honey, I vampired the kids

 

after dark

My husband and I don’t get to go out very often. When you are a parent of young children you are often inside your house by the time it gets dark. There are times when I am totally freaked out driving at night because it happens so rarely. It’s like I need to relearn how to do it. It reminds me of the reaction 17-month-old S had when we drove around in December looking at Christmas lights. It was a mix of awe and terror. He would squeal, point, and scream, “light!!!” Can you imagine what their little brains are thinking? I don’t shout, “light!” when driving at night but I’ve thought it.

Anyway, B and I got to go out after dark last week. And we got to dress up! I felt like a million bucks after having my hair and make-up done by a friend (thanks, JH). Add a borrowed dress and jewelry (thanks, sis). Shoes and purse I already owned. (Did I mention that I am frugal?) B owns a tux, too, so we both got swanky and headed out with free tickets (donated to us by a group at the hospital) to a black-tie charity event called Treads and Threads at the Speedway. Hence, the race car in the photo. So the grand total of our romantic evening of wine, food, and dancing was $60 for the babysitter (plus the gas to get there). A night out with my Prince Charming under the stars? Priceless.

 

Postscript: I knew that I’d found my soul mate after seeing this man get down on the dance floor. Hubby’s got moves.

the last first day of preschool

It was a big day for us last Friday. Miss E finally got to return to preschool, one of her favorite places on the planet (on par with Grandma's house, Dominican Republic, and Chip-n-Dip restaurants). She launched out of bed and waited at her special spot at the table until I came down to make her breakfast. She was dressed and ready with more than an hour to spare. So I got to take her outdoors for some photos... something we both enjoy.

S wasn't clueing-in that this was her photo shoot.

So I gave him some camera time. Who wouldn't want to capture those chubby cheeks?

And... he still didn't get the hint once we arrived at school.

E wears her emotions on her sleeve. No poker face (or Old Maid face, in her case). You can tell she is quite peeved at this point. Haha! But we got the mission-critical shots with her beloved cousin and partner-in-crime, A, and with my beautiful sister. How lucky are we that we live ten minutes from each other and have daughters the same age!? (And her son and Baby S are only one year apart.) Blessed indeed.

They will not go to Kindergarten together next year. Not even the same school district. [sniff, sniff] We haven't really told them this. So my sister and I will cherish these sweet preschool years ~ when we ushered off our girls, arm-in-arm, to school. 

playing nicely

Dear E,
Thank you for playing with your little brother so nicely yesterday. He adores you and loves to feel included in your world. You have no idea how happy it makes my heart.

Love,

Mama 

What she said

I realized that I don’t need to blog. I just need to read everyone else’s clever blogs and then compile the highlights in one place. I keep reading things that that make me want to stand up and shout. 

OMG, this writer must be my blog-twin, my internet-doppelganger. I pretty much loved and/or agreed with everything she said. And she said it with grace and honesty. Read it.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joy-gabriel/kate-middleton-and-the-mom-in-the-mirror_b_3672553.html

“Once you cross the threshold into motherhood, there is no going back. You might feel instantly and with acuity "Help! What did I DO? I'm not ready for this! Get me offa this thing! I don't know what I'm doing!" but it's too late. The curtain is up on the most important role you will ever play and it's OK that you and your body have shifted so that it fits. More: it is right and good. You're not supposed to zip up your old jeans and slip back into your old life.”

And I am also totally developing a blog-crush (hmm, would that be a ‘blush’ or a ‘crog’?) on Jen Hatmaker who writes with wit, truth, and panache. She could be a stand-up comedienne; her material is that good. She has nailed the conversational insanity that takes place between parents and young offspring. I’ve been wanting to study the patterns. I’ve already written about how my kids seem to stockpile demands until the second I enter the room and then they come flying out – like bats out of hell. [Read that post here.] The following dialog seems to preside in our house right now:

Child: a request or a whine

Me: a sensible answer (“not right now”/“let me think about it”/etc.)

Child: “Whhyyy?”

The Whyyys are dangerous things. They make a person crazy. How the heck does one explain Whyyy we don’t eat gummy worms before 8:00 a.m.? Whyyys are the reason parents say dumb stuff like, “Because I said so!”.

Jen writes about this, too, and much more in this riotous gem about the End of Summer Parent: http://jenhatmaker.com/blog/2013/08/16/worst-end-of-summer-mom-ever-a-sequel

She reflects on how she will spend her first hours of freedom after her kids return to school:
“What will I do? I will think my thoughts, which I haven’t heard since June 5th. I miss my thoughts and I look forward to seeing what they’ve been doing. For all I know they could’ve been curing cancer, but they’ve been stamped out by missives like He won’t quit touching my game/remote control/Afro and Could you make me a sandwich/pizza/taco and I am bored/hot/hungry and When are we going to leave/eat/bathe again? My thoughts have done all they can do for these people, and they’ve put in their notice.”
 
And then there is Glennon, dear Glennon (of Momastery fame), who is currently on a well-deserved sabbatical. Somehow the topics she writes about dovetail with sermons at church and with what is going on in my life, so she often seems magic to me. She touched me with her thoughts on loneliness and the internet. It struck a chord with our senior pastor, too, because he quoted her in a sermon.
  
Tom (our pastor) was talking about technology and how it has the power to connect us and the power to isolate us. He cited Glennon’s confession that while she has more than 80,000 readers, she hadn’t had a real, live conversation with a friend in weeks. This notion was already bouncing around in my head because I was working on a devotion and thinking about why Stephen ministry (more on that later) is so valuable: Stephen ministers give the gift of real, live conversations to those who are hurting in an age where face-to-face conversations are becoming rare.

Glennon writes:

“The internet, I think – is turning into a compulsion for me. I’m starting to look to it for my own worth. I’m looking to it for comfort and as a balm for loneliness. I’m using it to hide a little from real live people. And I’m using it to numb my feelings. To zone out. ... The internet is not bad any more than wine or food are bad. But we can use all three in ways that dull our spirits … Every once in a while, I need to silence all the thousands of voices coming at me through the internet so that I can hear God in me. That is the only voice, the ONLY voice, that I can trust will never lead me wrong.”

So, stay tuned. Listen to the voices in your life. Schedule time for face-to-face conversations with those you love and enjoy. I will too. And I’ll continue to regurgitate what other better writers have said so we can all learn together.   

Christmas in July

When it was in the 100s last summer, we decided to make July 25th a Christmas-in-July celebration. For starters, we needed to remember that it would, in fact, get cooler. Listening to Christmas carols in July can seemingly drop the temperature by about 20 degrees.

We decorated the house, strung up white lights, and invited family over to eat some favorite holiday foods. In our clan, that includes monkey bread and an addictive cheeseball recipe that you eat with pretzel sticks. We also baked gingerbread cookies. We read Christmas stories and talked about baby Jesus, crafted winter-y scenes, and watched Frosty. We wore festive red and green. I even drug out the bin full of mittens and scarves and let the kids pretend it was cold outside. It was a huge hit. Here are some favorite photos from that day:

So you can bet that my oldest two children weren't about to let me forget July 25th this summer! We were sad that one set of cousins was not able to make it and that my folks were in Colorado enjoying real cooler temperatures. But we put on season-appropriate ensembles, hung the stockings, fired up Bing Crosby, enjoyed a holiday brunch, and opened small gifts. (Next year I will probably just wrap things they already own.) My crew even blessed me with an early wake-up call, just like the real December 25!  

The night before, Miss E and IMO took turns closing their eyes while the other one hid "gifts" in the stockings—a totally unscripted bonus! Miss E was so thrilled to see the looks on our faces the next morning when we found our treasures, such as a (used) binky for Baby S and a (half-full) bottle of hand sanitizer for me. Hmm, maybe the kids should be in charge of stocking-stuffing from now on? Who needs to spend money on tossed-away trinkets?

I share this not because I want you to vote me Pinterest's Mother of Year but because it was a day when I felt successful as a mom. Those days can be few and far between. I felt like I had given my kids something out-of-the-box that they might remember. I felt present. The practical, bah-humbug side of me wasn't enthused about dragging out the holiday décor knowing I'd be charged with putting it away in the days that followed. (I cannot even handle 15 minutes of Play-Dough, for crying out loud.) But I squashed that buzz-kill of a notion and got it all out anyway. And it paid dividends.

"... Let every heart prepare him room,
And heaven and nature sing,
And heaven and nature sing,
And heaven, and heaven, and nature sing."

progress report (July 18, 2013)

Now is about the time to ask: “So, how is that all working out for you, Michelle? All that appreciating your body, letting your kids be kids, ceasing to compare?”

Well, not so great. I’ve hit the exact day in summer when SAH moms really don’t know if they can spend another single day with their kids. You’re tapped out of creative ideas, it’s blistering hot outside, and their favorite pastime has become irritating each other. I might have also simultaneously hit the exact day in my eight-year SAH career when I wonder if there is much Michelle left at all. She may have been completely swallowed up by her other identity: Mom.

I am a blessed woman; that is for sure. But I am not a balanced person. Not right now. My current personhood is too heavily skewed toward the service of people eight years old and younger. And one of those people is a maniacal tyrant – an adorable, blonde, 30-lb tyrant – but a tyrant nonetheless.

So, yeah, I’ve totally failed on the “letting kids be kids” front. Apparently, I squeezed my oldest son’s wrist a little too hard last Sunday when he and his sister were being squirrelly hooligans in church – attracting far more attention to our row than I’d like. He actually produced big, fat tears on his cheeks, making me feel like that much worse of a mother. Inner monologue: “Great! Not only have you hurt your child in church, but others have now noticed both their unruly behavior and your ghastly response to it!” Mother of the Year!

Miss E was bored and wanted to play the baby, sitting on my lap facing front, then facing back, resting her head on one of my shoulders, then the other. Sucking her fingers. Playing with my hair. E is not a lap child. She is 3' 9" and weighs 44 lbs. With every movement, she would knee me somewhere sensitive and shove my skirt higher on my thighs. Awesome. IMO asked me every other minute if the sermon was over and was also clandestinely driven to touch portions of my body at all times. If you were to have gazed in my direction last Sunday, you would’ve witnessed these two medium-sized lumps playing Twister with me for 58 minutes while remaining partially seated. Hence, the Wrist Squeeze. Ugh.

I realize it is my fault. Who expects a 4-year-old and 8-year-old to make it through an hour-long service without being fidgety? My husband had to work and I’d (thankfully) dropped off Baby S with the childcare angels downstairs. These same two children have done okay in this service, but this particular Sunday they could not hold it together. For the grand finale, Miss E spilled her full cup of lemonade on the carpet in the Friendship Room. Not to be outdone, Baby S overturned his cup on the carpet, too, laughing like a hyena.    

I’ve also used my scary, goblin voice in the last week. I’m not proud of that. I’ve silently cursed my cellulite. I’ve felt envy. But I’ve also experienced triumph and joy. Miss E has completed four swimming lessons without freaking out! We didn't see that coming. And I could not stop smiling when Baby S tried to sing "Happy Birthday" today – messing up both the lyrics and the tune but singing with his whole heart. When he was done, he offered me a piece of his plastic “happy cake.” Thank God for these moments. Had it been real cake, I would’ve eaten every single bite while loving my body and not comparing myself against others :)