Gratitude and a Case of the Birthday Gimmies

“A Grace” by G.K. Chesterton

You say grace before meals. 

All right. 

But I say grace before the concert and the opera, 

And grace before the play and pantomime, 

And grace before I open a book, 

And grace before sketching, painting, 

Swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing, 

And grace before I dip the pen in the ink. 

Let’s take a moment to talk about gratitude and graciousness. Gratitude is a noun. A quality. A feeling of being thankful. Gracious an adjective and graciously an adverb, the action of responding in a way demonstrating kindness and courtesy.

Take that root word grace and swirl it into whatever part of speech you like, and I’ll tell you we’re running on low supply of it around here.

Instead, we have a case of what I like to call The Birthday Gimmies. Only to be closely followed by The Mama Grumpies.

Our smart, articulate, beautiful oldest turned five this week while our humorous, wild, and cuddly son hit three.

Although we didn’t have a big birthday party bash this year, we spent the day at the flower fields together, had a special dinner out, and a rowdy time at Chuck-E-Cheese. The entire week felt special as we did a few things out of the ordinary and splurged in a few ways.

Until I was that mom in the middle of the shampoo aisle forcing the words, “I WILL take back all your presents if you do not stop whining about wanting every single thing you see,” back down my throat before they could escape like a flame of dragon breath.

An hour later my ordinarily content, playful children were having a sit-in on the sun-scorched concrete in front of the Coldstone doors. Screaming with “how could you” eyes at the disbelief I wouldn’t immediately give them a LoveIt sized creamery creation. Clearly the case of the birthday gimmies had hit a crescendo and it was time to head home for possibly permanent naptime.

I’ve been thinking about gratitude and the state of enough this week. About how to teach my children to recognize a need versus a want. Giving generously and receiving graciously. I am convinced that gimmies can not be satiated. Teaching kids how to be gracious feels like battling a hydra. As soon as you whack one head of the gimmies off, three more grow back in it’s place. The only real way for my kiddos to internalize these values and in turn respond with grace/gratitude/graciousness is to show them. To live it. And that hurts deep. Because that means I have to grow in gratitude myself. When I get angry because my daughter rolls her eyes, I have to remember she learned that most likely from me. When I start a new scheme to buy the perfect sectional I have to remember to be thankful for the couch we already have.

Enough is a state of heart. My job is to demonstrate it through the daily practice of gratitude. And to keep my cool when the gimmie monsters charge in without warning.

For today I will forgive the icecream shop scene and be reminded that sometimes gratitude looks like sparkling eyes, a surprised open-mouthed smile, and an expression that shows you are genuinely happy for someone else. Even a little brother who managed to barge in and share the birthday date.

Undoing the Pause Button

I was going to say that I owe this to you. And I do. But I also owe it to myself.

Like most things, it’s hard to climb the mental mountains of insecurity and bad habits in order to restart something you haven’t done in a while. Here we are again.

Have five months gone by since we left off? Here’s what’s happened.

We got the house. It was a fight, but we have a home. To live, and sprawl and grow in. One to fill with squabbles, and reconciliations, and friends. A home to layer with the scents of dirt trekked in from the backyard, lavender dish soap, and a remembrance of sautéed garlic.

We lost a few months as a family while in limbo between selling our first home and moving into this one. Basic daily life actions like eating dinner and bathing made sporadic look downright routine!

We don’t remember a whole lot during the in-between time. Without our usual flow to life beating out a metronome to our days, Nate and I are left with a bit of a gap of lost time. It is not bad time, just a paused season of life. But we do have pictures to remind us of the way Selah Grace looked when she was proud of herself to be old enough to hold baby sister all on her own. Pictures that show us the progression of Teagan processing her world, and the way Josiah’s face softens with sleepy, loving eyes.

We’re here and we owe it to ourselves to live again. To make the mundane meaningful again. To share it with you honestly in this space. To hit unpause.

And I KNOW you want house before and afters. Trust me, they’ll come. Tonight was about starting again.

Thank God for pictures to help us tired mamas either remember, or sometimes see for the first time, what beautiful moments did happen in days that are blurred together.

Slivers of Silver

Here’s what we know:

The seller didn’t sign the contract for a ten day extension on the close of escrow. But she didn’t call the whole thing off either….yet. So there’s still a sliver of hope if we can just get our loan finalized before the seller gives up.

An email to our loan officer this morning was returned with an out of office reply saying she will be out of the country until January 6th. Seething, Nate connected at length with her manager. It feels as though miscommunication, deceitfulness, and ineptitude abound.

But there’s a tiny sliver of hope. We are praying that the seller won’t give up on us and will just give us a little more time while we wait for people to do their jobs effectively.

We’re left leaning over this scary cliff of not knowing. But that’s better than it all being over just yet.

Tiny sliver of silver. Holding onto that.

Escrow Closed, but It Didn’t

In the words of Anne Lamott, “It is all hopeless.”

This feels like heartbreak. I can’t breathe. Or eat without being sick to my stomach. Or not eat without being sick to my stomach.

We’re left standing here, watching time and a dream run out. And there’s nothing to be done but watch. No activation, maximization, or effort on our part can change this circumstance. It’s a very vulnerable place to be standing.

Today is the close of escrow on the house we are buying. After months of scoping out hundreds of homes, this was the one for our family. Yes, it was old. Yes, it was in need of a family to care for it. But it already felt like our home the minute we stepped through the door.

But escrow closes in two hours. And the underwriters on the loan have not finalized things with escrow because our loan officer just sent them all the paperwork yesterday. Mind boggling to us that can happen! How does that happen when we’ve been calling and checking in on the progress for the past month. It seems like if it is your job to process loans for home mortgages you would have a gage on the minimum five business day turn-around time for your company.

Again, I’m going to be sick.

Our fate was left in the hands of someone we couldn’t trust to do their job. We weren’t looking for employee of the month, but just base-line competency. To her it is just some paperwork that may or may not get done. To us, it’s our life.

Our full hope and expectation was to be home-owners today. Unless the seller signs a petition (within the next hour) for a ten day extension on closing, then all hope is lost. The $7,000 put toward escrow and inspections, the two months of living with Nate’s mom after the sale of our house and waiting on the closing of this one, the dream of this home for our family, it’s all lost.

Breathe. Eat. I’m going to be sick.

I want it to be no big deal, but it is. I want to be able to laugh about it and refresh the process of house-hunting with a blithe spirit, but I can’t.

In her book Daring Greatly, Brené Brown calls the voices we use to berate ourselves in our heads, “gremlins”. The untruths that we tell ourselves that feel as though they were chiseled in the tablets and brought down the mountain from the very hand of God himself. Today they’re telling me that:

* if I loved Jesus more, I could translate trust into being blasé about it all instead of devastated to lose this house. material possessions and all that. (not true and not helpful)

* if I had taken the lead on this instead of playing the “supportive wife” role, it would have gotten done. (not true and not helpful)

* we blew this once in a lifetime opportunity. we’ll never find another house like it in this area for this price. (this one still feels true.)

I’m trying to find some silver linings and focus in on those. We are all healthy. We are all alive. We have one another.

And still a tiny sliver of my heart is still holding onto hope in this final hour that the seller will sign the petition to give us more time. To soften her heart towards this process and our family. Desperation prayers here.

We’re sad and angry and grieving the loss of a dream we had fully expected to be a reality. It feels heartbreaking. I know we are resilient. I know we will bounce back. But we need it to be okay for it to not be okay for a little while.

Eat. Breathe. Repeat.

Finishing the Race

 

 

Today Teagan and I went to the grocery store by ourselves, which means I left self-control in the parking lot, which means I bought a bin of TJ’s dark chocolate pb cups, which means I ate A LOT of them, which means my brain is coming down to the bottom of the sugar slope and I’m out of words. Ere go, enjoy a hodge-podge of pictures from our past two weeks.

Teagan Elyse is now officially one month old. How does it go so fast? We are so curious to know what her personality is going to be and how she is going to change the dynamics of our family. Right now we’re enjoying that new baby stage when she’s all squishy and milky.

 

 

 

Little Mama burping Baby Sis. Selah Grace is at her best when she is caring for sister. She feels so special & it puts Teagan right to sleep!

 

Grandy did a lot of baby holding on her visit!

 

My mom came to visit and we enjoyed San Diego outings while house-selling projects like appraisals and buyer walk-thrus kept us in exile.

Birch Aquarium. Hours of marine exploration wonder for our little kids!

Enjoying watching the sea lions and crazy rough surf swimmers at La Jolla Cove.

Josiah pauses his seagull chasing to practice some Tai Chi under the trees.

Selah taking a rest in the park, being conscientious of the sunshine.

Nate, Teagan, and I went to Santa Barbara for a fabulous farm wedding of two beautiful friends. It was like walking into the middle of an Anthropologie magazine.

You know it’s a good party when there’s a bathtub of beer surrounded by flowers and twinkle lights. Oh, and a pony in the background.

This is Kjess. She was an insta-friend in 8th grade and has been a bosom-buddy ever since. She lives life out loud and I love it!

Wedding behind the scenes: One of the few days it rains in So Cal. Drop older kids off with Unkie. Drive through rain & LA traffic. Heavily consider feeding baby by dangling chest over car seat. Pitstop for lunch at a Panera. Discover it is just being built & not open for business. Keep driving. Try again for lunch. Change into wedding clothes while driving. Roll in 5 minutes before scheduled to start. Walk in and pretend to be totally fresh. It was a beautiful wedding. We had a lovely time. Notice that getting fancy = adding eye liner to whatever I already have on.

We’re a baby-wearing family. I love having my babies snuggled close in the sling or ergo and can NOT abide schlepping the cumbersome car seat around. Selah has experienced and watched this now for other siblings. She enjoys being a babywearing mama herself. She slings up her own babies when we go on outings.

We were Yo Gabba Gabba this year. Nate organized the booth games sign-ups for our church’s giant halloween carnival we throw for the neighborhood. We all enjoyed ourselves. When you’re single your costumes are usually attractive. When you’re a parent you end up looking ridiculous all for the enjoyment of your kids. But I figure we have a very limited time before family-themed costumes become uncool with them.

See above caption about wearing super unattractive costumes b/c it makes your kids smile.

He wears his Plex hat everywhere and will only respond to “plex”. I hope this goes on for a while; it’s just too cute!

Tomorrow is my first Sunday back to work as the early childhood coordinator for our church. I’m still in stay-at-home mode! Wish me luck that my brain kicks in soon!

Friday escrow on the sale of our house closes. We move out and into the master bedroom of Nate’s mom’s home on Saturday. It feels weird to pack up and leave this house – more on that on the blog later in the week.

For now, we are processing; there’s little to say and lots of pictures from life happening so fast. Hope you enjoyed perusing pics and getting a glimpse into the crazy of the past few weeks.

 

 

 

 

A Baby Shower Devotion and Some Breastfeeding Jokes – They go together in my world

Recently I was asked to share a devotional at a baby shower for a first time mommy. I kept remembering the most asked question I got as a new mom – But…what do you do at home all day? I started writing and this is what came out. Not your typical devotional. There might be a cuss word and I might talk a little too much about boobs. Enjoy. Also, you were warned…

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3:28am. I heavy sigh loud enough for what, I hope, will wake up Husband so he can burp and cajole our sweet newborn back to sleep. There’s no movement. I do this a few more times, before reaching over to push his shoulder. Instead, my arm finds the knee of our preschooler who has crawled into bed with us sometime in the wee hours, then reaching further finds the body pillow Husband has cleverly used to barricade himself from said preschooler knee. New baby’s cries are growing louder and neither her baby dragon noises nor my sighs are waking him up. The king sized bed makes him too far to reach.  So, in what I consider to be a very charitable act, I tug a corner of his pillow until his head’s within reach and give him a moderate whap on the back of the head. He’s awake now. I pretend to be in deep REM’s.

 It’s 5:07am. I’m breastfeeding the newborn (again) and will myself to stop calculating how many hours of sleep I might still get before the others wake up. The double-puddles of escaped breast milk on my side of the bed have turned icy, but I flop back down anyway, too tired to care.

6:02am. My husband kisses me on the forehead as he leaves for work. In my mind I wave a hand out of the covers, and send him away with the loving encouragements only a wife can give. I’m told later what really happened; I sleep-swatted him away, rolled over, and emitted a slow, gurgling exhale that sounded somewhere between a low growl and a dying elephant.

6:47am. I open my eyes and my heart is immediately both running sprints in my chest and dropping to my stomach. There is a preschooler standing beside my bed, inches away from my face. Who knows how long she’s been silently staring at me. I congratulate myself for only gasping and not lapsing into an “oh sh–!” There’s a reason they put little kids in horror movies. This is terrifying!

6:49. Can’t convince the preschooler to get in bed with me. The two year old is shouting for someone, anyone, to “Get me out MINE CRIIIIIIIIB!” and the newborn wants to eat again. I make a few mental calculations and wonder how much coffee I can drink before my milk factory becomes permanently contaminated. I recite the Mother’s Creed, “Dear Jesus. Thank you for today. Help me get out of bed. Sustain me. Amen.” 

7-9am. We take that entire two hours to prepare for the day. It’s pretty much a blur, but I do know there are multiple snacks made, boob feeding sessions, diapering, and re-diapering. Somehow we all make it into the car.

10:32. Having already trekked to the Mecca for all mamas, Target, we’re at the park. My left eye is taking on properties equal to an iguana as I keep watch over the preschooler in my periphery while simultaneously hoisting the toddler into a swing with just my left arm. Meanwhile, I clutch the newborn to my right nipple. Helpfully, my nipple is so stretched out after the cumulative years of feeding babies that this maneuver isn’t a problem. I consider offering it to the kids to jump-rope with later.

12:58pm. Everyone is napping. Correction. Everyone is in a bed and that’s good enough for me. I’m sitting on the couch watching The Voice and wondering how I can creep “totes cool” and “supes presh” into my vocabulary without feeling like a complete phony. There is a swaddled baby against my chest looking like the most beautiful burrito bundle I’ve ever seen. I lean my cheek against her downy head and breathe in that cheesy newborn smell. I need to pee and I really want to sneak some chocolate, but I’m not gonna get up and disrupt this perfect moment in time.

3:42pm. We’re driving home from our afternoon adventure and the preschooler is pointing out the window telling me what is nature God made and what things people made. She asks me questions about Jesus and the mystery of the Trinity. I summarize the book of Genesis and dissect Romans 6:23 using words a four year-old can understand. These are the transcending moments of parenthood. Thirty seconds later she and brother are locked in an arm pinching battle over a book they don’t want to share.  Ahhhh, I think. This is more our zone. But it was good while it lasted.

7:25pm. We made it through the afternoon witching hours, dinner, and bedtime routine. The kids are in bed. The laundry bin I’m about to attack is tucked under my arm. Babes is slung close to my chest. I love feeling those little flutters of breath on my neck. I’m walking down the hallway and overhear my oldest daughter giggle and ask questions about what Kindergarten will be like and what ice cream is made of while her Daddy cuddles her in a night-light lit room.

10:39pm. Husband and I are flopped on the couch trying to build up the energy to go to bed, but neither of us is willing yet. Partly we’re just too tired to move and partly because this is the little time we have to spend together. Babes is eating again. Husband looks and acts a little jealous of this child’s boob-domination. I remind him that there is a season for everything and quote some Ecclesiastes, but there’s nothing more annoying that having someone quote Bible verses at you when you just want to honk a hooter without opening up the lactational flood gates.

12:02am. The lights are all off and we’re in bed. We pray as extensively and fervently as possible. It goes something like this, “Please. Help. And thank you.” I think we started a conversation when we got in bed, but we keep falling asleep then waking up to say one word or a muffled phrase, so we let the conversation go. The baby is snuggled in between us, having just topped her up & sent her into a milk coma. She stays there until she sinks into a deep newborn dreamland of wombs and darkness and wobbly fluid before we move her into her own bassinet. This is discouraged in most parenting books and we pinky swear to both lie to the pediatrician about the sleep habits we are creating. There are some things we disagreed about today and some family business we haven’t come to a conclusion on, but we know when to call a spade a spade; or in this case, a day a day. We squeeze hands and say goodnight.

12:12am. I wake up and realize that squeezing hands is sweet but also incredibly stupid. I touch his arm to wake him up. He finds the energy to move in for a real kiss. “See you in a few hours, babe.” “Yep. See you in a few.”

And then it starts all over again.

My point in sharing my timestamp of a typical day is this:

Sometimes being a mama feels boring. Sometimes (but rarely) it feels like you’re performing your own rockstar concert and crowds are cheering for you in all your awesomeness. Sometimes it is ridiculously hard. You may find that you can’t remember the last time you showered and that your mama musk has become so potent it’s your home’s new pest repellant. That’s okay. You might find yourself forgetting to eat all day then shoving a handful of goldfish and pre-mashed, browned banana in your mouth at 3pm out of desperation. This is okay too.

Secretly we’re all just doing our best and hoping we don’t mess up too much.

The Bible has a zillion things to say about parenthood and marriage and love and families. But there is only one you really need to remember: Philippians 4:13 I can do all things through Christ.

The Message says it like this:

Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am.

When you are awake (again) at 4:14am and have been for 2 hours; I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am.

When your child is screaming in the car because she is hungry or tired or simply pissed that you aren’t driving through the red light; I can make it through anything in the One…

When you’re cuddling a feverish baby and on the phone with the night nurse unsure whether to stay home until office hours in the morning or rush to urgent care; I can make it through anything…

It’s a steep learning curve, but you already have everything you need. You have the spirit of Christ who dwells in you. So whatever you have, wherever you are, you can make it through anything in Christ! Even mommyhood. Welcome.

Apple Picking Adventures!

“How’s the transition to three?”

“Awesome.” And that’s not sarcasm. We (I) feel like high-fiving with a wide-mouthed smile all the time because I am  shocked this is actually going so well. Yep, kind of like the picture below.

The transition from having no children to our first felt hard. The learning curve was steep and we had never had to function on so little sleep before in our lives. Sure, we pulled the occasional all-nighter in college, but it wasn’t the time/space continuum disorientation of having a new baby.

When we bumped up to two kids, I thought every once in a while that I might die. Yes, physically fall away because everything seemed really hard for a few weeks. And forget going anywhere because it took eons to get everyone dressed, fed, diaper changed, re-fed, re-diaper changed and into the car. Who needs milk or bread? We’ll just survive on tap water and tortilla chips, thank-you very much, because going to the store is not worth it!

Having this as the history, I was anticipating a nuclear family armageddon of sorts when the third baby came along. I am shocked beyond measure that the opposite is true. Maybe because we finally have a grip on this parenting thing (ha!). Or because our oldest is now four and our two year old is very joyful and easygoing. Or because Teagan is giving us glorious HOURS of sleep between night feedings. Maybe God saw our tether getting too tight and gave us some slack in the practical & helpful form of extra energy and an ability to load up the car in a timely manner. Whatever it is, our family is doing awesome right now. This is NOT what I thought was going to happen, but I will take it for however long it lasts!

Autumn is a favored season by many. Our Octobers include many of the hottest days of the year, but we still create our own autumn by doing celebratory seasonal things like apple-picking in Julian and wearing corduroy skinny’s. Pumpkin spice is in the scented wax warmer, and that helps too.

Here’s the photographic evidence that not only have we gone on mini Mecca’s to the source of household life, Target, we’ve also conquered great quests like day trips to the country for some hand-picked, pesticide-free produce. You’ve never eaten a pear until you’ve had one sun-warmed and ripe, twisted off the branch. 

Catch phrase, “boys will be boys.” Josiah’s favorite parts were the occasional dirt mounds and sticks…which he traded in for bigger sticks when discovered. 

This is our little friend, Noah. He has a quiet chivalry with Selah. He’s not really one for engaging in preschool banter with her or one for pictures together. But if you need a buddy to wield a stick at an apple too far out of reach, he’s your dude. Thanks, Noah, for knowing how to care for your ladies.

Josiah has a strong life-force in his bones. Lacking a healthy fear for physical limitations, this child is careening down the chaparral hill. The way this little one lives begs us to remember to simply enjoy the art of living.

 

Happy Fall Y’all!