alabama. Even though today is Wednesday, coming back from a vacation and starting the week always feels like three Mondays squished together, sent to the DMV and then audited by the IRS. It just does.

The morning was going pretty well, actually. The girls were dressed and ready for the day. Breakfast had been eaten.

Eve asked to play outside. I helped her take her teddy bear and stroller to the back yard and smiled at her joy of outdoors.

Minutes later Eve was banging on the sliding door. "I found the perfect worm!" she squealed.

She was covered in mud. Her shoes were caked beyond recognition. Her hands were covered. There were big muddy footprints all over the patio with little clumps of mud tattling on her voyage to the door.

She came inside and clumped her shoes on the floor, scraping mud on the chair and on the rugs. Her feet and hands were covered in mud. She was absolutely thrilled to find a one inch worm, unaware of her condition.

A little voice in my head said, "Now, Emily, what is more important? Eve or clean floors?" to which I responded, "Clean floors."

I looked at my daughter. She was half naked with messy hair, a runny nose and dirt under her nails. She was looking into my eyes and, without saying so, asking me to accept her the way she was.

She could tell I was mad. She could tell I didn't like her in that moment. She had a scowl mixed with hurt in her eyes.

So I did the best thing I could think of:

"Want to make cookies with Mommy?"

She prepared to say no. I saw her mouth form the words and her scowl turn deeper.

But she stopped. "Wets make cookies, Mom. C'mon."

I dressed my daughter, cleaned her up a bit and we trolloped downstairs. I'm still in my jammies and eyeglasses. My hair is pulled in a pony tail. I don't need to EAT more cookies, but I need to MAKE them with my Eve.

If there's one thing I learned today, it's this:
It might be muddy here, but it smells like cookies.

McDonalds Meditation

I was talking on the phone the other day to a friend about the difficulties I'm having lately with the great mystery of life: mothering my sweet 3 year old. In our conversation I told a story about something embarrassing I had experienced.

It involved me on all fours navigating a mega play tube at McDonalds as a cadre of children followed me around while my daughter laughed because I couldn't reach her. It also involved me sliding wicked fast down a tube slide and feeling the heels of 4 sets of children hit me in the back while I tried to retrieve my daughter.

It took two tries of going up the intestines of this wicked configuration before I figured out which section she was hiding in. By the time I had found her, I had a parade of youngins giggling with glee that an adult had joined them and one rule-follower who sternly warned me that I "wasn't allowed up here." They were all operating under the notion that I wanted to be there.

All I wanted was to stand respectably on my two feet without my bum hanging out for all to see. That's all I wanted.

In retrospect, the story sounds amusing; if I pretend the story isn't about me, it's a riot to think of some woman trying to use her best sign language skills (none whatsoever) to convey to her impish 3 year old in the sound-blocking clear tube that she-needs-to-come-down-right-now. It's even more amusing to see the 3 year old raise one eyebrow, smile and say with her eyes, "Come get me."

When I conveyed this story to friends, they didn't seem to think it was that funny or embarrassing and I began to think that maybe I self imposed some of it.

But parenthood is that way, isn't it? We all have those issues that touch us too close to our heart.

"My daughter is a tomboy," said the mother who was a ballerina and learned a proper English tea by age six.

"I have all girls," said the mother who lost her father to cancer and desperately wants to name a boy after him.

There's the child who learns to crawl in a funny way.

There's the child who is sweet and selfless yet can't manage to sit down or stop talking.

There's the "extra truthful" child who is the son of a pastor and likes to update people on the family's affairs.

It seems to be that God, in his wisdom, has challenged our love by expanding our view on what love can be. The father who was captain of the football team won't understand why his son wants to be a history major. The dad who is CEO of his own company doesn't realize why his daughter wants to wipe noses in a nursing home.

If we're not careful, we start to put up our defenses. My sweet bald baby Eve didn't grow a good head of hair for the first few years of her life. I cringed when well-meaning older men called her "Ike" in the grocery store; you'd be surprised how many men did this.

Several days ago my front doorbell rang. As I opened the door, a little dog and an energetic boy entered my house. "Whoa, there..." I said as I ushered them back outside. The little boy I had remembered from the pool. He's a sweet boy of about 6 years who has the mental capacity of someone much younger. And because he has some mental challenges, God saw fit to give him an extra big heart. This little man will come right up to you, violate anything considered "personal space", smile extra big and start playing with you. I love seeing him.

His mother came running a few seconds later looking relieved to find him (hey--he's a fast runner!) and we spoke ever so briefly. Exchanged names. I saw the pride (and the energy) she has for her son. When she left I stood at my kitchen sink for a while processing how much joy this mother had for her son. I want that joy, that delight for my children.

Perhaps my McDonalds play tube adventure wasn't so bad. Perhaps it was just a search for joy, all wrapped up in an impish smile.