a mother | chatting at the sky

for when you don’t live up

December 7, 2010

Expectation is an interesting word. It doesn’t have just one feel about it. It is both Christmas morning child-like hope and also heavy-handed with a stern eye and a smirk. Yesterday I wrote about how often times the best joys are those that weren’t expected. We are free to receive them as gifts because we weren’t anticipating their arrival. But what about when there are expectations? And you fail to live up?

I’ve been feeling that way a little lately. I had big plans for December to be un-plann-y and restful. And then, the expectations I had on myself got tangled up when I had to start listening to our snoring four-year-old while he slept because he tended to stop breathing a little bit. And so tomorrow, he gets his tonsils and adenoids out. I have no idea what adenoids actually are. They sound sort of space-ish. But he’s getting them out and for many reasons, it has me in a crazy place. Schedules are being balanced on the top of a pin and duties are falling off cliffs. I walk around piles of laundry (because they’re too big to step over) and make frantic lists of things I need to do. And then I lose the list because who makes serious lists on the back of a Chic-fil-a receipt anyway?

This week of Advent was the Love candle. (Yes, we are doing an Advent wreath with our kids. No, we haven’t done this weeks candle yet. Adenoids.) But I know it’s the Love candle and that it can also be called the Bethlehem candle. Humble Bethlehem, too small to be among the clans of Judah. He came in a most unexpected way. Small, quiet, without attention. In so many ways, he did not live up.

I don’t think it’s wrong to have expectations. But I tend to misuse them. I hold myself to a certain one and sprinkle glitter on top. And as it dazzles out there in the future, glowing and god-like, I wonder if maybe I’ve got it all wrong. As I drink my now-cool coffee, I realize that God sometimes shows up in the midst of our expectations and turns them upside down. It almost seems he wrecks them all up, What do you mean the king is a baby?! I think when I live eyes down to the ground, my thoughts turn inward and twist into shame – you aren’t doing enough! It helps to remember Bethlehem, to hold on to Hope, and give myself permission to rest. And now I’m gonna go Google adenoids.

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a sweet cup of no expectations

December 6, 2010

I wanted to make the packet kind, Swiss Miss with mini marshmallows. But somehow I’d accidentally bought the mocha cappuccino kind of packets and I didn’t think giving coffee to my already-snow-crazy kids would be the best idea. So I pulled out the tin of Hershey’s cocoa and made the kind from the back with the dash of salt and bit of vanilla.

I don’t know if it was the snow falling fast or the peppermint sticks I got from Wal-Mart for 87 cents, but it was the best cup of chocolate I think I’ve ever had. Definitely the best I’ve ever made. It could have also been the fact that I didn’t expect it to snow anyway and the whole day was a blessed gift.

As I went to bed last night, I thought about all the happiest days of my life and all the spectacular ones came to mind. Our wedding day was happy because of what it represented, but there was so much expectation hovering around that day that it’s hard to give it that legit label. The day the twins were born was miraculous and joyous, but I weighed nearly as much as my 6 foot 3 husband and they came out way too early so there was lots of fear and tears and worry weaving itself through that happy day.

We’ve had a lot of great vacations together, from our honeymoon trip to Maine when we were wide-eyed and sun-kissed, to our family trip to Disney last year when every moment was magic. Ish. But those were so built up, so planned for and looked ahead to, that it was hard to simply go with the flow when the flow wasn’t on the schedule.

And then a memory came to mind when I was pregnant with the twins, but no body knew they were twins yet. The Man and I went in for a routine appointment to hear the baby’s heartbeat, and the edges of our nervous excitement quickly shook jagged when she said she couldn’t find one. And so we walked foggy-like into the dark ultrasound room and waited. And when she put that cold wand on my tummy, peered close to the screen and turned it our way, she calmly said to us Well, you aren’t eleven weeks after all. You’re only seven. And there’s two. Two what? Two babies. There are two babies. You’re having twins! Congratulations!

And nurses gathered in the hallways to look at us and the doctor came in and pointed at the screen Ahhhh, that explains it! and I had visions of two car seats and matching outfits and my husband couldn’t stop laughing. And we somehow made it from the exam room to the car when we realized, twins. And the best part was yet to come because now we got to tell everyone. And we’ve never had so much fun. It was one of the purest, happiest, days in all my life. Terrifying, but only vaguely. I never expected it in a thousand years.

I think that’s part of what makes most of the happy days happy. Unexpected gifts. Snow before Christmas. Hot chocolate with vanilla. Telling the family there’s two! What was one of your happiest moments?

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we wait together

December 4, 2010

And so, they wait. They watch the sky with their dancing brown eyes and wonder when she will open up the storage house for the first time this season. They stare hard at dark trees to see if they can make out any white, even a little. They want to have a cup of cheer with Jack Frost and Farmer Brown, Rudoph and Frosty.And I remind them It might not and Sometimes the forecasts are wrong so as not to get up hopes. I think of the trouble, of the wet and the freezing and the red chapped hands. I check the cabinets to be sure we have hot chocolate. I stand behind them and squint my eyes out the windows, too. And I pull out the scarves just incase.

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embracing the now normal

September 22, 2010

Every weekday morning, we get up and move through the lunch-making, hair-brushing, shoe-tying routine. Around 7:40, my girls and I set out into the cool morning air to meet our neighbors at the bottom of the hill, I in my tennis shoes holding steaming cup, the girls wearing school clothes and fresh, first grade faces. We walk, the nine of us together. One mama has her stroller, one daddy holds their lunches, three kids ride their bikes, a few run beside them.

It doesn’t take long to get to the school, maybe 10 minutes depending on what bugs or animals we may see along the way. There are so many gifts in this journey walk. It seems normal now, to feel the rhythm of this slow-spinning earth change morning by morning, leaf by leaf, steady and predictable. It feels regular and typical to walk beside them from home doorstep all the way to their classroom, to greet their teachers every morning, to watch them smile shy at classmates as they walk through that door. It feels normal now.

It is tempting to think things will always be how they are right now, both the good and the bad. But they will not be. That bad thing will slowly morph into something else, the good will pass into some new good thing. Or new hard thing, a new gift opportunity. There will be a day when normal will be different, so I decide to enjoy my now normal on purpose.

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for women who work from home

September 20, 2010

As I walked up the hill to our house this morning after taking the girls to school, I considered all the things I had to do today. Several of them were normal house-y things: grocery, laundry, dishes, call the tree guy, price the yard sale stuff. Others of them were work-type things: finish those photo edits, turn in that thing my publisher asked for, write that article, prepare a post.

I could feel my heart rhythm speed up as I picked up the pace to the front door. My breathing got a little bit more shallow than it had been, my craving for coffee shot through the roof. When I begin to feel the weight of this pressure, I become the opposite of productive. And lately, I’ve been feeling this weight more than usual. I wash a load of towels, and then forget about them. The next morning, I have to wash the same load again because hello, they stink now. I’m wasting water and brain cells. The fog is thick and getting thicker.

And today, I realized one reason why: I am a mother who works from home. Since I signed my two book contract last January, I have been working from home. I would write on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9 until 2, and I basically wrote the entire book that way. I finished one book in July, and as soon as the room stops spinning upside down and crazy, I’ll begin work on my second book due next September. But it has taken me this long to actually realize that I have a job. My time is flexible, which I love. It provides space for me to go to the girls’ school and eat lunch with them, to prepare the chicken for dinner in the middle of the day, to go to the grocery when there aren’t big crowds.

But the lines between home and work are hard to see, and I’m the one who has to draw them. I love what I do, so it’s hard to step away from it. But if I don’t take the time to step away from it, then heavy clouds of discouragement and anxiety will quickly settle in. Hence, the foggy mess.

Don’t get me wrong, I think every mother, outside job or no outside job, can relate to the foggy mess. I felt that way the entire first two years of motherhood. But I do think there is a unique stress that comes from knowing you have a job that isn’t home related, a job that has to get done in the space in between everything else. For you who work from home, can you relate to the foggy mess?

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a moment

September 10, 2010

Itell her I’m proud of her, and she wants to know why. Because you are mine, I say. She refuses to receive it. But I didn’t do anything, Mommy. I know, love. It’s not what you do, it’s who you are. She wants to earn it, but I won’t let her. It is the sweetest gift we can give them.

Sharing this moment today with SouleMama.

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the tension :: a guest post

August 26, 2010

Kristen is originally an Oklahoma girl but has traveled far and wide with her Air Force husband of 15 years. Kristen and David have 3 precious young’uns, twin sons (age 10) and a daughter (age 7). She is a forever work-in-progress whose current refining location is Colorado. She and 3 dear friends write to encourage at Moms Sharpening Moms.

At two, major separation anxiety had this boy clinging to my leg and crying as I dropped him off in the nursery or childcare room. I had to psychologically gear myself up to attend a MOPS meeting or Mother’s Day Out because I knew the first few minutes would be an ordeal. He would cry because he wanted Mama and no one else would do.

Now I’m the one fighting separation anxiety. While I love the freedom that comes with older children, I sometimes miss their unabashed ways of love-display that came from their preschool little bodies. Oh, I do not miss the crying fits. What I do miss is their bright and blazing way of showing love, like running full tilt and knocking me down with squealing hugs. Or, curling up all snuggly in my lap.

This tall 10 year old can’t fit in my lap.

I am striving to stop neck pain that comes from persistently looking backwards and enjoy my children in the here and now. What I have discovered are many moments – gifts from my Daddy – that show me this child’s love is as real and present as it was when he was very little. The difference is these moments sneak in more subtly. Moments like:

Leaning his head on my shoulder.

Sidling up to me while movie watching.

Asking me what I think about his new Lego creation.

Singing along with me to the car radio.

These love gestures are so small that I may have missed them had I not been looking.

The hallmark of these child-rearing years seems to be tension. Tension from children as they balance drawing close and pulling away. Tension from this Mama who balances her job of embracing cuddly close while encouraging (appropriate) independence.

I wonder if Jesus aches over this tension, too. Balancing our free will with His desire for us to want His presence. It is such a comfort to think that whatever I am feeling, He gets me. He’s been there, done that.

Those of you with young’uns beyond the preschool stage, what love gestures do your children show? Am I the only Mama who thinks they are few and far between ’til I take the time to see them?

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