-B- Faithful!

I'm feeling much better after having my little public blog meltdown the other day.  Things have taken place around here to shift my focus right back to loving my kids like crazy. In fact, for the last 2 days, I can't seem to get enough of them. 

We had a tragedy happen to a family of one of my Daughter's friends this week.  My daughter is 5 and one of her classmates younger siblings (3) passed away on Tuesday from complications of a tonsillectomy.  I never even knew there could be life threatening complications from this type of surgery.  He was recovering at home several days after the surgery and suddenly didn't feel well. He got sick and by the time 911 had been called and arrived, he was gone.  No one saw it coming, it didn't make sense, and they are still working to find out what really happened. 

His Mother had been worried about him for a few days because he wasn't recovering as well as his Brother, but the Doctor wasn't concerned with his symptoms.  The recovery for a tonsillectomy is rough anyway and differs from kid to kid, so she trusted that her Doctor knew best and tried her best to comfort her child.  I hate that it ended the way that it did. 

Like I said, it just doesn't make sense.  It's times like this that people in general are tempted to question God's role in all this.  Why would God take the life of a vibrant, healthy, 3 year old boy that was part of a lovely family including amazing parents?  Why would he be ok with that faithful family having to suffer a loss such as this?

It's a hard question to answer.  I by no means am a bible scholar therefore I'm unable to pull out my good book and point you to the scripture that says why its ok.  I am however, extremely faithful through experiencing painful things myself that God only makes us experience pain such as this in order to grow us as Christians and to bless something or someone through the experience, and the blessings usually occur much later when you've just about given up on making sense of it all.

A dear friend of mine sent me a quote yesterday from a Christian question answer website (www.gotquestions.org) that she references on a regular basis. I like the answer for this particular situation........

In the garden of Eden, God spoke to Adam and communicated in clear and direct ways, not in abstract concepts. God speaks to us today in the same way. In some ways, this is the most important meaning to be found in any tragedy. Tragic events demonstrate much of their meaning in the way we react to them. C.S. Lewis said, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” This does not mean that God causes tragedy, but that He uses our reaction to tragedy to speak to us. Tragic events remind us not only that we live in an imperfect and fallen world, but that there is a God who loves us and wants something better for us than the world has to offer.

This gives me comfort that while today this tragedy doesn't make sense......it was always in God's plan for Trevor.  Good will come from this.  Trevor is an angel in heaven looking down and will be thrilled to see the fruits that arise from this tragedy work to do good in the future and bless those that he touched while on this Earth.

His memory is already touching those around him.  I've made several new friends in the past few days just working together with a community of Mom's that want to help this sweet family.  It has given us a reason to bond on a level that would have taken much more time without something to bring us together like this.  I needed to explain to my Daughter and Sons what had happened because we know these kids and we see them.  They won't understand what happened and I was afraid they would hear it from some other child or would notice and relentlessly ask me in a moment where discussing it wasn't appropriate.  So, we talked about it.  My boys had tons and tons of questions about death and the surgery and why his body is still here if he has been taken to heaven.  It doesn't make sense to them either.  However, when we were done, my Brooks said that he wanted to die too.  I was super concerned and asked him why.  He said that he wanted to be an angel up in heaven with Trevor.  He knows that Heaven is the best place ever and he wants to be an Angel up there as soon as possible. 

I tried to explain to him that God will take each of us when it is our time.  It was Trevor's time on Tuesday, and Brooks will get to join him whenever God sees fit.  I pray that is a long long time away, but if not, I am sure that just like this family, my faith will bring me though it. 

I pray for this sweet family tonight that they find peace in the fact that Trevor is with his God and that he is smiling bigger and is happier than he has ever been here on this Earth.  His Mommy and Daddy will meet him again someday when it is their time and they will live forever together in Heaven. 

I have faith in that for sure!

-B-

-B- eing a Bit Negative Today!

OK, so I'm into week 6ish of giving up my job to stay at home full time and I have to admit, I'm getting a little squirmy.  I never thought of myself as a busy body before kids, but I guess taking care of three little guys so close in age has made me be in fast forward for so long, that I forgot how to slow down.

I thought when I quit working that I would be doing projects every day around the house and drinking coffee and reading magazines on the back porch just soaking up the inspiration for lots of home renovation type stuff. 

I thought I'd go running every morning  before the kids and Husband woke up and then take a shower without being interrupted and get some chores done early in the morning. 

I thought we would go to the pool a lot and I'd work on my tan while doing swim lessons with the kids.  I'd see tons of friends at the pool and we would enjoy the long Summer days catching up on old times and watching the next generation of kids become friends. 

I thought we would be at the lake almost every weekend enjoying the boat and the relaxing atmosphere with my Parents.  Watching the kids enjoy nature and soak up the sun.

I thought I'd clean a room in my house each day so that I could look back at the end of the week and know that each room had been somewhat clean at some point in the week.  I'd rest easy that my family wasn't living in filth and that we wouldn't ever have to waste a day cleaning house.

REALITY CHECK!

I'm entertaining kids from sun up to sun down and by the time the sun does go down, I'm exhausted so much so that the next morning my 7am wake up call seems way to early for productivity.  So, I lay in bed being smothered and pulled on by my 5 year old daughter that just can't seem to sleep in her own bed despite the multiple bribes that I have laid out there for her at any given time.  I roll out of bed in time to get the kids off to Summer camp only to find out that they have the chicken pox and have to return home for the week.  I swallow the $250 loss on a week of camp and start rubbing calamine lotion on all of their spots with much opposition from them including running from me, crying hysterically, and moving at just the right moment that the calamine lotion splashes all over the bathroom and towels adding one extra room cleaning to my day and another load of laundry to be cleaned.

We stay home to eat for most meals in efforts to not spend $60 plus a day which involves make a mess clean up a mess at least 3 to 4 times a day.  In between meals, we are plowing Popsicles faster than I can buy them to beat the heat outside and just because we are working hard on rotting our little teeth out as soon as possible so that the dental bill can be just a little bit higher than it is already. Oh and by the way, the chicken pox that I spoke about......."Yes" we have already been vaccinated against these and "No" somehow that didn't do the trick so we are spending another $50 on co-pays and $50 on medication just to sooth the itching for the next 10 days that it could stay in our system.  Just about the time the boys get rid of it, I will be watching my daughter closely to see if she has caught it as well.  If so, it will be another 15 days of quarantining her so that we don't pass it around to all of the lovely friends of ours. 

We haven't made it to the lake yet and really I have no idea when we will. Our weekends are booked for the foreseeable future with other obligations that I seem to always get myself roped into.  It will be the end of July before my babies get to go out on the boat and this just breaks my heart.  We are however, going to the beach as a family for a vacation in the near future, so hopefully that will lift my spirits on this subject. 

I have hired a house cleaner to come and she started coming weekly lately.  A weekly house cleaner seems so excessive to me when I'm not even working, but the reality is, we are a mess.  I'm sitting here on a Wednesday before the Thursday that she comes and my table has goop on it despite my efforts to constantly wipe all of these surfaces down. My laptop is covered in dust.  My kids are having their umpteenth slumber party in the living room this week which involves lots of blankets that I fold and put away, fold and put away, fold and put away seems like 10 times a day.  The dog has decided that the coffee table is a good place to lay (weird), and ironically the kids have decided that the coffee table is a good place to eat ( no interruption of TV time), so I'm constantly wiping this down with Lysol kitchen cleaner to try and beat the germs at their own game. 

The bathrooms are fairly clean until my kids decided that a can of blue shaving cream looked like a fun thing to spray all of the bathroom just for kicks and giggles.  In efforts to clean it up they used EVERY towel in the cabinet and even a little of the bath rug as well.  Too bad it didn't really work at cleaning and now we've added another heavy load of laundry to the every growing pile.  Not to mention the fact that while they were spraying their shaving cream around the room, they apparently brushed their teeth several times because the new tube of toothpaste that I bought for the pickiest child on earth who will only use one kind of toothpaste is now officially empty and needs to be replaced.  

I looked at the budget last night and we are ridiculously overspending which is hard to swallow because I'm using all my best Mommy skills every day to figure out how and what we can do things in order to minimize the random spending.  I want ice cream, a snow cone, Chick Fil-A, lunch at the pool after we just finished lunch at home, more ice cream from the ice cream man at $2 a treat.  It amazes me how starving my kids get anytime that we have just walked out of the house and started on our daily adventure.  Not to mention the fact that every child in the neighborhood is over at our house on a daily basis drinking drinks out of my garage fridge and wanting more Sun chips and cakes and cookies and "stuff" to eat.  I'm having a hard time keeping up. I feel like I need to have a job just to keep the kids fed.

My tan is non existent and I've spent my days instead cleaning in preparation for the house cleaner to come and clean (?!?!?!?!?). Putting our house back together after the tornado I refer to as my three children has swept through the house for the millionth time.  I try to stay ahead of the clutter and mess, but it seems that for each one I get cleaned up to my satisfaction there is another 2 or 3 that were made while I was doing so.  In efforts to teach the kids responsibility, I start a chore list and encourage them to help out in order to earn money.  Instead, I end up being the nag of the century begging them  to pick up their stuff all day long or else and the money that they earn gets added to the pot of the money that mysteriously showed up when  they stole from their little friend and went and bought a third snake with.  Who needs 1 snake let alone 3?  Apparently, my kids do and they will stop at nothing to obtain it.  So we are thieves now.  We call the friend to apologize and I pay the poor kid back vowing to make my boys work off every penny and more which takes tons of supervision and diligence on my part which I am feeling a little low on at the moment.

So, now because they stole from their friend they are grounded all week and when they are grounded what it really means is that I am grounded.  It just so happens that we are all grounded right when my Husband decides its time to take a business trip and leave me with the kids stranded in this dirty house with an overpaid house cleaner and two chicken pox infested rowdy thieves and a clingy Daughter.  We spend the week trying to survive. 

This leads up to now.  Feeling a little bit negative today, but now that I've gotten it all out, I feel better. 

Cheers to keeping it real!

-B-

-B- In the Moment!

I'm not sure exactly why yet, but I feel a very strong pull on a daily basis to reach out to other Women and share my stories...my journey.  I don't necessarily think that I am special for any reason, but I do think that I am willing to talk about issues that may make some others uncomfortable, but are issues that most Moms/Women can relate to.  In my 30's I'm really feeling comfortable in my own skin and I want other Women to embrace themselves as well.  I'm not concerned with the latest greatest, or the "only" way to do things.  I like figuring out what is right for me and my family and acting on that and that alone as my guide. 

A friend and I were talking the other day about my new Nephew and how easy  and tragic it is when new Mom's  get all caught up in expectations and all the hoop-la and gadgets and rules and "stuff" that is out there.  We both wished that someone had written a book, (maybe I will) about the top 100 myths or things that we wish someone had told us when we first had kids. Like........take back all the 0-3 month clothes you get at your shower and exchange them for later sizes.  Once we figure out about day 3 of life that babies poop all the way up their backs on a daily basis, you would be just as happy with a stack of white onesies and a bottle of bleach instead of all the adorable clothes that your child will be lucky to wear once and that will significantly lose their resale value when they have a large poop stain up the back.  So, just use your white onesies, bleach them, and save those cute outfits for special occasions or a few months later when they might actually stay somewhat clean. 

I think so many young Mother's get so caught up in all the craziness surrounding the new baby process that they don't get to experience those first moments with intention and don't get to just "be" in the moment with their new little bundle of love.  I know I felt this pressure in a huge way when I was pregnant with my twins. 

I still feel this pressure today in some capacity.  I ignore this noise in my head a lot better now then I used to, but it is still more of an intentional choice to ignore it than it is a natural one.  Rather than judging my Parenting skills on whether or not I'm following the crowd, or signed up for all the right Summer activities, or I have all the money I need to just buy my kids whatever they want on a whim just so I can prove to myself that they don't ever and won't ever do without anything, I try to judge myself as a Parent on the happiness that my kids exude. 

For years I would fight with my Daughter on a daily basis over the shorts, the shirt that was cutest, the sandals that matched perfectly, the big bow.  We could easily fill up an hour getting her dressed and ready for something.  I love fashion and I love kids clothes, so dressing her was like an expression of who I am and I took it very seriously.  One day, my Mom was watching my kids for a few days and she told me that she noticed that my kids cry at the mere sight of a spot on their shirt.  It stressed them out to no end to be dirty.

This really bothered me.  I realized when she told me that I'm putting way too many expectation on all my kids to be so put together every time they walked out the door. I was teaching them that appearance was super important and that dirt on their shirt was worth crying over.  This was never my intention, but this was the message I was sending.  I vowed that very day to make a change. 

Yes, to the outside world, I think I somehow associated the cuteness of my kids and the put-togetherness of their clothes and hair to my ability to Parent them and to pull it all off.  I loved that people would look at my young kids and say "How DO you DO it?"  But today, 4 to 5 years later, I judge myself on a much different scale. 

Today, I judge myself as a Mother on my child's ability to speak their own mind and make their own decisions.  I care more about my Daughter's level of confidence than I do about her outfit.  Today, I love that she wants to wear "MOM shorts (as she calls them) and a tank top EVERY.SINGLE.DAY.  I love that she doesn't care whether it matches or doesn't but she Rocks it either way.  I don't know that I had this confidence as a child, (or today for that fact) and I love that she feels like she can take the world by storm if she wants and IN whatever she wants.  She is perfectly perfect in her personality and the fact that she is gorgeous as well is a nice afterthought.  I know that -P- has an opinion and confidence.  I think teaching a 5 year old girl that is a much bigger accomplishment than teaching her how to dress.

I want my boys to have sweet spirits.  I want them to be kind to others.  I'm glad that they love sports, but mostly I just want them to feel supported in whatever they choose to do.  We are currently in a position to explain to lots of inquiring friends why we chose not to let the boys do the All Star team for baseball this year.  I get anxious when anyone asks because I suddenly revert to wanting their approval.  But the answer is .....we didn't do All Stars because I know how much my boys love the Summer and swimming every day and June bug hunting, and friends.  I don't want their 6 year old Summer spent driving to and from baseball practice and games in 45 minutes away.  I want them to be kids while they can be kids.  I want them to have downtime.  They are 6.  I'm pretty sure when I'm being truthful with myself and ignoring the expectations being set by others around me, that their 6 year old Summer baseball career doesn't define their life or ability to go forward in the future.  We will play All Stars when it is good for us.  Dustin and I both feel strongly that it is not where our kids need to be this Summer.  I do, however, understand why it is so compelling and exciting for other Parents of young boys.  Its just not right for our boys yet, and I'm ok with that.

Anyway, as I was saying at the beginning of this post.  I feel convicted to share my journey, trials, successes, questions, and answers with anyone who has a child and is maybe needing some guidance or at least just something to match their experience up to.  If I could give you some free advice, (btw, my advice is always worth what it cost......which is $0) it would be to slow down, sleep in, don't shower till noon, make mud pies, ride bikes barefoot, rock in the rocking chair while the kids slip and slide.  Focus on spending time with them enjoying the simpler things in life.  They will learn far more valuable life lessons doing this than looking perfect, running around, spending the Summer in a hot car, or playing organized sports.  Make a point to "slow your roll" and relax.  Its so worth it!

Always,
-B-